(JTA) – Between 2008 and 2011, “The Wire,” HBO’s groundbreaking police drama, was one of the ways I survived in Yeshiva. Tosafot and Rambam all day, Brother Mouzone, Avon Barksdale and McNulty late at night.
Our Beit Midrash had a lower main part and an upper part up a few steps. These were the low-rise buildings and the high-rise buildings. The fish pond in the garden was the harbor. When one of my rabbis asked about my dating life, I remembered the scene in which Avon asked young Marlo how things were going on the street. Like Marlo, I replied, “It’s all in the game.”
I can make my madness my own, but I wasn’t alone. A friend who had attended elite private schools and universities in the UK before moving to Israel to work in technology – his life was as far from the Baltimore ghettos as possible – told me that he was “The Wire “Loved so much because” I can “deal so well with the characters.”
As ridiculous and outrageous as this is, it is a testament to the unique brilliance of “The Wire”. I can only surmise that when Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews reacted in this way to The Wire, other cultural subsets were similarly riveted.
It’s too easy to call it the greatest TV show of all time. It is a strong competitor for the strongest presentation and harsh criticism of inner-city America – as topical as it was when it first appeared. While “The Sopranos” is a microscopic focus across five seasons of a single individual, “The Wire” has a cast of hundreds. My Havruta at Cambridge, a student of English literature who first introduced me to the series, made the astute observation that The Wire can usefully be compared to a Dickens novel in which the main character is the city of London. The central figure in “The Wire” is the city of Baltimore.
But despite all this brilliance, a character particularly noticed. Omar Little, a scary prostitute who nonetheless lived by a code of honor, stole almost every scene he appeared in. As The Guardian once put it, “If ‘The Wire’ is a cult, Omar is a cult within a cult.”
The actor who played Omar Little, Michael K. Williams, died last week on the eve of Rosh Hashanah at the age of 54. Years after the show aired, I had the privilege of meeting Williams. His death and the memories he brought back suggested what Society in general, and the Jewish community in particular, can learn from his life.
In 2015 I started working as a rabbi at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Life at New York University. There’s more to downtown Manhattan than just its fair share of famous people, and one day the man I could only think of as Omar literally nudged me. Any desire to respect one’s privacy was overwhelmed by my excitement. Far from being annoyed at my intrusion, he was exceedingly gracious and even agreed to take up a Shanah Tovah greeting for our community. We agreed to go get coffee a few weeks later.
Modest, amiable, curious I would describe this coffee.
I asked a few questions about “The Wire”. Was the truce on Sunday – when belligerent gangs lay down their arms – really a thing? I told him how many Jews were obsessed with the show and completely amazed when I showed him the brilliant Omar-Omer counter.
We spoke personally. He told me that the money he made on The Wire had been spent, but that a new opportunity would arise and the proceeds would be well used. He told me about his family and his plan to spend Thanksgiving with his mother, siblings, and extended family. I told him about my mother-in-law who was battling cancer. He felt empathy and recommended various CBD oils to relieve her pain.
I told him about my work with students at NYU, and he told me about his nephew, who recently stepped out of prison after 20 years, and the HBO documentary “Raised in the System” they made together focused on the school-to-prison pipeline. He wanted to find an audience for the documentary’s message. I wanted to find a way for our community to think seriously about criminal justice. We decided to work together.
Few of the honors in the past few days have focused on Michael’s work as an activist, but I’m pretty confident that if he could choose one of his works that people would see after his death, it would be “Grew up in the system. “
Shortly before Passover, in the spring of 2019, the Bronfman Center and the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on the NYU campus invited Michael to view the documentary and hold a panel discussion.
It is impossible to watch the documentary and not break yourself over the lives of beautiful young people who are drawn into the prison industrial complex. In its 45 minutes, the documentary takes a viewer from the subject’s outsider to a passionate believer that incarceration rates are a national priority that must and can be addressed.
But the stars of the evening were not Michael and the documentary, but the guests he brought with him to tell their stories.
Dominic Dupont, Michael’s nephew and documentary partner, was recently released after two decades of imprisonment for murder. He said he “treated the prison like a university,” acquired a counseling qualification, and became an inspiration to other prisoners to change their lives.
Derrick Hamilton, who spent 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, taught himself law in prison and overturned his convictions – and that of many of his fellow inmates wrongly sentenced.
Dana Rachlin, a young Jewish woman who works with Michael frequently, came with a dozen black teenagers whom she referred to as “her children.” Dana had started a charity that worked with children in the Brooklyn schools with the highest school-to-prison graduation rates. Their work tried to break that pipeline and had achieved remarkable results.
Awe and humility are my lasting memories of the evening. A crowded hall of Jewish students thought hard about what imprisonment and freedom might look like, and how justice might be structured around atonement for crimes and self-improvement rather than punishment. Without exception, the students who approached me afterwards – none of whom had an activist background – expressed how much they would bring to their Seder tables from the evening.
Michael, Dominic, Derrick, and Dana stayed for dinner after the event, sharing stories, taking photos, and answering questions. Schmoozing. Not only did they tell their critical stories, but they had come to meet the audience, hear their stories, and find common ground. A friend of mine – a rabbi from an Orthodox synagogue in the UK – saw my Facebook posts about the event and got Derrick and Dana to speak to his congregation.
After the event, Michael said to me, “If the black and Jewish communities could work together, nothing could stop us.”
Michael wanted to tell the story of his own community, but at the same time expressed a real curiosity about the Jewish community. We discussed having a series of conversations with one another about the book of Exodus – the original story of slavery and liberation – and what it means for our time. One day he was in the building at the same time as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, and expressed an interest in meeting the man I had described to him as “the leading Jewish thinker, one obsessed with justice.” “The student meeting with Rabbi Sacks was working overtime, otherwise the king would have met the Lord.
Michael was open about his struggles with addiction and died of a suspected drug overdose. During this week of preparation for Yom Kippur, I thought of his death. It feels appropriate to think about what we can all learn from those facing struggles similar to Michael.
Maimonides lists the threefold requirement of teshuwa or repentance as confession (vidui), regret (charata) and determination for the future (kabala l’atid). I have seen no better lived example of struggling to live these three elements than those struggling to overcome addiction.
The people I got to know, like Michael, for whom every day is a challenge, show us the truth that we should all remember that Teshuwa is not something that is “achieved”, a goal that is achieved will. Rather, teshuvah, like recovery from addiction, is an ongoing process and struggle that never ends but requires constant work and regular review.
While going through many struggles, Michael simultaneously used his history, fame, and innate brilliance to help others. And he did so with humility and a smile.
No matter how great Omar Little is, Michael K. Williams was infinitely taller. May his memory be a blessing.
is a rabbi of the Orthodox community at New York University and received the 36 Under 36 award from Jewish Week in 2020 for his COVID relief work.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company 70 Faces Media.
source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/16/the-omar-i-knew-what-the-wire-actor-michael-k-williams-taught-my-jewish-students-at-nyu/
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