STEPEHEN SHAIKEN’S VIEWS: 

What’s been overlooked in the Kanye West-Kyrie Irving cesspools of antisemitism is the existence of Jews who are Black. One of them is Rabbi Capers Funnye, who happens to be a cousin of Michelle Obama. The sad thing is that some have confused the hate-mongering racists emboldened by West and Irving with real Jews who happen to be Black. Of course, Jews can be Black, or any other color or ethnicity, and so can rabbis. (We have Black, Latino, and Asian rabbis here in America.) What can’t happen is some liar getting up on a soapbox and making up a fantastic story about their own fake Judaism and denying the existence of real Jews. As Rabbi Funnye points out, becoming Jewish when not born that way is an arduous process, and the path is definitely not through racism, hate-mongering and lying.