Ezra is a Black, Jewish boy with a big family and lots of questions. On Shabbat, however, the Jewish day of rest, the question foremost in his mind, however, is “Can you tie a knot on Shabbat?” No one in his family seems to have the answer, so he asks his rabbi, who, in the grand tradition of rabbis (says this reviewer who is Jewish herself), offers an answer that is less than definitive. The lack of definition, though, is because of the great diversity of Jewish practice, the rabbi tells Ezra.
Ezra is puzzled, though. What is he supposed to do?
In the end, we learn the amusing reason Ezra asked this question—but more importantly, we’ve received an important message about the variety of people who practice Judaism around the world.
The LGBTQ content here is minimal, but we see a two-dad family among the members of Ezra’s congregation. I’m including it in this database nonetheless, because I feel the depiction of a biracial (Black/White) family like Ezra’s, modeled after author Aviva L. Brown’s own family, is an important bit of representation, too.
