Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz on Cornel West

“We need to recognize the destructive role played by the media in fanning the flames of the "Black-Jewish Conflict." Cornel West, bell hooks, Richard Green, Barbara Christian, Henry Louis Gates, Marian Wright Edelman, Nell Painter, Albert Raby....Why are these names not as well known outside the African American community as the names of Louis Farrakhan or Leonard Jeffries? Are they, in their diversity and dynamism, less representative of the African American community?”

“Most commonly, the public face even on positive Jewish-African American relations has been inscribed as largely male. Michael Lerner and Cornel West, though they mention gender, do so in booming patriarchal voices. It took years before they invited a woman to join their public conversations, and though their choice of partner-Susannah Heschel, Director of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth and daughter of Rabbi Heschel-is apt, might not the gentlemen have also included an African American woman? What about an African American Jew?”