MaNishtana

MaNishtana is an author, educator, rabbi, and public speaker, whose work on racial and religious identity & culture–and how their intersections manifest in America–takes prejudice, bias, and ignorance head on, asking the questions about humanity, race, religion, and social injustice that we all have (and maybe are afraid to talk about), with gut-punching insight and gut-busting sarcasm.

A New York-based African-American Orthodox Jew born from two African-American Orthodox Jewish parents, MaNishtana grew up Chabad-Lubavitch and hails on his mother’s side from a legacy of African-American Judaism reaching back for more than two centuries.

His unique, humorous, and often irreverent outlook on Judaism, race politics, and racial issues within Judaism and without have garnered appearances in both national and international press–including the New York Times, New York Magazine, the Jewish Week, the Jerusalem Post, Tachles, and D La Reppublica–as well as earning him inclusion in such lists as The Jewish Week's "36 Under 36" for 2014, the ROI Summit of 2016, and Jewish Telegraphic Agency's "50 Jews Everyone Should Follow on Twitter" and Forward Magazine's "Forward 50", both of 2019.

A presenter to both the BBYO International Convention and ELI Talks in 2017, his speaking engagements have included Limmud UK, Limmud Oz, Limmud NY, Birthright Israel NEXT, Boston University, University of Kentucky, the Hamptons Synagogue, The Jewish Federation, The Anti-Defamation League, and the Eliezer Society at Yale, among others, and his work has appeared in Jewish Daily Forward, Tablet Magazine, and Hevria.

His debut novel “Ariel Samson, Freelance Rabbi” won as Finalist for the 2018 National Jewish Book Award’s Goldberg Award in the category of Debut Fiction, and is an Amazon Kindle Top 50 bestseller in the category of Jewish American Fiction.

Additionally, MaNishtana has been a contributor to both the "The Kveller Haggadah: A Seder for Curious Kids (and Their Grownups)", and the Tablet Magazine-published James Beard Award Nominee “The 100 Most Jewish Foods: A Highly Debatable List,” and has appeared on film in the documentaries Punk Jews (2012) and Doing Jewish: A Story From Ghana (2016).

Nonetheless, MaNishtana eagerly looks forward to the day when he has nothing left to say. Until then, he can be reached at manishtana@manishtana.net.