e other" (Kriegel 573). Kriegel argues that the adoption of this overly protective and distrustful stance generates an ongoing series of "misunder-standings and imaginary feelings of victimization" (Kriegel 573).
Kriegel's comments helps to contextualize Lester's motivation for conversion as articulated in Lovesong. In merging his pregiven black identity with his newfound Jewish identity, it is as if Lester is leaping across all racial barriers. Heterologically speaking, he is assimilating the other. He is taking into himself that which would on the surface appear to be most foreign. Lester is able to come to a point of self-validation once he has extinguished any need to see someone else as radically different from himself. For a black man to awaken spiritually and see himself as a Jew, he is overcoming the societal impasse of convention. Lester refuses to be constrained by the color of his skin. He is interested in establishing an identity for himself which has not been predetermined by artificial boundaries.
In Race Matters Cornel West, a leading black theorist and religious scholar, dedicates an entire chapter to "Black-Jewish Relations" (West 103-16). West observes that "black anti-Semitism and Jewish antiblack racism" are real and "as profoundly American as cherry pie" (West 104). West indicates that although there has been no golden age between these two minority groups, there was a better era when they held "the common histories of oppression and degradation . . . as a springboard for genuine empathy and principled alliance" (West 104). West asserts that most blacks fail to recognize and acknowledge the "profound hatred of Jews which sits at the center of medieval and modern Europe" (West 104). In turn, West asserts that Jews fleeing Europe and arriving in America did not sufficiently question the widespread antiblack stereotypes they encountered or their own ability to garner whiteskin privileges unavailable t...