My adopted 'Jewish' uncle

Here is a link to one of my all-time heroes. Dr Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah.  Please click HERE

“In the early Eighties when Punks and Rastas were on the streets protesting about SUS Laws, high unemployment, homelessness and the National Front, Zephaniah's poetry could be heard on the demonstrations, at youth gatherings, outside police stations, and on the dance floor. It was once said of him that he was Britain's most filmed, photographed, and identifiable poet, this was because of his ability to perform on stage, but most of all on television, bringing Dub Poetry straight into British living rooms.”

He’s live on Radio 4 right now. Please click HERE

 

 

Now then. I've never met him. I’m determined to though. And there’s no direct Jewish connection to this remarkable man other than … he has the wisdom of years, the human warmth, the extraordinary refined skill of catalyzing genuine empathy and all the other things that in my adolescence I’d so hoped for from my uncles and yet was curiously absent. Thus the good Dr. is my adopted 'Jewish' uncle. He doesn’t know it yet!

Howard