EBONI IS ‘OK’ WITH BACKLASH
‘Housewife’ would do ‘Black Shabbat’ again
Say a little prayer for the Housewives.
Eboni K. Williams, the newest leading lady on “The Real Housewives of New York” — and its first Black cast member — said her well-intentioned “Black Shabbat” wound up upending the celebration.
And she’s all right with that. The journalist and lawyer said she had high hopes after inviting fellow Housewives — Luann de Lesseps, Ramona Singer, Sonja Morgan and Leah McSweeney — to share the Jewish Sabbath, but perhaps to no one’s complete surprise, the night didn’t go as planned.
The event was held at the home of Archie Gottesman, co-founder of Jew Belong, who this summer spearheaded a multicity hot pink ad campaign to address an uptick of anti-Semitism.
Williams, 37, said the impetus was to provide a “space to restore and even expand the relationship between Black and Jewish communities, because I think it’s a really powerful, important thing.”
“And when our communities step into solidarity and alliance, it’s incredible,” she said.
Noting “some deterioration of that” in recent years that “breaks my heart,” Williams said she wanted to highlight the communities’ “shared kinship” — and figured the group might respond differently when they saw her “interest in these issues and humanity and interconnection is not solely based around Blackness — which maybe just felt a little too removed for them.”
Gottesman was similarly optimistic the dinner would “sort of lift that veil of mystery” surrounding Judaism and Shabbat.
“Life is hard enough without sort of taking incoming [fire] that’s meant for other people. And these two women have done that,” said Gottesman, expressing her gratitude to Williams and McSweeney, who is documenting parts of her conversion to Judaism on “RHONY” and was in virtual attendance. “People standing up for the Jewish community doesn’t happen every day.”
Williams’ staunch advocacy for equality — whether racial, religious, sexual or gender identity — hasn’t come without backlash.
The first half of the dinner aired in the wake of May’s outbreak of violence between Israel and Palestine — a clash that was followed by a 115% increase in anti-Semitism.
“If you’re too ignorant to understand that you can say, ‘F—k anti-Semitism,’ which we all should say, and be extremely proactive in Palestinian rights and you don’t understand the coexistence of those two sentiments, you’re too ignorant to really have an opinion on it,” she said, referencing an earlier social media post.
“Do I get backlash? Every single day, multiple times a day,” said Williams. “So I don’t know, I guess I just don’t give a s—t . ... People can hate me for loving people, and I’m OK with that.”
She and Gottesman agree the night ended up to be a “beautiful” experience; the conclusion of the two-parter will air Tuesday. But it wasn’t without 64-year-old Singer’s signature wrath, leaving Williams “just really disgusted.”
“When you literally run out of the room and elect to not listen ... that is a display of willful ignorance. And it will be the undoing of our nation, I truly believe that,” said Williams.
The newest Housewife also wanted to set the record straight about the show returning to light and breezy antics rather than delving into deeper matters, calling the suggestion wrong, and a form of “gaslighting.”
“We’ve addressed on various ‘Housewives’ shows and platforms, suicide . ... We’ve addressed bankruptcy, we’ve addressed alcoholism, this cast in particular. Massive lawsuits, foreclosure. All kinds of serious s—t,” said Williams. “We just happen to decide where that limitation is around upholding, I’m sorry, the white supremacy status quo. We don’t want to be challenged around that.”
Though the Black Shabbat ended well and Williams “would totally do it again,” she’s drawn a line in the sand with Singer.
“We do not have shared values around the issue of, basically shared humanity,” Williams said. “I’m not going to ever put myself in a position to be embarrassed and hurt and disappointed by Ramona again. So, that’s it for me. We can continue to do other things, but she’ll never be invited to another event that I throw.”