The Advocate

"Blewish, an animated short film based on true events about a Black and Jewish boy named Ezra, is premiering at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival! Writer and director Ezra Edmond hopes that Blewish will be watched alongside children who can see themselves represented in the character's journey to find belonging. Once you purchase a screening ticket, you will have from November 5 to November 14 to watch." As a parent in an interracial interfaith family with two Blewish daughters, this is the kind of content I love to see and want to see more of. As we know, representation matters and it's especially crucial to highlight the voices of those from historically marginalized communities - including those already within historically marginalized communities! Particularly when we explore them from the perspective of children. Those are the stories that captivate, that capture our imaginations while introducing us to a wider world we may never have known ...

(Photo credit: Black Music Scholar ) I'm not Christian. I'm definitely not Black. I don't believe in Jesus; certainly not as the messiah or my personal lord and savior, at any rate. I can't exactly relate to the Black American experience on a personal level (other than in very limited circumstances). My upbringing was deeply segregated from the musicality and pathos of spirituals. That's why it's probably going to feel weird for  some  people that a White Jewish boy is a fan of spirituals. Yet, I love 'em  —  Take My Hand Precious Lord, His Eye Is on the Sparrow, Wade in the Water, Sing Low Sweet Chariot, Down By the Riverside, and so on. But there's something about those songs that just speaks to my heart, despite the lack of any substantive rationale. The field hollers, camptown verses, folkloric lyrics, subversive interpretations, and endlessly creative instrumentation. They've got sorrow, hope, laughter, weeping, joy, love, life, death,...