{"id":113560,"date":"2017-04-08T19:39:51","date_gmt":"2017-04-09T03:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=113560"},"modified":"2017-04-08T19:56:24","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T03:56:24","slug":"the-rapper-and-the-rabbi-ice-cube-and-rabbi-abraham-cooper-heal-old-wounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=113560","title":{"rendered":"The rapper and the rabbi: Ice Cube and Rabbi Abraham Cooper heal old wounds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jewish Journal<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Ice Cube, the well-known rapper and actor, was about the last person anyone might have expected to emcee the recent Simon Wiesenthal Center\/Museum of Tolerance 2017 National Tribute Dinner.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t so long ago that Cube and the Center had a nasty feud over lyrics to a 1991 song that some interpreted as anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

Yet there he was at an event on April 5 at the Beverly Hilton to honor Ron Meyer, vice chairman of NBC Universal, who had requested that Cube \u2014 real name, O\u2019Shea Jackson \u2014 lead the festivities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an opportunity to close a circle that was a long time in the making. \u201cWe did a schmooze before the event,\u201d said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, who was embroiled in the controversy with Cube at the time.<\/p>\n

The song at issue, \u201cNo Vaseline,\u201d had called out Jerry Heller, the manager of the Cube\u2019s rap group, N.W.A., before Ice Cube started a solo career.<\/p>\n

Cube blamed Heller, who was Jewish, for problems that had befallen N.W.A.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a case of divide and conquer, \u2018cause you let a Jew break up my crew.\u201d Cube rapped on \u201cNo Vaseline,\u201d which drew immediate condemnation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center.<\/p>\n

Cooper responded, \u201cWe\u2019re not asking Ice Cube to mask the reality of the streets. By all means flag the social problems, but don\u2019t exploit them by turning a professional spat between a former manager and an artist into a racial dispute.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI respect Jewish people because they\u2019re unified. I wish black people were as unified,\u201d Cube shot back.<\/p>\n

Cooper and Cube took their back-and-forth to television screens, appearing on the \u201cOprah Winfrey Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last time [we saw each other] was spending an hour-plus on the set in Chicago with Oprah and back then in those days, the early Oprah days, we were more like guests in the middle of a lion\u2019s den,\u201d Cooper said in a phone interview this week. \u201cIt was a very raucous crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooper told the Journal he\u2019d never been a fan of rap music \u2013 he said he was \u201cfrom a generation before.\u201d He described himself as more of a \u201cFour Seasons guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was possible, he said, he had been too hard on Cube due to his lack of understanding of what informed his lyrics, adding that their \u201cinteraction [at that time] was right at the beginning of that stuff,\u201d when people did not think rap music had any kind of cultural future.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was claiming at the time, and I think he probably was correct, that there was an authenticity to his anger,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cHe was reporting from a different part of the planet.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems to me that a higher percentage of blacks hate Jews than any other race aside from Arabs. <\/p>\n

It’s pathetic that the rabbi’s objection was on the basis of “anti-Semitism.”<\/p>\n