8 Famous Black Artists with Jewish Moms

There are many prominent Black artists in the entertainment industry who happen to be Jewish. At a time when antisemitism is on the rise, these proud Black Jews shatter stereotypes and speak out about their culture and religion.

Check out some of the Black artists with Jewish moms to see if there’s anyone familiar on this list.

Doja Cat

Doja Cat, whose real name is Amala Ratna Zandile Dlamini, was born in Tarzana, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, to a Jewish mother, painter Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer, and a Black father, actor and composer Dumisani Dlamini. The rapper, who has millions of views on her songs and videos, discussed her Jewish and Black background in an interview, saying, “My mum was kind of a hip-hop head, really ironic because I’m Jewish, my grandma’s Jewish, she’s white, and she was never exposed to music like that until she started meeting people and she was like ‘wow, I really love this’. So once she had me, she would play a lot of Erykah Badu, a lot of Fugees, Jamiroquai, Seal, Earth, Wind & Fire, Alice Coltrane and John Coltrane.”

Daveed Diggs

Actor and rapper Daveed Diggs starred as Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton,” and then went on to perform on “Black-ish” and in the remake of “The Little Mermaid.” Born to a Jewish mother, Barbara, and a Black father, Dountes, he was named Daveed, the Hebrew pronunciation of “David.” Growing up, he went to Hebrew school, and in 2020, he released a song called “Puppy For Hanukkah,” a catchy holiday tune that racked up over 2.1 million views on YouTube. “I am Jewish,” Diggs once said, “and I was raised as a more practicing Jew than I am now.”

Drake

Canadian actor-turned-rapper Drake, whose real name is Aubrey Drake Graham, was born to Jewish mom Sandra "Sandi" Graham, an English teacher, and Dennis Graham, a drummer from Memphis, Tenn. who played with Jerry Lee Lewis. Drake went to Jewish day school in Toronto and had a bar mitzvah; he held another bar mitzvah for his 31^st birthday and made a funny sketch about it for “Saturday Night Live.” In his 2019 song “Still Drake,” he rapped, “I was born to do it, born to make bomb music/I flow tight like I was born Jewish/Well, actually I was born Jewish.”

Rashida Jones

Actress Rashida Jones is the daughter of Peggy Lipton, an actress whose Jewish parents were from Latvia, and famous American record producer, Quincy Jones. Rashida went to Hebrew school in her childhood and loves her Judaism, saying in a 2007 interview, “We always celebrated the High Holidays. I did fast in high school for Yom Kippur and attend services. We always went to seder for Passover. I really liked the cultural and the familial side of Judaism. It was always the most comfortable place for me, making time for family and community.” On the show “Who Do You Think You Are?” Rashida learned about the only Jew in her family who survived the Holocaust, becoming emotional about her ancestors’ history. She is married to Ezra Koenig, the Jewish frontman of the indie band Vampire Weekend, with whom she shares a son, Isaiah.

Zoë Kravitz

Zoë Kravitz is Black and has Jewish lineage on both sides; her mother, actress Lisa Bonet, is the daughter of Arlene Joyce Litman, a Jewish schoolteacher, and Allen Bonet, a Black opera singer. Her father, musician Lenny Kravitz, is the son of a Jewish father, journalist and TV producer Sy Kravitz, and a Black mother, actress Roxie Roker. The “Catwoman” star has said she is obsessed with Larry David and touched upon her heritage in one interview, saying, “Jews and African-Americans have had so much pain, carried so much on their shoulders, and come so far.”

James McBride

Musician and bestselling author James McBride, who wrote “The Color of Water” and “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” is the son of a Black minister father, Rev. Andrew D. McBride, and a Jewish immigrant from Poland, Ruchel Dwajra Zylska. Both of McBride’s books are about his Black and Jewish roots; in “The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store,” two Jews decide to hide a local deaf Black boy, Dodo, so that the authorities can’t take him to a horrible mental hospital. The books is brimming with an insider’s view of Jewish practice. When it comes to Black and Jewish relations, McBride told The Forward, “Despite all our differences, there’s plenty of common ground. What I tried to do in this book is show how people simply excused a lot of those differences, set them aside for the moment, and got to the business of finding the meal that would feed us all. I just wanted to show in this book that we have gotten along very well. We have got to stick together and deal with the reality of where we are. We’re in deep water, and we will end up in deeper water if we don’t pay attention.”

Walter Mosley

Another successful author, Walter Mosley, has been dubbed “America's Blackest Jewish Writer.” He is well-known for his crime series featuring detective Easy Rawlins, a Black private investigator who lives in the Watts area of Los Angeles. Mosley’s mother Ella Slatkin was a Jewish personnel clerk, while his Black father worked as a supervising custodian at a public school in LA. He’s talked publicly about how offensive it is to call Jews white and his Jewish upbringing. In an interview with Moment magazine he said, “People say to me, ‘Well, Walter, you’re both black and white.’ And I go, ‘No, I’m black, and I’m Jewish. Jews are not white people.’ They get mad at me. American Jews get mad at me. White people get mad at me. Black people get mad at me.” He recites the line from an old Tom Lehrer lyric, “Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics and the Catholics hate the Protestants and the Hindus hate the Muslims, and everybody hates the Jews!”

Describing growing up with his mother’s extended Jewish family, he said in an interview with The Forward, “There was never a moment where I felt ostracized or ignored. I got along great with them, hanging out with them, doing things with them. They were wonderful.” He paused wistfully to remember his favorite, Uncle Chaim, 80 years old and 4 feet 9 inches, who’d been a tailor in the old country: “I just loved him.”

He told Tablet, “My cousin Lilly used to teach me Yiddish curses in English. I remember one—she said: ‘You should be like a chandelier—hanging and burning.’ It was kind of wonderful.”

Rain Pryor

Legendary comedian Richard Pryor married Shelley Bonus, a Jewish go-go dancer turned astronomer, and they had Rain Pryor, an actress, singer, and comedian in her own right. They divorced when Rain was only 6 months old, and her mother, bubbe, and zayde mostly raised her. In her book, Rain talked about being discriminated against for being Black and a Jew, and she created a one-woman show about her childhood called, “Fried Chicken and Latkes.” She’s said publicly that she lights Shabbat candles, and she joked, “I’m Black and Jewish, which means I’m proud, but yet I feel so guilty for it!”