Emily’s Comments (group member since Jan 17, 2013)

Emily’s comments from the Q&A with Emily Raboteau group.

Yes, that's the controversy I was referring to in recent news. This wasn't news yet when I researched and wrote the book, though I did write about another controversy related to racist treatment of Beta Israel -- the dumping of their blood from blood banks for fear it was infected with HIV.

The texts you mention are all good ones, and influenced my book to varying degrees. Caryl Phillips, whose broad peregrinations across African Diasporan territory have been particularly influential in broadening my thinking, was kind enough to email me some lovely and encouraging words about "Searching for Zion" last month. It is, of course, territory he knows well. And Rabbi Funnye recently wrote about the possibility of bringing me out to Chicago to speak about the book to members of his congregation.

Since black Jews weren't the focus of David Levering Lewis's important study, he doesn't really get into the deep attraction many blacks, often with Caribbean origins, had to Judaism during that flowering when many turned from Christianity for an avocation that would not only tie them to a more ancient faith and the Hebrew slaves of old (with whom they felt great affinity and kinship) but would also separate them from the Christian practice of white Americans, whom they often saw as hypocritical worshipers of Anglo-Saxonism instead of Christ.

The unseating of Nkrumah came to showcase a divide between the "Afros" (Americans) who lionized the president and Africans from Ghana who'd become disenchanted with him. A parallel we see with Haile Selassie as a hero-king figure for occidental blacks vs. a dictator for Ethiopians.

As for the troubling civil rights of Beta Israel, their condition is coming to light more with recent news breaking and circulating world-wide of forced sterilization of women in that community under the guise of inoculation.

If you're interested in reading more about the subject of black Jews, "Black Judaism: Story of an American Movement" by James E. Landing is a seminal work, and Lewis Gordon, who started the Center for Afro-Jewish studies at Temple is an important voice.

"In Cold Blood" is an interesting case because of the way Truman Capote claimed to have total recall, making his dialogue more factual than invented. Of course, almost nobody has that gift, and those of us who work in the mode of creative nonfiction have to walk a line between invention and fact.

In my case, I used a tape recorder with some of my subjects, took handwritten notes during interviews with others, and sometimes reconstructed dialogue from memory after the conversations had taken place. So, as you can imagine, the conversations in my book are not always verbatim. But also, in memoir, when an author is relying on memory to convey and vivify scenes from the past, or from childhood, invention and tactics from fiction are also necessary.

Are you a musician? (With the tagname "Jazz" and your final comment, I'm guessing so!) Although I'm no musician, I dated one for many years and am a big jazz and reggae fan, so have a musically tinged vocabulary from reading a lot of liner notes and going to a lot of shows.

Welcome! Thanks for joining this discussion group. I'm happy to entertain questions about my research and writing process, the book's themes, or writing in general, so ask away...