Renee Ghert-Zand is a reporter and feature writer for The Times of Israel.
The Moorish Zionist Temple, Harlem, NY, 1929 (James Van Der Zee/The Folklore Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem via the National Library of Israel Digital Collection)
Early 1920s newspaper ads for the blockbuster New York Yiddish stage shows
Yente Telebende (Loquacious Battle‐Ax), featured a Black artist among the spotlighted performers. This was Thomas LaRue, a Yiddish-speaking singer widely known in the interwar period as
der schvartzer khazan (The Black Cantor).
Although long-forgotten now, LaRue (who sometimes used the surname Jones) was among the favorites of Yiddish theater and cantorial music. Reportedly raised in Newark, New Jersey, by a single mother who was drawn to Judaism, he even drew interest from beyond the US.