Black and Jewish: language and multiple strategies for self-presentation.

Benor, Sarah Bunin

In January 2014, hip-hop star Drake hosted "Saturday Night Live" (SNL), opening with a skit about his black Jewish identity. (2) In this skit, which takes place at his bar mitzvah reception, language is central to the comedy: Drake's white Jewish mother has an exaggerated New York-sounding accent, and she uses Hebrew and Yiddish words--"tuchuses," "oy vey" "goy," and "mazel tov." His black dad uses features of African-American English, like /th/ sometimes pronounced as /d/, and he jokingly highlights his lack of knowledge of Drake's mom's Jewish language: "Torah, aliyah--man, I know dose girls, I met them on da road." When Drake enters, he greets his relatives with words associated with each group: "To my mom's side of the family I say, 'Shabbat shalom,' and to my dad's side, I say 'Wasssupppp.'" Drake proceeds to sing and rap about being black and Jewish, incorporating strains of "Hava Nagila" and hip hop, and highlighting stereotypical characteristics and linguistic features of both groups: "I play ball like LeBron [James], and I know what a W-2 is. Chillin' in Boca Raton with my mensch Lenny Kravitz [another black Jew], the only purple drink we sip is purple Manischewitz. At my show you won't simply put your hands in the air; we can also raise a chair or recite a Jewish prayer ... I eat ... knishes with my bitches ... I celebrate Hanukkah, date a Rianika ... You're Jewish and black and you're--challah!"

The juxtaposition of stereotypical linguistic, culinary, and celebratory practices associated with African Americans and Jews is funny to the audience because of the incongruence: The audience is not used to observing these practices in the same room, let alone the same individual. In addition, the presentation is intelligible as indexing black Jewishness because people outside the black and Jewish communities associate these practices with black people and Jewish people, respectively. Even if Drake does not use cultural combinations like these in his everyday life, he (along with the SNL production team) considers them appropriate for a parodic performance of his black Jewish identity.

Drake's performance represents a growing phenomenon: individuals presenting themselves to the public as black Jews through comedy, performance art, interviews, and memoirs. In all of these "performances" (the term used broadly to refer to any speech act intended for consumption by a large audience), language plays an important role in how speakers align themselves with African Americans, with Jews, or with both. In this paper, I analyze nine such performances, focusing on the nine individuals' use of linguistic features associated with Jews and with African Americans. This analysis points to the importance of language in self-presentation, as well as to the diversity of black Jews.

Black Jews

First, a bit of background on black Jews and on language associated with both groups. A common origin of black Jews is the union of a white Jew and a black non-Jew (sometimes involving the conversion of one spouse). This is the case for Drake and five of the nine individuals featured in the analysis below. The biracial children of these unions are sometimes raised with Judaism as their religion, sometimes with a Jewish cultural identity, and sometimes with no Jewish identity or practice. Another common origin occurs when white Jewish parents adopt children from Africa or from African-American birth parents and raise them as Jews, sometimes officially converting them. In addition to these individuals who grow up black and Jewish, many black people adopt Judaism later in life. Some of these converts are attracted to Judaism for spiritual or theological reasons, and others for social, cultural, or communal reasons, such as having Jewish friends or partners. Smaller numbers of black Jews immigrated to the United States from Jewish communities in Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. (3) Finally, some black Jews are descendants of black people who converted to Judaism or who had children with white Jews several generations ago. In some families, Judaism goes back to the days of slavery, when black slaves sometimes adopted the religion of their white owners, a very small percentage of whom were Jewish. (4)

Some discussions of black Jews also include people who adhere to Messianic Judaism (a movement in which adherents identify as Jews and accept Jesus as the Messiah), as well as communities known as Hebrew Israelites (African Americans who believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites), which adopted Jewish religious beliefs and practices over the last several decades. (5) Although these groups are beyond the scope of this paper, their language deserves in-depth analysis, as it incorporates distinctive black and Jewish features, including Hebrew words with pronunciation distinct from that of other Hebrew users in America.

How many people in the United States identify as both black and Jewish? My analysis of data from a recent nationwide study of Jews conducted by the Pew Research Center yields a rough estimate of 90,000 adults. In addition, an estimated 270,000 adults who identify as black say that they were raised Jewish or had a Jewish parent but that they do not consider themselves Jewish now or that they have a religion other than Judaism. (6) However, because the Pew study was not designed to count black Jews, and because there are multiple ways of determining who is a Jew and who is black, other estimates could differ by tens of thousands. Even so, it is clear that black Jews represent a growing percentage of the American-Jewish population.

In the past few decades, black Jews have become more visible in the public sphere, partly because of press coverage of prominent individuals --especially Drake and actress Rashida Jones, both of whom have black, non-Jewish fathers and white Jewish mothers, and rapper Shyne, who converted to Judaism. Beyond these and other celebrities, the Jewish press and the general press have published a number of articles about black Jews, including discussions of the increasing connections between mainstream Jews and Hebrew Israelites. (7) The Internet has also facilitated connection among black Jews, as we see in a number of blogs and forums (e.g., http://www.blackjews.org/blog/, http://manishtana.net/, http://www.blackgayjewish.com/), and there are several new organizations geared toward Jews of color, including Be'chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), the Jewish Multiracial Network, Jews in ALL Hues, and Jews of Color United. The Jewish Channel has contributed to this growing infrastructure by producing a video forum on "Jews of Color," which is available on YouTube. (8)

Several black Jewish writers have published memoirs, including Julius Lester (9) (a black man who grew up Christian and converted to Judaism), Rebecca Walker (10) (the daughter of black non-Jewish writer Alice Walker and white Jewish lawyer Mel Leventhal), and MaNishtana (11) (the pseudonym of Shais Rison, who grew up as a black Orthodox Jew with two black Jewish parents). There have also been a few academic studies of black Jews, some as part of broader discussions of Jews of color. (12)

A common theme in all of these studies, memoirs, and forums is the reactions black Jews have endured from black non-Jews and white Jews, ranging from confused stares and curious questioning to insensitive comments and racist and antisemitic actions. Identity also features prominently in these works. Individuals talk about presenting themselves differently in different situations or in different stages of life, sometimes highlighting their blackness, sometimes highlighting their Jewishness, and sometimes highlighting the intersection between the two. As the analysis below indicates, language can play an important role in their self-presentation.

African-American English and Jewish English

Which varieties of English might black Jews potentially use in their self-presentations? Linguists have offered descriptions of the distinctive features of African-American (13) English (AAE) (14) and Jewish English (JE). (15) AAE includes multiple distinctive features at all levels of language, including the following, presented with a few examples:

* pronunciation

** /r/ deletion after a vowel ("sister" becomes "sista")

** reduction of diphthongs ("my" becomes "mah")

* word conjugations

** absence of the plural "s" ("fifty cents" becomes "fifty cent")

** absence of "s" in third-person, present-tense verbs ("he walk home")

* grammar

** stressed BIN ("she BIN married," meaning she has been married for many years and still is)

** absence of "to be" ("We goin' to the store")

* falsetto and other distinctive intonation

* discourse

** the repetition in black preacher style

** ritual insults.

JE involves fewer distinctive features, most of which are not stigmatized like those of AAE. The most salient feature of JE is the use of hundreds of loanwords (words from one language used within another language) borrowed from three sources: Yiddish (through ancestral connections to this immigrant language from Eastern Europe), Israeli

Hebrew (through Hebrew education and current connections between American Jews and Israel), and textual Hebrew and Aramaic (through prayer recitation and study of the Bible and rabbinic literature). In addition, many Orthodox Jews use distinctive features in other areas of language, including the following:

* pronunciations

** the vowel in "man" sounds like the vowel in "mad"

** "going" is pronounced as "goingk"

** /t/ is hyperarticulated: "not" sounds like "not-h" or "notsss"

* grammatical influences from Yiddish

** "I'm staying at their house" becomes "I'm staying by them"

** "I've been here for six years" becomes "I'm here already six years"

* fast speech rate

* rising and falling intonation.

Although we can list distinctive features of AAE and JE, it is often impossible to determine whether an individual is speaking one of these dialects or Standard English. What about an African American who uses only a few features of AAE? Should we consider her a speaker of AAE? What about an excerpt of speech that starts out using many features of JE and then uses few? Should we consider it an excerpt of JE? As I have argued elsewhere, (16) the notion of "ethnolinguistic repertoire" offers a solution to these and other theoretical problems regarding language and ethnicity. Rather than analyze AAE, JE, or Latino English, etc., as bounded dialects, we can analyze individuals' speech as English with the incorporation of linguistic features from the AAE, JE, and Latino English repertoires. Therefore, when the terms "AAE" or "AAE repertoire" and "JE" or "JE repertoire" are used in this paper, they refer to the pools of distinctive linguistic resources that are commonly associated with African Americans and with Jews. This is not to say that only African Americans and Jews use these resources (certainly many elements of these repertoires have spread beyond these groups), and it is not to say that all African Americans and Jews use them (many do not). Even so, it is important to link these features to these groups, as they play important roles in how individuals perform and perceive complex identities.

Negotiating Multiple Identities

While members of any group use language and other cultural practices to negotiate their identities in diverse situations, (17) self-presentation becomes more complicated for individuals who belong to two (or more) minority groups. Do they emphasize one element of their identity over another? Do they compartmentalize, emphasizing each identity more in specific situations? Or do they combine their minority identities? Research on several groups has found individuals using all of these options. In a study of gay Jewish men in Toronto, Randal F. Schnoor (18) offers analytic categories for these options, inspired by Wayne Brekhus' study of gay suburbanites: (19) "Jewish lifestylers," "gay lifestylers" "gay-Jewish commuters," and "gay-Jewish integrators." Although Schnoor's study does not focus on language, it is likely that his interviewees use linguistic features associated with gay men and with Jews in various configurations, depending upon how they wish to present themselves. Similarly, studies of children of interracial unions (20) find that some identify only as a member of one parent's racial group, but that others have a "protean identity," which involves shifting according to the situation (parallel to Brekhus' and Schnoor's "commuters"), or a "border identity," which combines both (parallel to "integrators"). Another option that exists for individuals with a black parent and a white parent is a rejection of self-categorization according to race, which Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David Brunsma refer to as a "transcendent identity." (21) As the analysis below indicates, black Jews gravitate toward one or more of these options, and, as they do so, they represent their choices through language.

Data Sources

To begin to analyze how black Jews present themselves, and whether/ how they use the AAE and JE linguistic repertoires, I focus on one type of performance: individuals presenting their black Jewish identities to the public in books and videos. I selected performances by nine men and women of various ages, levels of religiosity, and backgrounds. I begin with two memoirs, Rebecca Walker's Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self and MaNishtana's Thoughts from a Unicorn: 100% Black, 100% Jewish, o% Safe. Then I analyze televised interviews with four individuals, Yitz Jordan and Yavilah McCoy, participating in a forum about Jews of color, (22) and Simone Weichselbaum and Rabbi Capers Funnye, who were interviewed about being black Jews on Arise News. (23) Finally, I examine two theatrical performances, Aaron Samuels' "Black and Jewish" performance for a college poetry slam, (24) and Kat Graham and Kali Hawk's "Black and Jewish" music video parody of "Black and Yellow." (25)

This selection of individuals and performances is by no means representative of black Jews in general or of the diverse contexts in which black Jews find themselves. Future research is necessary to determine how individuals use language when interacting with blacks, Jews, and others in their everyday lives. For the time being, we can learn from the current analysis, keeping in mind that the self-conscious, performative speech analyzed may involve exaggerated use of stereotypical linguistic features, some of which may never appear in the performers' everyday speech. (26)

Findings

I found that in most of the performances I investigated, the speakers express either a "border identity" or a "protean identity," to use Rockquemore and Brunsma's terminology, or, using Schnoor's categories, that they present themselves as "black-Jewish integrators" or "black-Jewish commuters." To do so, they make strategic and creative use of the JE and AAE linguistic repertoires. This section is organized according to data source, starting with the memoirs, moving on to the interviews, and ending with the theatrical performances.

Rebecca Walker's Memoir

Rebecca Walker's memoir takes a protean approach to black and Jewish identity, performing the identity of a "black-Jewish commuter." Walker recalls her childhood and adolescence shuttling between her divorced parents. She spends a few years with her black mother in a mostly black, non-Jewish community, and then a few years with her father in a mostly white, Jewish community. Language plays a large role in Walker's self-presentation. She talks about Jewish relatives using Yiddish-inflected English, including terms of endearment like "bubbeleh " ("little grandmother/bean/doll") and "tchotchkeleh" ("little toy") and she reports that her black relatives use words like "sho'nuff," "ain't," and "cracker," a derogatory term for a white person, which her relatives sometimes use endearingly to describe her mannerisms.

As she enters her teen years, Walker tries to adopt the linguistic, sartorial, and other practices of her peers, which differ depending in part on which parent she is living with at the time. For example, her mixed-race friend Lisa teaches her to walk in a tough way and uses elements of nonstandard grammar, such as, "Girl, I'm-a wear my black pants ... It's gonna be live." (27) Walker responds by incorporating similar linguistic features, as in, "You betta cut him loose." (28) About a Latina friend, she writes, "After being around her so much I talk like her, shaking my head and pushing my whole mouth forward, pursing my lips for all that attitude she picked up somewhere between San Juan, which she's never seen, and the Bronx, where she grew up." (29) When Walker spends a summer at a Jewish camp, she recites Hebrew blessings and learns to use the word "JAP" (Jewish American Princess) to refer disdainfully to others and pridefully to herself. (30)

In both communities, she finds that she is not able to fully blend in linguistically. Comparing herself to her friend Colleen, she writes, "She's a real black girl, and I'm not. When someone ... makes a joke about what I have on or the way I talk, I answer straight, directly. I'm too serious, too stiff to hit the ball back, to bounce some words across the pavement. They say I'm more like a white girl." (31) At the Jewish camp, she says, "I never get it quite right, never get the voice to match up with the clothes." (32) Even so, she is acutely aware of the linguistic differences between her two communities, and she tries to fit in: "I heighten the characteristics I share with the people around me and minimize, as best I can, the ones that don't belong." (33) Over time, she reports progress. Near the end of high school, she writes, "By now I am well trained in not breaking the code, not saying something too white around black people, or too black around whites." (34)

While Walker generally uses language in a protean, chameleon-like way, she sometimes uses it to distinguish herself from her interlocutors. She relates one harrowing incident when a drunken white Jewish student at Yale enters her dorm room with a knife and asks, "Are you really black and Jewish? ... How can that be possible?" (35) She takes the knife from him and tells him "in a voice I want him to be sure is black that I think he'd better go." Instead of using features of both AAE and JE to show that she is, indeed, both black and Jewish, she distances herself from this threatening white Jewish student by highlighting only her blackness.

MaNishtana's Memoir

While Walker uses language in a protean way, highlighting her blackness and her Jewishness in different situations and different life stages, black Jewish writer MaNishtana takes the approach of a "black-Jewish integrator," expressing a "border identity." His "not-autobiography" describes the difficulties of being a Jew of color in an American-Jewish community that is dominated by white Jews. (36) He recounts several racist incidents he has endured in his encounters with white Jews, and he points to the need for more communal infrastructure through which Jews of color can engage with each other. He highlights his integrated black Jewish identity throughout the memoir, deflecting common assumptions that one element of his identity must be more important to him:

   The conversation usually goes like this: "Do you consider yourself
   (ethnicity) first or Jewish first? Are you (ethnicity) or Jewish?
   You seem to have identity issues. What does this matter? Aren't we
   all just Jewish?" That conversation makes just as much sense as
   asking the color purple if it's "red" first or "blue" first. It's.
   Both. Likewise we are both. (37)

The memoir is mostly written in informal Standard English, peppered with elements of the AAE and JE repertoires. The AAE elements are rare, used strategically, sometimes in ironic ways. For example, as he describes a black Jewish woman he dates as having standard grammar, he ironically uses faux-AAE: "For my part, she was snarky, witty, just the right level of tomboyish and haz all the good grammars." (38) Although "all the good grammars" is not actually a feature of AAE, the use of non-standard grammar--in conjunction with the "eye-dialect" spelling "haz"--ironically underscores the author's appreciation that the woman does not use nonstandard grammatical features associated with African Americans or Jews. The content of his statement contrasts with its form: Tie uses nonstandard language in stating that he likes the woman's use of standard language. This has the dual effect of showing MaNishtana's connection to nonstandard language and his rejection of it.

A more blatant ironic use of AAE can be found in MaNishtana's description of an interaction with a black Jewish woman whom he describes as having "the most affected 'White' speech pattern Ed heard this side of Clueless." (39) The woman claims that she has never eaten fried chicken, apparently in an attempt to distance herself from a food commonly associated with black folks. MaNishtana responds by using more features of AAE in one passage than he does in the rest of his book: "You really gonna sit there and tell me you ain't never heard of fried chicken ... You is telling me you don't know what fried chicken is ... I ain't even tryna hear you right now." By using AAE features, including some that he would likely not use in his everyday life ("You is telling me"), he highlights his comfort with his black identity, in contrast to the woman's attempt to distance herself from blackness. He makes a similar move when he rhetorically asks a black Jewish woman who does not identify with black culture, "Why you think they talking to you? ... Nigga please. Get your life together."

MaNishtana's use of JE features is more frequent, less self-conscious, and less ironic. For example:

   Just imagine if the Final Redemption kept getting delayed just one
   second for every odd look a JOC [Jew of Color] was given on
   entering a knesset/shul (40) or a Judaica store or a kosher
   supermarket. Or while speaking Hebrew. For every "Gut Shabbos"
   sneezed at a JOC while they've been briskly walked past (not to
   mention the straight up ignored "Shabbat Shaloms" offered). For
   every fingertip handshake given. Every denied, "overlooked," or
   "forgotten" aliyah opportunity in shul. (41)

In the content and form of this passage, and others, he depicts himself and other black Jews speaking Jewish English in ways similar to other religiously observant Jews.

This book compiles words that some readers might not know in a glossary in the appendix. The glossary has more than 100 words, phrases, and abbreviations, mostly in Hebrew and Yiddish--including "gartel" (Hasidic men's belt), "hkbh" (Ha-Kadosh Baruch Hu, "the Blessed One, Holy is He"--God), and "assur" (forbidden)--but also some Caribbean terms like "wine-ing" (a Jamaican dance style), "yardie" (a native Jamaican), and "slackness" (unwarranted sexual behavior).

While Walker uses language in a chameleon-like way in presenting her "shifting self," MaNishtana uses language in an integrated way, incorporating features of AAE and JE throughout the mostly standard English narrative, not only in sections where he is speaking to African Americans and Jews--or about his blackness or his Jewishness. Although he is clearly aware of when he is using AAE and JE features in his writing, he does not use them in a protean way, as his blackness and his Jewishness are both integral to who he is.

Both Walker and MaNishtana make creative use of AAE and JE features in their written memoirs. But written language cannot fully capture some of the more subtle nuances of speech, especially pronunciation and intonation. To understand spoken language used by black Jews, I turn to interviews available in audiovisual format.

Yitz Jordan and Yavilah McCoy's Forum on Jews of Color

The first audiovisual piece is a discussion forum led by a Latino Jewish man with four other Jews of color: Yitz Jordan (also known as Y-Love), a black man who converted to Orthodox Judaism and became a popular hip-hop artist; Yavilah McCoy, a black Jewish woman who grew up Orthodox in Brooklyn and who now works as a Jewish educator and community leader; and two other participants whose speech I do not analyze in this paper: a Japanese-American Jewish man and a Dominican-American Jewish woman. In this forum, the participants talk about the subtle and blatant racism they have experienced in their encounters with white Jews, as well as difficulties negotiating their hyphenated identities. Both Jordan and McCoy express a "border" or "integrator" ideology like that of MaNishtana--a merged black and Jewish identity. Jordan rejects the "idea that you're supposed to give up your black identity and transform that into ... a Jewish identity." He says that when he uses "African American vernacular," the reaction of other Jews implies, "That's ghetto; that's something you should give up. If you're going to speak in a broken English, speak it with Yiddish." He counters this stance by using elements of the JE and AAE repertoires, both in this interview and in his music. The JE features he uses here are Hebrew and Yiddish words (such as "shidduchim" [matches] and "Toras Hasbem" [God's Torah]), and the AAE features he uses are pronunciations, including /r/ absence after vowels ("forty" sounds like "fowty") and reductions of diphthongs ("time" sounds like "tahm").

McCoy expresses a similar ideology:

   Me bringin' my full self to this experience is essential ... But
   when I come, I'm cornin' on my terms ... And when I come to the
   bimah, I want to be able to sing in my song, in my soul, let it be.
   Don't start telling me about how it's gotta sound like "My Yiddishe
   Mama" [a popular Yiddish song]. It does not have to sound like "My
   Yiddishe Mama" to be Jewish, or authentically Jewish. It needs to
   sound like this [points to her body], because this is what is.

Jordan affirms her statement by saying, "'Cause you're an authentic Jew." McCoy responds using AAE intonation, "Honey, and this is what it looks like," and then laughs. Through both content (what they say) and form (the use of AAE and JE features), Jordan and McCoy indicate their positive attitude toward their merged/border/integrator black Jewish identities. At the same time, McCoy's statement, "It does not have to sound like "My Yiddishe Mama" to be Jewish, or authentically Jewish," --and Jordan's supportive response--call into question constructions of authenticity, in which an "authentic" member of a group must use language associated with that group. This exchange makes clear that however a black Jew speaks should be considered authentic black Jewish language.

Capers Funnye and Simone Weichselbaum's Interviews

While the forum just discussed was aired on the Jewish Channel and geared toward a Jewish audience, another set of interviews, "Jewish People of Color," was aired on Arise America and geared toward a diverse audience. Three black interviewers (who do not discuss their own backgrounds, but who give no indication of being Jewish) ask two guests about their experiences being black Jews in the United States today. The first guest is Simone Weichselbaum, a young black Jewish woman with a German-Jewish father and a British mother of Jamaican descent. In her interview, she talks about her childhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and her identity as a Jew of color. In this interview, she uses no AAE features and a few JE features: "yenta" ("gossiping woman"); "Hasidic"; "already" with influence from the Yiddish shoyn ("already") ("I grew up in New York, in Brooklyn, which itself is already a melting pot"); and a few intonation contours marking the end of introductory clauses ("Growing up in New York CI-ty[HIGH-falling tone]..."). It is unclear whether she associates her intonation and her use of "already" with Jewishness, but the way she uses "yenta" demonstrates her awareness that her non-Jewish audience might not be familiar with this word. When one of the interviewers asks, "When you tell your friends that you're of Jewish descent, what do they say?" she responds, "It's pretty obvious. If you know, like, the way I act and talk, talk with our hands, it's a very Jewish thing. I can't hide it ... I'm more of a yenta, if you've heard of that."

In the interview, Weichselbaum reports being a proud Jew of color and contrasts herself with friends who choose just one parent's culture: "Being biracial is an honor ... in my family we embrace both heritages." Given this expressed "border identity," one might expect her to combine elements of the JE and AAE repertoires. The fact that she does not use AAE features may be influenced by a lack of exposure to the AAE repertoire in her childhood. She explains, "Being a proud Jamaican, it's a lot different culture than African American, so actually, I didn't have African-American friends [or know] a lot about even our history until I went to college." It is possible that she was exposed to the AAE repertoire in college, and perhaps in other contexts she uses elements of it, but the fact that she does not do so here indicates her ideology that identifying as African American (which she does by using the pronoun "our") does not entail using elements of the linguistic repertoire associated with African Americans. At the same time, she does use language to highlight her Jewishness in this decisively non-Jewish setting, and by adding the tag, "if you've heard of that" after her use of "yenta," she positions her interviewers as outsiders to her Jewish speech community. As the only speaker analyzed in this paper who does not use any AAE features, Weichselbaum emphasizes--through the content and form of her interview--that presenting oneself as a proud black Jew does not necessarily entail the use of AAE features. By using language that feels comfortable to her, she, like McCoy, highlights the authenticity of multiple types of black Jewish identity and language.

The second guest on the Arise America excerpt is Rabbi Capers Funnye, a black man who converted to Judaism and who now serves as rabbi of a majority black Jewish congregation in Chicago. Funnye attained national recognition several years ago when the press reported that he is a cousin of First Lady Michelle Obama and, more recently, when the International Israelite Board of Rabbis named him "black chief rabbi." In this interview, Funnye explains that he was attracted to Judaism because it "allowed me to synthesize my intellectual capacity with my spiritual being." He represents that synthesis between intellect and spirit in his language by using words common in communities oriented toward spirituality, including "searching," "on a spiritual journey," and "wellspring," while speaking a very precise, intellectual English, avoiding contractions ("it is OK to question" and "it is emerging," rather than "it's...") and using academic words like "dichotomy" and "compelled" and phrasings like "in so finding Judaism."

In addition to synthesizing intellectual and spiritual concerns, his language also brings together elements of the AAE and JE repertoires. Like many other African Americans who use standard grammar in combination with features of AAE pronunciation (especially common among middle-class African Americans who grew up in African-American communities (42)), Funnye uses a few features of AAE pronunciation: /r/ absence after a vowel ("forced" sounds like "fowced"), /l/ vocalization ("well" sounds like "wew"), and the "pin-pen merger" ("them" sounds like "thim"). He also uses the hyperarticulation of /t/, as in "capacity" and "what," a feature common in Orthodox Jewish communities and among speakers of many backgrounds who present themselves as intellectual or precise. (43) He uses two rare Hebrew phrases, translating them for the non-Jewish audience: "bnei anusim, the hidden ones from Mexico who several of their families were forced to convert to Catholicism during the time of the Inquisition," and "Be'chol Lashon (In Every Tongue)," an organization supporting diverse Jewish communities, of which he is among the leadership. His /ch/ sounds more like /k/, a pronunciation common in the language of converts and other Jews who did not grow up in Jewish communities.

While Weichselbaum voices awareness that her language (and gestures) include Jewish features, we do not have such data on Funnye's self-perception. It is possible that he is not aware that his pronunciation includes features of AAE, and maybe he would interpret his hyperarticulation of /t/ as intellectual rather than representative of Orthodox linguistic practices. We also cannot make assumptions about why he used the Hebrew term "Bnei Anusim," when he could have used only the English explanation. But, like Weichselbaum's use of "yenta," it has the effect of indicating his Jewishness in contrast to the (assumed) non-Jewishness of the interviewers.

Weichselbaum and Funnye use features of the AAE and JE repertoires in very different ways. She uses a few Yiddish influences and talks about her Jewishness in ethnic terms. He uses a few Hebrew words and talks about his Jewishness in religious terms. She uses no features of AAE, and he uses a few elements of AAE pronunciation. Even so, through the form and content of their brief TV segments, they both present themselves as "black-Jewish integrators," highlighting their Jewishness in contrast to the black, non-Jewish interviewers.

Aaron Samuels' Spoken Word

We now turn to the final type of self-presentation: theatrical performances. While the memoirs and interviews discussed above include some elements of humor, theatrical performances have the capacity to use humor--and parody--to a greater degree, and they do so partly through language.

The first excerpt, a spoken-word performance by young poet Aaron Samuels, makes creative use of language, gesture, and black and Jewish symbols to indicate a black Jewish identity that starts out as "protean" and then becomes a "border identity." Samuels narrates how he embraced his Jewishness and then his blackness at different points in his life--partly because of the "othering" of his classmates--and how he now prefers an integrated version of black Jewish identity. He recalls learning that he was Jewish at a Jewish community center preschool and learning that he was black through racist encounters in elementary school. He realized that it was "cool" to embrace blackness in middle school, so, "As I let my pants sag more and more, my Jewish star found its way from around my neck to my back pocket. I traded my payes for cornrows, yarmulkes for fitted hats, seder plates for soul food." Later, he came to embrace a border identity, represented here by words that were later used in the title of MaNishtana's book: "I'm 100% Black and 100% Jewish, and Em about to Lift Every Voice and Sing-Hatikvah ... I eat my seder plates with soul food, wear magen davids on my dog tags. I get hollaz for challah, and I gamble my gelt with my dollaz." And he says he is "representin'" for Sammy Davis, Jr., Lisa Bonet, Shyne, and several other black Jewish celebrities.

While the memoirs and interviews analyzed above use a few linguistic features each, the theatrical nature of the spoken-word genre encourages the use of many features. Samuels, indeed, uses several features of JE and AAE. From the JE repertoire, he uses several Hebrew and Yiddish words: "payes," "yarmulke," "Skabbat," "kosher," "seder plate," "magen david," "Mimouna" (Moroccan post-Passover celebration), "Hatikvah," and "gelt." From the AAE repertoire he uses a few elements of pronunciation, including some /l/ vocalization ("old" sounds like "owd"), a bit of diphthong reduction ("my" becomes "mah"), and elongation of the /i/ vowel in "kids." His /r/ following vowels is mostly present, but it is absent in select words: "hollaz," "dollaz." He says, "representin'" and "I'm-a represent," and he uses "girl" as a term of address to Rebecca Walker: "I know you know how it is, girl."

We may not know whether Weichselbaum was aware of her use of "already" or whether Funnye was aware of his use of /r/ absence. But it is clear that Samuels, like Walker in her memoir, uses features of JE and AAE consciously and strategically to narrate his childhood identity trajectory. When explaining how he identified as Jewish as a young boy, he uses some JE features and very few AAE features; when he talks about embracing his black identity in middle school, he uses several AAE features and no JE features. When he describes his current desire to integrate his black and Jewish identities, he uses features of both repertoires in deliberate, exaggerated combinations (e.g., "I gamble my gelt with my dollaz").

By using combinations like these on stage, Samuels does not suggest that he--or other black Jews--uses such language in day-to-day interactions. Because of the context of the performance and the references to so many symbolic practices, audiences likely recognize the language here as parodie, as in Drake's SNL skit. While Samuels may at some point have worn cornrows, yarmulkes, and fitted hats, it is unlikely that he ever wore payes, as he did not grow up Orthodox. Similarly, in his everyday life, he likely uses fewer elements of the JE and AAE repertoires, (44) and when he does use them, he may reserve them for Jewish audiences and black audiences. By using so many features of both repertoires in this performance, he taps into the conventions of the genre to convey his message more powerfully: that black Jews can be 100 percent black and 100 percent Jewish and proud of this merged identity.

Kali Hawk and Katerina Graham's Video Parody "Black and Jewish"

The final excerpt--also a theatrical performance--takes a similarly integrative approach to black Jewish identity, but with a more exaggerated and outrageous use of stereotypical practices. In the music video "Black and Jewish," available on the comedy site "Funny or Die," black Jewish actresses Kali Hawk and Katerina Graham present a parody of Wiz Khalifa's song "Black and Yellow." Similar to Drake's skit, the video intersperses images of black Jewish celebrities with scenes of Hawk and Graham combining stereotypical visual symbols and activities associated with moderately religiously engaged Jews and with poor, urban black people: "My nose and ass--they're both big," "Had my bat mitzvah at KFC," counting money and picking an afro, pouring hot sauce on lox and bagels, chasing people with a menorah, gambling with dreidels, and pouring "Manischewitz for the homies," to name just a few. (45)

The actresses also combine stereotypical black and Jewish features in their language: "L'chaim, bitch"; "we on the corner, shootin' dreidels"; "on Rosh Hashanah, I blow the shofa[r], get my hair did"; and "shalom to your muvva (mother)," etc. They use eighteen Hebrew and Yiddish words from the JE repertoire, including names of holidays (Rosh Hashanah, Shabbos, Hanukkah), items and concepts related to religious observance (Seder, shofar, Torah, bat mitzvah, menorah, dreidel, kosher), foods (gefilte fish, lox, latkes, challah), and others (l'chaim, shalom, shul, shtetl). And they use several features of the AAE repertoire, including pronouncing /th/ as /d/ or /v/; omitting forms of "to be" ("she tryna set me up"); omitting the third-person "s" ("my grandma talk"); omitting /r/ after a vowel; using multiple negatives ("don't spend no money"); and using several AAE words, like "reppin"' (representing), "crackin'" (happening), and "thugged out" (appearing to be part of black ghetto culture). While the other excerpts analyzed in this paper include no grammatical features of AAE (with the exception of MaNishtana's ironic use of them), Hawk and Graham's video uses several, contributing to its over-the-top orientation.

The humor in this video stems from its startling, outrageous combinations, which are even more incongruous and unlikely than those in Drake's and Samuels' performances. For example, a man eating at a deli would not wear a tallis, and a bat mitzvah at KFC is highly improbable. Viewers do not assume that black Jews actually do these activities or use AAE and JE features to this extent. But they might laugh at the video because they associate some of the practices with African Americans and others with Jews and realize that their juxtaposition is unlikely and therefore funny.

As with any outrageous parody, this performance is also controversial. In critiquing Hawk and Graham's video and Drake's "HYFR (Hell Ya Fucking Right)" video (which also includes a bar mitzvah scene), MaNishtana said, "All that does is make JOCs [Jews of color] look like a joke ... 'Parody' can only happen when something serious has been presented in the first place." (46) While such critiques are valid, humorous videos like this do raise awareness about the existence of black Jews, including some celebrities that audiences might not have realized are Jewish. At the same time, the parodic frame and the over-the-top use of language and other cultural practices sends another message, in line with McCoy and Jordan's exchange about authenticity. Because audiences know that Hawk and Graham do not speak and act like this in other contexts, this video conveys the idea that although many linguistic features and other cultural practices are available to black Jews, one does not have to use such combinations to be an authentic black Jew.

Conclusion

The analysis in this paper leads to two conclusions. First, language can be an important part of "performing" black Jewish identity. Within American English, there is a repertoire of distinctive linguistic features associated with African Americans, and there is a repertoire of distinctive linguistic features associated with American Jews. Various black Jews have access to different elements of these repertoires, depending on their childhood and current social networks, education, social class, and religious and ethnic orientations, and they sometimes use elements of these repertoires as they present themselves as certain types of black Jews. This language use is not always conscious, and it is not always intended to indicate blackness or Jewishness. Just because individuals use features that a listener may associate with African Americans or with Jews does not mean that they associate those features with African Americans or with Jews. Maybe Funnye's hyperarticulation of III represents an intellectual persona, rather than an Orthodox one, and maybe Walker's "You betta cut him loose" represents her desire to sound urban or tough, rather than black. Also, even though the public figures profiled here use elements of the black and Jewish repertoires in their performances of black Jewishness, it is likely that some of them use fewer (or even none) in most of their everyday conversations. In addition, further research is necessary to determine to what extent black Jews who are not public figures use elements of the black and Jewish linguistic repertoires. Even in this collection of highly performative language excerpts, we find Weichselbaum, who uses no elements of AAE, and Walker, who rarely uses elements of JE. Despite these crucial caveats, the analysis above indicates that the AAE and JE linguistic repertoires are important in some black Jews' self-presentations.

Second, the analysis emphasizes that black Jews have diverse approaches to their identities, confirming findings of previous literature (47) and the contents of popular memoirs. (48) For some, blackness is primary, and for others, Jewishness. Some, like Walker and Samuels in his early years, perform the protean identity of a "black-Jewish commuter," emphasizing their Jewishness in the company of other Jews and their blackness in the company of other blacks, or they recall using more features of AAE or JE at different points in their lives. Some do the opposite: highlight their Jewishness with a black non-Jewish audience (e.g., Weichselbaum's use of "yenta") or highlight their blackness with a Jewish nonblack audience (e.g., Walker's use of a black voice with a threatening white Jewish student). Some use as many features of both repertoires as they can fit into their short performances, in humorous and parodie ways. Some use language to contest assumptions of what it means to be a black Jew, reminding us that using language associated with a group is not the only way to identify with that group. In the performances analyzed in this paper--explicit presentations of black Jewish identities--the individuals use features of AAE and JE in different ways as they present themselves as different types of black Jews.

The diversity of self-presentation is not unique to black Jews. In other ethnic (and non-ethnic) groups, we find people who are more enthusiastic about their Korean-American-ness, their Latino-ness, their queer-ness, etc., and people who are more eager to integrate into the unmarked group. (49) People tend to represent these diverse orientations in their language, using more or fewer features of the linguistic repertoire associated with their group. (50) Individuals who have multiple heritages or identities can express one or the other, or they can express a border identity or a protean identity, both of which can be found in the performances analyzed in this paper. Another option is a transcendent identity, which was not detectable in these performances, but which likely can be found in the interactions of black Jews who are not explicitly presenting themselves to the public as black Jews.

The identity paradigms discussed in this paper (border/integrators, protean/commuters, etc.) were borrowed from research on black-white biracial people and gay Jews. Although members of all of these hybrid groups must make choices about how to present themselves, there are also important differences. First, gay and Jewish identities are generally not as evident from phenotype--physical characteristics determined primarily by biology, such as skin color and facial structure--as are black and white identities. When individuals have an unambiguous black, white, or other phenotype, people will most likely recognize them as members of that group, even in the absence of distinctive linguistic features. When people wish to identify with a group that is not evident based on their phenotype, they might use linguistic features associated with that group, along with other cultural practices and explicit discourse about their membership in that group. This is especially the case for people who are gay or Jewish, as well as for light-skinned black folks. If a person wishes not to identify with a group she appears to be part of, she might avoid linguistic features associated with that group. Of course, people do not have complete control over their language, and their gay, black, or Jewish identity might be evident from their distinctive linguistic features even if they wish to suppress it. Also, some people might identify strongly as gay, black, or Jewish (or some combination) without using linguistic features associated with those groups. This paper has offered just a taste of the many sociolinguistic options available to people who identify with multiple groups.

As the black Jews discussed in this paper remind us, Jews, African Americans, and people in general use language in diverse and creative ways as they present their complex identities. When black Jews write memoirs, give interviews, and offer poetic and parodic performances about what it means to be black and Jewish, they educate the world about an increasingly common hybrid identity. Through language, they do what Aaron Samuels does in his poetry: "I represent. My culture is no longer abstract."

(1.) I would like to thank H. Samy Alim, John Rickford, Bruce Haynes, Michael Alexander, Tali Zelkowicz, Bruce Phillips, Diane Tobin, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier iterations of this project and earlier drafts of this paper. Thank you to Sarah Leiter for formatting help.

(2.) Drake Bar Mitzvah Monologue--SNL Highlight, January 19, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqTXwvo4MYo.

(3.) Diane Tobin, Gary A. Tobin, and Scott Rubin, In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People (San Francisco: Institute for Jewish and Community Research, 2003).

(4.) Jonathan Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

(5.) See history in Jacob S. Dorman, Chosen People: The Rise of American Black Israelite Religions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); see analysis of discourses of authenticity and inclusion in Henry Goldschmidt, Race and Religion Among the Chosen Peoples of Crown Heights (Piscataway, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2006); and Janice Fernheimer, Stepping Into Zion: Hatzaad Harishon, Black Jews, and the Remaking of Jewish Identity (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014). The boundary between Hebrew Israelites and "mainstream" black Jews can sometimes be porous (see Sarah Leiter, "True to Our God, True to Our Native Land: Establishing Communal Identity at a Black American Jewish Temple," Masters Thesis, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology, 2015).

(6.) "A Portrait of Jewish Americans" (Washington, D.C.: Pew Research Center, 2013).

(7.) See, e.g., Donna Halper, "Black Jews: A Minority Within a Minority," Jewish Family, 2001, http://bechollashon.org/heart/index.php/artides/1161; Wayne Lawrence and Molly Langmuir, "The Black Orthodox: Double-Consciousness and the Pursuit of G-D," New York Magazine, December 23, 2012, http://nymag.com/news/features/black-jews-2012-12/-, Len Lyons, "Black Jews Gain Wider Acceptance," the Forward, July 23, 2012, http:// forward.com/articles/159587/black-jews-gain-wider-acceptance/.

(8.) Jews Of Color, July 13, 2010, accessed January 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=suWNpeRSuKU, http://www.youtube.com/watch/NR=I&feature=endscreen& v=4a4S4xmcjdM, http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=I&feature=endscreen&v=Cujm illlSVc, http://www.youtube.com/watcb?NR=I&feature=endscreen&v=HbzJLINa84k.

(9.) Julius Lester, Lovesong: Becoming a Jew (New York: Arcade Publishing, 1995).

(10.) Rebecca Walker, Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001).

(11.) MaNishtana, Thoughts from a Unicorn: 100% Black, 100% Jewish, 0% Safe (New York: Hyphen Publishing, 2012).

(12.) See, e.g., Katya Gibel Azoulay, Black, Jewish, and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin, but the Race of Your Kin, and Other Myths of Identity (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997); Tobin, Tobin, and Rubin, In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People; Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007).

(13.) Although many black people in the United States do not identify as African American, especially Caribbean Americans, this paper uses the terms "black" and "African American" interchangeably, in line with previous sociolinguistic research (although, see research on Caribbean American language in Renee Blake and Cara Shousterman, "Second Generation West Indian Americans and English in New York City," English Today 26, no. 3 (2010): 35-43.

(14.) See, e.g., Geneva Smitherman, Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America (Detroit: Wayne State Press, 1977); John R. Rickford, African American Vernacular English: Features, Evolution, Educational Implications (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999); John R. Rickford and Russell J. Rickford, Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English (New York: Wiley and Sons, 2000); Lisa Green, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

(15.) See, e.g., David L. Gold, "Jewish English," in Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages, ed. Joshua A. Fishman (Leiden: Brill, 1985), 280-98; Sarah Bunin Benor, "Mensch, Bentsh, and Balagan: Variation in the American Jewish Linguistic Repertoire," Language and Communication 31, no. 2 (2011): 141-54; Sarah Bunin Benor, Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2012).

(16.) Sarah Bunin Benor, "Ethnolinguistic Repertoire: Shifting the Analytic Focus in Language and Ethnicity Journal of Sociolinguistics 14, no. 2 (2010): 159-83.

(17.) Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Anchor, 1959)

(18.) Randal F. Schnoor, "Being Gay and Jewish: Negotiating Intersecting Identities," Sociology of Religion 67, no. 1 (2006): 43-60.

(19.) Wayne Brekhus, Peacocks, Chameleons, Centaurs: Gay Suburbia and the Grammar of Social Identity (University of Chicago Press, 2003).

(20.) Kerry Ann Rockquemore and David L. Brunsma, Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 2002); Wendy Roth, "The End of the One-Drop Rule? Labeling of Multiracial Children in Black Intermarriages," Sociological Forum 20, no. I (2005): 35-67.

(21.) Rockquemore and Brunsma, Beyond Black.

(22.) See links in note 8 above.

(23.) Arise America, Jewish People of Color, May 1, 2013, accessed January 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPILYQ3ZoMo.

(24.) Black and Jewish (Aaron Samuels), January 23, 2009, accessed January 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN9PoShELok.

(25.) Funny Or Die, Black and Jewish (Black and Yellow Parody), August 2, 2011, accessed January 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch/v:ITXNUrnh4E4.

(26.) Natalie Schilling-Estes, "Investigating 'Self-Conscious' Speech: The Performance Register in Ocracoke English," Language in Society 27 (1998): 53-83.

(27.) Walker, Black, White, and Jewish, 159-60

(28.) Ibid., 155.

(29.) Ibid., 193.

(30.) Ibid., 179.

(31.) Ibid., 126.

(32.) Ibid., 179.

(33.) Ibid., 184-5.

(34.) Ibid., 271.

(35.) Ibid., 25.

(36.) MaNishtana, Thoughts from a Unicorn.

(37.) Ibid., 263. Emphasis in original. Page numbers in MaNishtana 2012 are based on the Kindle version.

(38.) Ibid., 221.

(39.) Ibid., 256.

(40.) He uses both the Sephardic Hebrew term "knesset" and the Yiddish-origin word "shul" because he has attended both Sephardic and Ashkenazic synagogues.

(41.) MaNishtana, 251.

(42.) On "Black Standard English," see Orlando Taylor, "Response to Local Dialects and the Field of Speech," in Sociolinguistics: A Crossdisciplinary Perspective, ed. Roger W. Shuy (Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1971): 13-20; and Jacquelyn Rahman, "Middle-Class African Americans: Reactions and Attitudes Toward African American English," American Speech 83 (2008): 141-76.

(43.) Sarah Bunin Benor, "Talmid Chachams and Tsedeykeses: Language, Learnedness, and Masculinity Among Orthodox Jews," Jewish Social Studies 11, no. 1 (2004): 147-70; Penelope Eckert, "Variation and the Indexical Field," Journal of Sociolinguistics 12, no. 4 (2008): 453-76.

(44.) As indicated by other excerpts of his speech available online, e.g., TEDx Talks, Identity Isb: Aaron Samuels at TEDxWUSTL 2.013, April 2, 2013, accessed August 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=477&v=EX7jaXsYhLM.

(45.) The video highlights the social class distinctions between Jewish and black communities: Several of the stereotypical Jewish symbolic practices in this video are associated with wealth, while several of the stereotypical black symbolic practices are associated with poverty and with illegal activities like gambling and violence.

(46.) Tali Adina, "Thoughts From A Unicorn: An Interview with MaNishtana," Kehila Magazine, September 21, 2012, accessed July 2015, http://www.bechollashon.org/resources/ newsletters/09-12/manishtana.php.

(47.) Azoulay, Black, Jewish, and Interracial: It's Not the Color of Your Skin, but the Race of Your Kin, and Other Myths of Identity, Tobin, Tobin, and Rubin, In Every Tongue: The Racial & Ethnic Diversity of the Jewish People; Kaye/Kantrowitz, The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism.

(48.) Lester, Lovesong; Walker, Black, White, and Jewish; MaNishtana, Thoughts from a Unicorn.

(49.) Wendy D. Roth, Race Migrations: Latinos and the Cultural Transformation of Race (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012); Schnoor, "Being Gay and Jewish: Negotiating Intersecting Identities."

(50.) See Benor, "Ethnolinguistic Repertoire: Shifting the Analytic Focus in Language and Ethnicity" and references there.