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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Especially The Blacks And The Jews...

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 22 2009, 1:00 PM ET Comment

Continuing on the Ofra Haza\Rakim tip, I'd like to report that Adam Serwer sent me a business-like e-mail this morning announcing "We're Taking Over." The news? Well as Adam notes, "being a black Jews, just got a little less lonely"

Growing up in a black, Pentecostal family in Cleveland, Alysa Stanton never imagined the day when she would be preparing to be ordained as a rabbi.

But that day will come June 6 for the single mother who will be ordained by the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, becoming the first African-American female rabbi in the world.
Awesome. Rebuilding the coalition one step at a time. Or not. A little more from Adam:

Ironically, I think that the fact that Stanton is a woman will be more trouble for her trying to find a congregation than the fact that she's black. Sadly, female rabbis are still somewhat controversial--there's that apocryphal saying from a rabbi that "a woman will be a rabbi when there's an orange on the seder plate." That prompted a number of Jewish families to actually start putting an orange on their seder plates. Something for President Obama to think about if he does another White House seder next year.


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