Jerusalem – The tall man in the velvet fedora and knee-length black jacket with ritual fringes peeking out takes long, swift strides toward the Western Wall. It’s late in the day, and he does not want to miss afternoon prayers at Judaism’s holiest site.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“We have to get there before the sun goes down,” he says, his stare fixed behind a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, the first clue that this is no ordinary Jewish man of God. It’s the rapper Shyne, the Sean Combs protégé who served almost nine years in New York prisons for opening fire in a nightclub in 1999 during an evening out with Mr. Combs and his girlfriend at the time, Jennifer Lopez.
“My entire life screams that I have a Jewish neshama,” he said, using the Hebrew word for soul.
Living as Moses Levi, an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem (he legally changed his name from Jamal Barrow), he shuttles between sessions of Talmud study with some of the most religiously stringent rabbis in the city and preparations for a musical comeback.
His transition from troubled adolescent in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, shot at the age of 15, to celebrity gangster rapper turned prisoner turned frequenter of yeshivas, is the latest chapter in a bizarre journey that began with his birth in Belize 32 years ago. He is the son of a lawyer who is now that country’s prime minister and a mother who brought him to the United States and cleaned houses for a living.
“The science of Judaism” as Mr. Levi refers to it, has become his system for living, a lifeline that connects him to God and becoming a better human being. He sees no conflict fusing the hip-hop world with the life of a Torah-observant Jew.
Mr. Levi speaks in the style of the urban streets but combines his slang with Yiddish-accented Hebrew words and references to the “Chumash” (the bound version of the Torah, pronounced khoo-MASH) and “Halacha” (Jewish law, pronounced ha-la-KHAH).
Continue reading at The NY Times
Shyne praying the silent Amidah at the Kotel.
Welcome home, Moshe!
Awesome story there’s another very similar ex black rapper turned frum yid his names is Y-love check him out
‘Days are coming says Gd, there will be a hunger in the world, not a hunger for bread nor a thirst for water, but to hear the words of Gd’.
Hashem seems to have a super sense of humor when pulling in geirim. But you never know how this guy can impact on kids at risk in bringing them back to yiddishkeit.
Kol ha kavod.
Nice to hear stories about real Geirei Tzedek. One great product of our Galus and Sheebud Malchius.
#5 ,
You’re a little rashaleh! “sense of humor”?? Why would you even say that?!
As if black gerim are only good at bringing in the kids that are going off the derech, who happen to be going off of the derech because of your failed system. Of course you may think the kids are going off the derech because of Finkel’s treyfe meat, or because of some other superstitious thing.
I wouldn’t normally come down on you so hard, but what you wrote really has the potential to be a big Chillul Hashem, since he and any other gerim may look at your post and get discouraged.
Shyne believes that he has always been Jewish (through his maternal grandmother’s Ethiopian ancestry) and that he is just a ba’al teshuvah who underwent giyur l’chumra.
I don’t chap why everybody is beating up on #3 all he is saying is that this guy isn’t the first black rapper to convert to yiddishkeit, what’s racist about that, and even if he says their similar bec there both black, so what he wasn’t saying that negatively he’s stating a fact, bottom line he made an innocent factual comment that was not racist at all
1. is a brooklyn yeshiva student who has been frum from day one, and started rapping as a jew.
He is a busha vecherpa who is manipulating us and calling us racist when he is leading a double life.
Much in common with the Ger Tzedek who was niftar last month rm”l. Much in common with Y-Love too. All three are hip-hop artists and gerim of African extraction. And since when is it racist to point out that a person is Black? Is it racist to refer to my cousin as Yemenite? Give me a break, and stop bleeding your liberal heart out, the Black People don’t need your help, they are doing just fine.
Is Shyne a toldot aharon chussid? Since he is wearing yerushalaim garb.. Or maybe breslov or karlin-stolin?
he can be friends with mattisyahu and the black hattitude guy
I am the “shkutz” who wrote that “offensive” and “racist” comment. I will not take it back. I am not a racist and never have been, all i meant was that this man isnt the first African-american non jew in the music biz to convert to Judaism. thats all i dont know how anybody could twist that into being racist, i just hope that all the people who are so worried about racism against blacks, first work on there bein adam lchaveiro and stop speaking lashon hora.
Dear VIN. Please zoom in on the above photo, so I can see on which side of his hat lies the bow, determining which chassidic sect he’s presently chill’n in!
If one don’t have a jewish soul, there is no conversion in the world the will make one jewish.
Liking judaism or finding it attractive, interesting, beautiful, etc.. are not enough reasons to convert.
I’m pretty sure 90% of all conversions are illegitimate.
Why isn’t he davening from a siddur? He knows shemonei esrei by heart?
I am 50 years old, frum from birth, and I don’t know tefilos by heart.
Maybe he’s just moving is lips and mumbling.
First of all, someone can be Hispanic and black so it is not racist to call a hispanic person black.
Second of all, why is everyone always bashing everoyne here ?THIS IS NUTS.
What does it matter if he has tefillos memorized to you, what does it matter what kind of kippa he is wearing or anything else,
he’s a Jew and we are required to love him and not judge him.
#35- there are people much younger than you that do have tefillos memorized. You can take that to mean that you have more kevuna, or maybe they just have a better memory. It comes in handyi f you don’t have a siddur with you and something comes up.