00:01 - 15:18: MaNishtana begins by describing his nom-de-plume. A riff on the 4 questions at Passover, instead of asking “Why is this night different from all other nights,” he asks “Why is this Jew different from all other Jews?” From there, the episode dives into MaNishtana’s book, Ariel Samson: Freelance Rabbi, [1] which he describes as a social textbook; a not-autobiography about a Black, Jewish rabbi, which is not a Black book or a Jewish book, but chock full of both. MaNishtana discusses how Black and Jewish identity intersect, giving a unique perspective into the feeling of being an outsider looking in, with respect to the Jewish world.

15:19 - 27:59: MaNishtana briefly talks about his social media presence, with the tagline “100% Black and 100% Jewish, 0% Safe.” [2] The conversation turns to questions of how Jewish identity coexists with other identities, especially in a contemporary world in which many marginalized identities often cohabit within the same person. How should Jews approach their own intersectionality? MaNishtana recounts the ways in which Jewish textual tradition already discusses multiplicity of racial identity, naming the book of Esther, the Exodus narrative, and more. [3] He argues that Jewish tradition has always explicitly described that they Jews are from many regions, of many colors — but that these sections are glossed over and unstudied. MaNishtana discusses racism in the Jewish community, including an instance where Yehudah Webster was accosted by a group of white Jews while taking a Torah Scroll to his car. They did not believe he was actually Jewish on account of his blackness. [4] MaNishtana explains the importance of white Jews acknowledging their whiteness. He describes how Jews can both implicitly support tenets of white supremacy while also being victims of it, and that acknowledging whiteness is integral to dismantling white supremacy in Jewish communities.