"My mom is a white Jewish lady and my dad is black. The cultures never seemed separate—I had a lot of mixed friends. When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad’s side too."

"I definitely had a bar mitzvah... in an Italian restaurant, mind you. And the song was Backstreet Boys, I want it that way"

"He sings with a real Yiddish turn, with a real Yiddish moan and sigh. The old- time Jewish trope is there and really Jewish… Make no mistake"

"We all have times when we feel we’re stuck, we’re pulled down by our environment, we get left with feeling ‘we can’t’. But if you don’t give up, you can’. You’re too good to fail."

"Like every Jew, my feelings at the (Western) Wall were deep and personal. This is my religious home. It’s great here. A great thrill. It is a kind of oneness I have with Israel and the Jewish people."

"“When someone looks different, that is not the time to ask a bunch of personal questions. It’s a time to say, ‘Welcome. Thank you so much for coming’”

"As a country, we are in a state of denial about issues of race and racism. And too many of our leaders have concluded that the way to remedy racism is to simply stop talking about race."

“I am black. I am an immigrant. I am a Jew. I have an opinion. And I am not going anyplace. Get used to it. #BlackGirlMagic”.