Amy Winehouse’s dramatic eye makeup and iconic beehive weren’t the singer’s only fashion statements. Winehouse, who died four years ago July 23, is back in the spotlight with the July 3 release of the documentary Amy. In it, she is frequently seen wearing a thick, gold Star of David pendant around her neck.
Director Asif Kapadia’s new film captures the British sensation’s short, explosive career before she died of alcohol poisoning at age 27. But what about her Jewish religious heritage? In the film, Nick Gatfield — the Island Records executive who signed Winehouse at age 18 — describes her as “a classic North London Jewish girl.” But was she?
Here are five facts about the six-time Grammy Award winner’s Jewish upbringing.
There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about the situation in South Sudan. But as I saw on my trip, there are also reasons to be hopeful. Working for a faith-based organization provides many opportunities for me to not only reflect on my faith but also put it in to action in my day-to-day work. While I grew up outside of a specific congregation, my parents instilled in me from an early age the importance of helping those in need, no matter their race, religion, or any other difference because we are all equal in the eyes of God. It’s this idea, paired with my love of learning about cultures, which put me on this path of working for an organization like Lutheran World Relief. I feel blessed because I wake up every day excited to go to work. While there are many daunting challenges in the relief field, I chose to see the good when possible because if you look closely, hope is there in even in the darkest of places.
Here are a few inspiring highlights from what I witnessed in South Sudan.
Not too long after being introduced to John 3:16, I was taught Psalm 139:13: “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Now that I was a Christian, it was important I understood that Christians are anti-abortion, that life begins at conception, and that terminating life is nothing short of murder. Throughout college, I carried the cause of the pro-life movement in a symbol tacked on my school bag: a miniature pair of feet, a replica of a 10-week old baby in utero, intricately shaped in sterling silver.
I didn’t think about it. I never HAD to think about it, having never carried an unwanted pregnancy. For me, the pro-life movement was simple, uncomplicated, pretty, and as sanitized as a small silver ornament. That is, until I moved to China, a country well known for its high rate of abortions — including forced abortions, particularly of baby girls.
A gunman opened fire in a Lafayette, La., movie theater Thursday evening during a showing of Trainwreck, killing two and injuring nine, before turning the gun on himself, according to multiple news reports. Police say they know the identity of the shooter — described as a white, 58-year-old male — but are not yet releasing his name.
Our cultural pattern of becoming scandalized by the other side isn’t helping. Whichever side we are on, becoming the morality police is only making the scandal worse as we scapegoat and talk past each other. This pattern gets us stuck in a scandal of unhealthy righteous indignation over and against our opponents.
The alternative to getting stuck in a scandal isn’t to avoid scandals, but rather to go through them. As we go through them, we might just discover ourselves becoming un-scandalized as we see that the other is actually motivated by a good goal. In acknowledging the other’s good goal, we begin to see them as human and not the evil demons our minds have made them out to be.
For the past thirty years my family has vacationed in Charleston, S.C. I spent eight years living, going to school, and working in Charleston; I met my wife there, got married there, and it is still a place we count as home when people ask.
The shootings at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston let loose a flood of memories long shoved into the recesses of my mind. One of these was when I was the youth director for a large white affluent congregation, and the youth groups at Mother Emanuel and my church performed a joint Youth Sunday service in the late 90s.
Driving from Asheville, N.C, to Charleston shortly after the shootings, my heart grew heavy as I wondered what to do when we arrived. Nothing I envisioned captured the heaviness I felt; the need to be useful. I decided to sleep on it.
Even before it hit comic store shelves in May, Marvel’s all-female series A-Force started picking up attention — most of it well-deserved. Co-written by Marguerite Bennett and G. Willow Wilson, whose other credits include a series starring a Muslim teenage girl (see "Real Life, With Superpowers," Sojourners, August 2014),A-Force is Marvel’s new, lady-led Avengers team, who patrol and protect the island community of Arcadia.
Or as New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore said in a less-than-complimentary essay, "A-Force is a race of lady Avengers, led by She-Hulk, who come from a ‘feminist paradise,’ but I don’t know what that could possibly mean, because they all look like porn stars."
Lepore’s argument is that for all its positing as the latest in a series of progressive moves by Marvel, A-Force’sgender representation leaves much to be desired. The series features heroines who are, in several cases, female versions of existing male superheroes, rather than their own independent characters.
"Marvel is trying very hard to deal with the fact that its superheroes are mainly men and just turning them into women seemed as good a plan as any," argues Lepore, who recently wrote a book on Wonder Woman’s feminist origins.
It’s not often words escape us. But in the aftermath of the now viral recording(s) raising concerns over whether Planned Parenthood seeks profit from aborted fetal tissue — and the crassness with which its representative discusses how to accomplish it without “crushing” the tissue/organs — that’s where we were left: with no words. We confess to being at a complete loss of what to say in the face of humanity’s brokenness.
Beyond the ethical questions of how an organization receives payment for tissue sales or the debates around the potential benefits of the patients’ donations of fetal tissue, the videos are an in-your-face reminder of our culture’s blatant disrespect for life.
That disregard is not unique in our society, of course. Journalism: “If it bleeds, it leads.” Medicine: “There’s nothing more to be done. She’s a vegetable.” Justice system: “He’s gonna fry.” War: “Light ‘em up.” Uncomfortable questions about life and death and ethics are best papered over with emotionless cliché, obviously.
As a society and as individuals, when we fail to recognize the imago dei in others, we trend further away from our uniquely human capacity to empathize and closer to isolated, analytical, and almost robotic assessments of value.
A federal grand jury in South Carolina indicted Dylann Roof today on 33 counts, including hate crime charges.
In a statement at the Department of Justice, Attorney General Loretta Lynch noted that Roof targeted not only black people, but black people inside a church.
"To carry out these twin goals of fanning racial flames and exacting revenge, Roof further decided to seek out and murder African-Americans because of their race," said Lynch.
Rob Bell is on the move. In his “Everything is Spiritual” tour, which makes its way through the Washington, D.C., metro this evening, he is focusing on the connections between science and spirituality and how we can sit within the reality of our ever-expanding universe. Sojourners’ Catherine Woodiwiss spoke with the author and speaker to talk spirituality, the “nones,” Oprah, science, and surfing.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.