All protagonists of movies have to be white men - no, look at Hillary Swank, look what she’s doing. No, there’s a whole set of people who practice Judaism who don’t look this way. We have to learn the constructs that we have been under - like my construct that “all Jewish people look white, that’s what they are.” That I haven’t seen yet directly, but I think that it is happening, and that brings up a broader point that you are making, which is that it’s seeing all of the diversity of different people, especially right now … is something that is tantamount to our progress as a human species. Have you followed that thread at all, and have any Jews of color reached out to you expressing appreciation or anything like that? The conversation about Jews of color has really flourished and expanded in recent years. Illustrative: John Eaves, seen on a visit to Israel’s Western Wall, says being black and Jewish has made him more attuned to bigotry. It’s almost about “appreciate the journey, appreciate the opportunity of being able to go to a different place than you were before.” And hopefully you learn something, hopefully you do not die on the way, but learn and strengthen yourself through that travel, and that’s a lovely sort of way to look at life. What I love about that prayer, at least how I translate it, is that it’s about the journey. I think I can still do the “ Traveler’s Prayer,” let’s see: Y’hi ratzon milfanecha Adonai Eloheinu ve-lohei avoteinu she-tolichenu l’shalom v’tatz’idenu l’shalom … I can’t even believe I can say that part, oh my God. I have to give props to the coach that they got for me out in Vancouver, who I believe is Israeli - he made it very easy. So that helped me with this character because i was like “Yeah, OK, Black Jewish guy, no problem.”īut then speaking Hebrew in an English dialect was also sort of a mind-bending thing.Īny words or phrases that you struggled with? Part of acting is just allowing yourself to believe you’re that person. They’re all over, even in Ghana.” And for an actor what that helps with is then I don’t feel like I’m sort of the sore thumb that somebody slapped together there’s a real person here. When I spoke to the rabbi, he was like “Oh no, Black Jewish people and nonwhite-looking Jewish people are more than you think. So it feels like somebody is just trying to make an interesting character for interesting character’s sake.
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I spoke to and what was nice about speaking to him was that in our culture, I guess writ large, a nonwhite person who’s a Jewish person is a rarity to most of us. So how prepared were you this time? What kind of new things did you have to learn for this specific character? We were like, “What is that round bread with a whole in it?!” And my dad is like, “Trust us, eat it.” We’re kids, so we said, “No, we don’t know what it is!” Then he pulled out cream cheese and he’s like, “You spread this stuff on it.” And he’s coming back to us like he’s discovered something from the new world - and of course he’s Ghanaian, so he’s never seen this.Īnd I think that was kind of a precursor, speaking of witchcraft, to my career as an actor, now playing twice a Jewish character, which I think is great. And we had never seen bagels, we were probably 7- and 8-year-old kids.
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We’re African kids living up in Schenectady, and my dad would do business down in New York City sometimes. Where I grew up, when we moved from Schenectady to New Rochelle in like sixth grade, most of my friends were Jewish, so I got sort of a primer on a little bit of Hebrew, I got the Yiddish curses.
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When you saw this role, did you say to yourself: “Again with the Black-Jewish character?” At Netflix they practice witchcraft, so I think that’s what happened. I have to know: Was the entire thing written and filmed before the COVID-19 crisis?Įssandoh :Yes. JTA: This isn’t giving much away for viewers, but there is a virus plot in this show.