Ice Cube agrees to support condemning antisemitism with ZOA president

Abdul-Jabbar wrote an op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter taking celebrities to task for posting antisemitic statements on social media.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Rapper Ice Cube poses by his star after it was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles (photo credit: REUTERS)
Rapper Ice Cube poses by his star after it was unveiled on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles
(photo credit: REUTERS)
Pro-Israel advocate and president of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Klein announced via his Twitter page on Tuesday that he had 2-hour conversation with rapper Ice Cube where he claims that the musical artist supports condemning antisemitism and racism.
"I, Mort Klein, just had a 2-hour conversation with Ice Cube. We both grew up poor in Black hoods. Cube told me he thanked Jews for starting NAACP, many Black schools and fighting for Black civil rights. Cube told me he supports condemning Black and all antisemitism, and I condemned all racism," Klein said on Twitter Tuesday.

Ice Cube has been immersed in a row as of late, after condemning NBA Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for writing an article mentioning the rapper on the topic of antisemitism, as well as tweeting an image of a mural that was removed from a wall in London in 2012 after complaints that the image was antisemitic.
The rapper vehemently denies that he supports antisemitism – or racism for that matter - mentioning that he only took issue with the article because he was mentioned in the article without being contacted first.
"Just for the record: I still love Kareem Abdul Jabbar definitely had a right to write against Antisemitism and racism," Ice Cube wrote on his Twitter page on Monday. "I was just hurt to be added into that article without a conversation to tell him that I am neither. But there is no wedge between me and my brother."

"No matter how many times I tell some people I hate Antisemitism and Racism they still wanna keep this narrative going for some strange reason," he added.

Abdul-Jabbar wrote an op-ed in The Hollywood Reporter, taking celebrities to task for posting antisemitic statements on social media.

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His latest column named Ice Cube among various figures from the entertainment world he cited for perpetuating antisemitic canards.
“Shame on the Hollywood Reporter who obviously gave my brother Kareem 30 pieces of silver to cut us down without even a phone call,” Ice Cube tweeted.

The reference to “30 pieces of silver” is a nod to Judas, the disciple said to have betrayed Jesus.
“Just when you thought @icecube could not get any more Antisemitic …” international human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky tweeted in response.
Abdul-Jabbar’s column noted a series of tweets Ice Cube had posted in early June, including the previously mentioned mural some have called antisemitic and images associated with conspiracy theories against Jews.

The tweet regarding the mural came amid a torrent of expressions of support from the rapper for the Black Lives Matter movement in recent days. The image by Los Angeles artist Mear One was painted on a building in London’s East End in 2012. It was removed after complaints, but future-Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn at the time tweeted his support for artist’s right to display it. He later backtracked.
British journalist Michael Segalov, who wrote about the issue in 2018, tweeted to Ice Cube to say the image was antisemitic. The rapper later tweeted that he was “very concerned about the table in this image,” but did not remove it.
On June 30, the rapper’s attorneys filed a cease-and-desist order against journalists Charles Nash of Mediaite and Marlow Stern of the Daily Beast for publishing “outrageously false unverified, and disparaging allegations regarding Ice Cube,” whose given name is O’Shea Jackson. 
"Don't play with me. This is just phase one," Ice Cube said, referencing the cease-and-desist order.
The letter, sent from a Los Angeles law firm, specifically refers to “the ridiculous, false accusation that Ice Cube ordered his ‘entourage to beat up a rabbi,’ was sued for it, and that he is antisemitic.”
Last month, the Daily Beast published an article by Stern titled “Ice Cube’s long, disturbing history of antisemitism.” In an article published days later on the Mediaite website, Nash repeated the claims, citing the Daily Beast article.
JTA and Zachary Keyser contributed to this report.


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