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The voices of Jacob on the streets of Brooklyn: Black and Jewish Israelites in and around Crown Heights
Author(s) -
GOLDSCHMIDT HENRY
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.2006.33.3.378
Subject(s) - israelites , judaism , diaspora , race (biology) , narrative , identity (music) , history , interpretation (philosophy) , sociology , gender studies , art , literature , aesthetics , ancient history , archaeology , philosophy , linguistics
In this article, I show how categories of identity formation such as “race,”“religion,”“Blackness,” and “Jewishness” may be used—often in tandem—as historiographic tools, helping communities lay claim to contested pasts. I examine the historiographic discourses of Blacks and Jews in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights, focusing on the competing claims of Israelite descent advanced by the Lubavitch Hasidim and the Black Hebrew Israelites. Although I trace the roles of both race and religion in these historical narratives, I argue that such categories cannot fully account for the histories and identities of many Crown Heights residents.