(JTA) — The Black Entertainment Television channel is airing a special Thursday night on the relationship between Black and Jewish communities, and how the roots of antisemitism and racism are intertwined.
“Black x Jewish” is the brainchild of Lacey Schwartz Delgado, a filmmaker known for her award-winning 2014 film “Little White Lies,” which tells her unique story: She was brought up in a white Jewish family, believing she was fully white, but learned in college that her biological father was a Black man with whom her mother had an affair.
Her 30-minute BET show examines the “connection between racism and antisemitism in the American context and how they come together,” she told the Forward. It begins with the framing of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, which brought together white supremacists and antisemites. That morning, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock claimed victory in their respective Senate races, becoming Georgia’s first Jewish and first Black senators.
“I think that framework really sums that up the highs and lows,” Schwartz Delgado told Jewish Insider. “The high is when these communities come together and can achieve incredible things, and then the lows are when the hatred against both communities collectively comes out.”
The show goes on to highlight the historical relationship between Blacks and Jews, including their cooperation during the civil rights era. It features interviews with Black-Jewish activist Yavilah McCoy, Black-Jewish rapper Ebro Darden and Susannah Heschel, the daughter of civil rights icon Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.
Schwartz Delgado is married to a congressman, Rep. Antonio Delgado, a New York Democrat. She spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2018 about her family’s involvement in the Jewish community.
