6 | NOVEMBER 3 • 2022 

PURELY COMMENTARY

1942 - 2022

Covering and Connecting 
Jewish Detroit Every Week

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A

t an early age, 
Kanye West (now 
Ye) taught us 
the importance of personal 
branding. His music was the 
birth of his 
own hypebeast 
culture, a 
community-
wide apprec-
iation for 
self-investment 
through 
fashion. Who 
cannot forget those iconic 
bar mitzvah shutter-shade 
giveaways? To own a pair of 
the original Nike Air Yeezys 
defined you as the coolest kid 
on the block, and we were 
eager to do anything to get 
our hands on them. 

The music served as a 
healing source of emotional 
comfort for a young Jewish 
teenager who was also going 
through his parent’s divorce 
in his private life, scared 
and pessimistic of rapid life-
altering change. We learned 
general business skills as well 
as the importance of fiscal 
responsibility through the 
streetwear market. We would 
hang out at any sneaker 
convention or consignment 
shop we could find.
Over the past few weeks, 
the artist formerly known 
as Kanye West betrayed my 
Jewish community he helped 
motivate. After reading his 
horrific antisemitic remarks 
on social media, especially 

the words “Death Con 3,” I 
felt a real sense of painful 
disillusionment, fear and, 
above all, rage. 
His follow-up insinuation 
of Jewish people being behind 
the curtains of “cancel-

culture” was appalling, and 
despite its definition as a 
variant of the media control 
trope, Twitter did not remove 
the tweet. It currently has 
more than 385,000 likes, 
conjecturally suggesting 
endorsements of this damning 
message.
We are talking about 
an upper echelon-ranked 
celebrity with 21 Grammys 
and more Twitter followers, 
31 million more specifically, 
than the current Jewish 
population globally, which 
currently sits at over 15 
million and growing.
The further unveiling of 
Kanye’s unaired comments 
that were cut out from 
his interview with Tucker 

Adar Rubin

opinion
Betrayed by Ye 

Artist formally known as Kanye West goes from artistic 
inspiration to a purveyor of antisemitism.

COSMOPOLITAN UK

Kanye 
West

continued on page 9

