Re/Pair

“I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that now we’re in a crisis around Black and Jewish community,” says Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors who sits in discussion with her former camp counselor, Rabbi Susan Goldberg. This is just one of many riveting talks that are staged in Re/Pair between members of American Black and Jewish communities.

Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz Delgado has a stake in both identities, a personal history she explored in her documentary Little White Lie. Here, she creates a lively format to foster communication, by pairing up prominent Black and Jewish personalities from across different disciplines in conversation with one another. They include writers W. Kamau Bell and Adam Mansbach; commentators Van Jones and Batya Ungar-Sargon; actors Harry Lennix and David Schwimmer — to name a few of the 19 different pairings. Their conversations are interwoven into a wide-ranging discourse characterized by respect, candor, and humour.

The flow of topics brings up historical moments both good and bad. The civil rights alliance between Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us of the common causes these communities once found. Now how do we process divisive moments that trigger deep hurt, including the polarizing debates around Israel and Palestine? Today, as hateful demagogues push ideas like “replacement theory,” we can see how racism and antisemitism are continually twinned together. Re/Pair doesn’t offer simple solutions. But it does demonstrate the need for us to move away from our social media feedback loops and hold our own dialogues where listening is as important as speaking.

THOM POWERS