Podcast appearances and mentions of queen sheba

You are a queen, but it's up to you to decide whether you will live as a Jezebel or a Sheba.Drawing from the biblical story of Queen Sheba, Dr. Gabe challenges women to reflect deeply on what it means to walk in true leadership and divine purpose. He calls for a break from societal norms and cultural limitations, urging women to pursue spiritual depth, embrace their anointing, and live boldly in the fullness of their God-given potential.Support the showText encounteratl to 94000 to stay up-to-date on all things Encounter.Worship with EncounterSundays at 9 AM ET | Wednesdays at 7:30 PM ETSupport EncounterText egive to 77977 Connect with EncounterFacebook | Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | WebsiteConnect with Dr. GabeInstagram | YouTube | Website

Join Shannon and Christine with surprise expert guests Floacist & Queen Sheba as they chat about Financial Wellness and celebrate National Poetry Month on episode 190 of Women Connected in Wisdom!   Shealo Glo - www.shealoglo.com  Now offering Subscriptions * Delivered on the 1st & 15th!  Stillpoint - https://www.amazon.com/Stillpoint-Self-Care-Playbook-Caregivers-Breathe/dp/1732370400 Join us in community:  https://women-connected-in-wisdom.mn.co/feed Listen to past episodes: https://womenconnectedinwisdompodcast.com/ Join Christine at an event:  https://linktr.ee/christinegautreauxmsw Book a free coaching consult with Christine here:  https://christinegautreaux.com Like & Subscribe to get notifications of when we are live: Instagram @womenconnectedinwisdompodcast - https://www.instagram.com/womenconnectedinwisdompodcast/ Facebook page Women Connected in Wisdom Podcast - https://www.facebook.com/womenconnectedinwisdompodcast   Check Out The Upcoming show at www.citywinery.com The Floacist - Wikipedia https://www.eventbrite.com/e/womans-writing-retreat-wthe-floacist-of-floetry-grammy-poet-queen-sheba-tickets-1308758565099?aff=odcleoeventsincollection FLO Vortex Connect with Queen Sheba: https://www.instagram.com/thequeensheba https://www.instagram.com/poetryvshiphop https://www.instagram.com/awomanswordsglobal THE FLOACIST (of Floetry) 8x Grammy Nominated Platinum Recording Artist QUEEN SHEBA 2x Grammy Nominated Spoken Word-Poet Int'l Recording Artist A Womans Word National Poetry Month Tour - Atlanta - City Winery

EPISODE 262 RHYMES AND REAL TALK . Summary . In this episode of This is the G Podcast, host Tommy B welcomes Queen Sheba, a two-time Grammy-nominated spoken word artist, who shares her experiences and upcoming projects, including a live album taping and a national tour. The conversation touches on themes of authenticity in art, the impact of recent political events, and the challenges faced by communities in light of current social issues. The episode also features discussions on celebrity news, church fundraising tactics, and the importance of accountability in leadership. . Chapters . 00:00 Introduction and Welcome to the Podcast 00:48 Queen Sheba's Tour and Memorial Visit 03:55 Upcoming Live Album and Poetry Tour 07:49 Discussion on Business and Authenticity in Art 10:59 The Importance of Authenticity in Poetry 12:59 Wrap-Up and Future Plans 19:15 Current Events and Political Commentary 27:36 The Ethics of Fundraising in Faith Communities 33:20 The Role of Financial Transparency in Churches 34:59 Community Responsibility and Financial Contributions 39:43 Celebrity News and Personal Struggles 45:39 Pop Culture Reflections and Social Commentary 48:07 Political Discussions and Social Security Issues 49:57 The Accountability of Leadership 51:17 Critique of Elon Musk's Business Practices 53:09 The Role of Venture Capitalists in Corporate America 55:42 The Consequences of Economic Decisions 57:14 The Call for Social Action and Protests 01:00:12 Impact of Layoffs on Communities 01:01:59 The Importance of Political Engagement 01:08:30 CLOSE . #QueenSheba #spokenword #livealbum #authenticity #Grammy #politicalcommentary #celebritynews #churchfundraising #socialsecurity #communityactivism #MarvinSapp #ElonMusk #April5Protest . SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Give $25 For 2025  https://linktr.ee/thisisthegpodcast    

EPISODE 258 WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH WITH QUEEN SHEBA AND GEORGIA ME . Summary . In this episode, host Tommy B, Tonya B and Talib Shabazz talk with Queen Sheba and Georgia Me about the upcoming Metaverse showcase in celebration of International Women's Day March 8 at Atlanta's City Winery. They explore themes of empowerment, recognition in the arts, and the importance of supporting women in various fields. The conversation also touches on the recent Grammy nominations, political commentary regarding current events, and reflections on cultural issues in entertainment. . Chapters . 00:00 Introduction and Background of Queen Sheba 08:07 Metaverse Showcase and Women's History Month 16:07 Empowerment and Civil Rights 21:50 Grammys and Recognition in Spoken Word 28:19 Political Commentary and Current Events 35:55 Cultural Reflections and Entertainment News 47:45 Reflections on Chris Rock and SNL Highlights 49:55 Soap Opera Drama: Beyond the Gates 52:52 Angela Bassett's Oscar Controversy 59:49 Political Roundtable: Current Events and Reactions 01:16:24 CLOSE . #QueenSheba #Metaverse #WomensHistoryMonth #empowerment #Grammys #politicalcommentary #entertainmentnews #spokenword #Atlantaculture #ZelenskyTrump #BeyondTheGates #RobertaFlack   . SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Give $25 For 2025  https://linktr.ee/thisisthegpodcast . Episode includes the song “W.A.R.” By Queen Sheba. Use by permission of artist.    

EPISODE 250 SPOKEN WORD POET QUEEN SHEBA . Summary In this episode of 'This is the G Podcast', host Tommy B welcomes Queen Sheba, a Grammy-nominated spoken word artist. They discuss the significance of her album 'Civil Writes', the importance of January 3rd for Grammy nominations, and the impact of her foster care background on her creativity. Queen Sheba shares insights into her creative process, the challenges of writing in a political climate, and offers advice for aspiring poets. The conversation also touches on her hopes for the future and the influences that shaped her poetic voice. . Chapters . 00:00 Welcome Back and Introduction to Queen Sheba 03:18 The Significance of January 3rd 11:10 Foster Care and Its Impact on Creativity 16:36 Creative Process and Audience Connection 21:01 Truth Telling in Poetry and Political Engagement 23:23 Navigating a Tumultuous Climate 24:56 The Legacy of Poets and Political Commentary 27:28 The Art of Authentic Expression 28:48 Collaborations and Organic Connections 31:38 Advice for Aspiring Poets 33:52 Aspirations and the Future of Spoken Word 37:24 Influences and Inspirations in Poetry 40:07 Connecting with the Audience 48:29 CLOSE Animated Female Voice Outro.mp4 . #QueenSheba #spokenword #poetry #Grammynomination #fostercare #creativeprocess #politicalpoetry #aspiringpoets #artisticcollaboration, #influences . FOLLOW QUEEN SHEBA @THEQUEENSHEBA SUPPORT THE PODCAST! Give $25 For 2025 https://linktr.ee/thisisthegpodcast  

Welcome to the Intuition Exchange on the Magnetizing Mindset Podcast where we dive into transformative stories from extraordinary souls, just like you, who trusted their inner wisdom and reshaped their lives in remarkable ways. Tune into today's episode for Queen Sheba's story of how choosing to listen to her intuition saved her life. If you are looking for a conversation that empowers you to trust within yourself, tune into this episode.Queen Sheba is a 2024 Grammy Nominated Spoken Word Poet, Professor & Adult Athlete. Her energy is powerful, magnetic and it was truly a gift to have a conversation with her! Be sure to support her through the links below. Connect + Support Queen Sheba Below:Listen to “CIVIL WRITES: The South Got Something to Say” HERE Connect on Instagram HERE Connect on Facebook HERE Visit her  Website HERE Karlie's Links:Join her 4 week Intuition Course  “It's Just Practical Magic” waitlist HERE Connect on Instagram HERE If you enjoyed today's episode please share it with someone that may enjoy and leave us a review to show your support!Sending light,Karlie

Listen to the premiere episode of the second season of The Forgotten Exodus, the multi-award-winning, chart-topping, and first-ever narrative podcast series to focus exclusively on Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews. This week's episode focuses on Jews from Tunisia. If you like what you hear, subscribe before the next episode drops on September 3. “In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA, we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us . . . I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity... I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation.”  Hen Mazzig, a writer, digital creator, and founder of the Tel Aviv Institute, shares his powerful journey as a proud Israeli, LGBTQ+, and Mizrahi Jew, in the premiere episode of the second season of the award-winning podcast, The Forgotten Exodus. Hen delves into his family's deep roots in Tunisia, their harrowing experiences during the Nazi occupation, and their eventual escape to Israel. Discover the rich history of Tunisia's ancient Amazigh Jewish community, the impact of French colonial and Arab nationalist movements on Jews in North Africa, and the cultural identity that Hen passionately preserves today. Joining the conversation is historian Lucette Valensi, an expert on Tunisian Jewish culture, who provides scholarly insights into the longstanding presence of Jews in Tunisia, from antiquity to their exodus in the mid-20th century. ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  "Penceresi Yola Karsi" -- by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Danielyan Ashot Makichevich (BMI), IPI Name #00855552512, United States BMI “Tunisia Eastern”: Publisher: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Composer: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Item ID#155836469. “At The Rabbi's Table”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Fazio Giulio (IPI/CAE# 00198377019). “Fields Of Elysium”; Publisher: Mysterylab Music; Composer: Mott Jordan; ID#79549862  “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel)”; Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081 “Tunisian Pot Dance (Short)”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: kesokid, ID #97451515 “Middle East Ident”; Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Alon Marcus (ACUM), IPI#776550702 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ___ Episode Transcript: HEN MAZZIG: They took whatever they had left and they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected, and that she was coming home. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-20th century. Welcome to the second season of The Forgotten Exodus, brought to you by American Jewish Committee. This series explores that pivotal moment in history and the little-known Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations. As Jews around the world confront violent antisemitism and Israelis face daily attacks by terrorists on multiple fronts, our second season explores how Jews have lived throughout the region for generations–despite hardship, hostility, and hatred–then sought safety and new possibilities in their ancestral homeland. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore untold family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience from this transformative and tumultuous period of history for the Jewish people and the Middle East.  The world has ignored these voices. We will not. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: leaving Tunisia. __ [Tel Aviv Pride video] MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: Every June, Hen Mazzig, who splits his time between London and Tel Aviv, heads to Israel to show his Pride. His Israeli pride. His LGBTQ+ pride. And his Mizrahi Jewish pride. For that one week, all of those identities coalesce.  And while other cities around the world have transformed Pride into a June version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Israel is home to one of the few vibrant LGBTQ communities in the Middle East. Tel Aviv keeps it real. HEN: For me, Pride in Israel, in Tel Aviv, it still has this element of fighting for something. And that it's important for all of us to show up and to come out to the Pride Parade because if we're not going to be there, there's some people with agendas to erase us and we can't let them do it. MANYA: This year, the Tel Aviv Pride rally was a more somber affair as participants demanded freedom for the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza since October 7th.  On that day, Hamas terrorists bent on erasing Jews from the Middle East went on a murderous rampage, killing more than 1,200, kidnapping 250 others, and unleashing what has become a 7-front war on Israel. HEN: In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us, and we had to fight. And the LGBTQ+ community also knows very well how hard it is. I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity. And I don't want anyone to go through that. I don't want my children to go through that. I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation. MANYA: Hen Mazzig is an international speaker, writer, and digital influencer. In 2022, he founded the Tel Aviv Institute, a social media laboratory that tackles antisemitism online. He's also a second-generation Israeli, whose maternal grandparents fled Iraq, while his father's parents fled Tunisia – roots that echo in the family name: Mazzig. HEN: The last name Mazzig never made sense, because in Israel a lot of the last names have meaning in Hebrew.  So I remember one of my teachers in school was saying that Mazzig sounds like mozeg, which means pouring in Hebrew. Maybe your ancestors were running a bar or something? Clearly, this teacher did not have knowledge of the Amazigh people. Which, later on I learned, several of those tribes, those Amazigh tribes, were Jewish or practiced Judaism, and that there was 5,000 Jews that came from Tunisia that were holding both identities of being Jewish and Amazigh.  And today, they have last names like Mazzig, and Amzaleg, Mizzoug. There's several of those last names in Israel today. And they are the descendants of those Jewish communities that have lived in the Atlas Mountains. MANYA: The Atlas Mountains. A 1,500-mile chain of magnificent peaks and treacherous terrain that stretch across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastline.  It's where the nomadic Amazigh have called home for thousands of years. The Amazigh trace their origins to at least 2,000 BCE  in western North Africa. They speak the language of Tamazight and rely on cattle and agriculture as their main sources of income.  But textiles too. In fact, you've probably heard of the Amazigh or own a rug woven by them. A Berber rug. HEN: Amazigh, which are also called Berbers. But they're rejecting this term because of the association with barbarians, which was the title that European colonialists when they came to North Africa gave them. There's beautiful folklore about Jewish leaders within the Amazigh people. One story that I really connected to was the story of Queen Dihya that was also known as El-Kahina, which in Arabic means the Kohen, the priest, and she was known as this leader of the Amazigh tribes, and she was Jewish.  Her derrogaters were calling her a Jewish witch, because they said that she had the power to foresee the future. And her roots were apparently connected to Queen Sheba and her arrival from Israel back to Africa. And she was the descendant of Queen Sheba. And that's how she led the Amazigh people.  And the stories that I read about her, I just felt so connected. How she had this long, black, curly hair that went all the way down to her knees, and she was fierce, and she was very committed to her identity, and she was fighting against the Islamic expansion to North Africa.  And when she failed, after years of holding them off, she realized that she can't do it anymore and she's going to lose. And she was not willing to give up her Jewish identity and convert to Islam and instead she jumped into a well and died. This well is known today in Tunisia. It's the [Bir] Al-Kahina or Dihya's Well that is still in existence. Her descendants, her kids, were Jewish members of the Amazigh people.  Of course, I would like to believe that I am the descendant of royalty. MANYA: Scholars debate whether the Amazigh converted to Judaism or descended from Queen Dihya and stayed.  Lucette Valensi is a French scholar of Tunisian history who served as a director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, one of the most prestigious institutions of graduate education in France. She has written extensively about Tunisian Jewish culture.   Generations of her family lived in Tunisia. She says archaeological evidence proves Jews were living in that land since Antiquity. LUCETTE VALENSI: I myself am a Chemla, born Chemla. And this is an Arabic name, which means a kind of belt. And my mother's name was Tartour, which is a turban [laugh]. So the names were Arabic. So my ancestors spoke Arabic. I don't know if any of them spoke Berber before, or Latin. I have no idea. But there were Jews in antiquity and of course, through Saint Augustin. MANYA: So when did Jews arrive in Tunisia? LUCETTE: [laugh] That's a strange question because they were there since Antiquity. We have evidence of their presence in mosaics of synagogues, from the times of Byzantium. I think we think in terms of a short chronology, and they would tend to associate the Jews to colonization, which does not make sense, they were there much before French colonization. They were there for millennia. MANYA: Valensi says Jews lived in Tunisia dating to the time of Carthage, an ancient city-state in what is now Tunisia, that reached its peak in the fourth century BCE. Later, under Roman and then Byzantine rule, Carthage continued to play a vital role as a center of commerce and trade during antiquity.  Besides the role of tax collectors, Jews were forbidden to serve in almost all public offices. Between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, conditions fluctuated between relief and forced conversions while under Christian rule.  After the Islamic conquest of Tunisia in the seventh and early eighth centuries CE, the treatment of Jews largely depended on which Muslim ruler was in charge at the time.  Some Jews converted to Islam while others lived as dhimmis, or second-class citizens, protected by the state in exchange for a special tax known as the jizya. In 1146, the first caliph of the Almohad dynasty, declared that the Prophet Muhammad had granted Jews religious freedom for only 500 years, by which time if the messiah had not come, they had to convert.  Those who did not convert and even those who did were forced to wear yellow turbans or other special garb called shikra, to distinguish them from Muslims. An influx of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal arrived in the 14th Century. In the 16th Century, Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire, and the situation of Jews improved significantly. Another group who had settled in the coastal Tuscan city of Livorno crossed the Mediterranean in the 17th and 18th centuries to make Tunisia their home. LUCETTE: There were other groups that came, Jews from Italy, Jews from Spain, of course, Spain and Portugal, different periods. 14th century already from Spain and then from Spain and Portugal. From Italy, from Livorno, that's later, but the Jews from Livorno themselves came from Spain.  So I myself am named Valensi. From Valencia. It was the family name of my first husband. So from Valencia in Spain they went to Livorno, and from Livorno–Leghorn in English–to Tunisia. MANYA: At its peak, Tunisia's Jewish population exceeded 100,000 – a combination of Sephardi and Mizrahi. HEN: When we speak about Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, specifically in the West, or mainly in the West, we're referring to them as Sephardi. But in Tunisia, it's very interesting to see that there was the Grana community which are Livorno Jews that moved to Tunisia in the 1800s, and they brought the Sephardi way of praying.  And that's why I always use the term Mizrahi to describe myself, because I feel like it encapsulates more of my identity. And for me, the Sephardi title that we often use on those communities doesn't feel accurate to me, and it also has the connection to Ladino, which my grandparents never spoke.  They spoke Tamazight, Judeo-Tamazight, which was the language of those tribes in North Africa. And my family from my mother's side, from Iraq, they were speaking Judeo-Iraqi-Arabic.  So for me, the term Sephardi just doesn't cut it. I go with Mizrahi to describe myself. MANYA: The terms Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi all refer to the places Jews once called home.  Ashkenazi Jews hail from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Germany, Poland, and Russia. They traditionally speak Yiddish, and their customs and practices reflect the influences of Central and Eastern European cultures.  Pogroms in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust led many Ashkenazi Jews to flee their longtime homes to countries like the United States and their ancestral homeland, Israel.  Mizrahi, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew, refers to the diaspora of descendants of Jewish communities from Middle Eastern countries such as: Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, and North African countries such as: Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco. Ancient Jewish communities that have lived in the region for millennia long before the advent of Islam and Christianity. They often speak dialects of Arabic. Sephardi Jews originate from Spain and Portugal, speaking Ladino and incorporating Spanish and Portuguese cultural influences. Following their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, they settled in regions like North Africa and the Balkans. In Tunisia, the Mizrahi and Sephardi communities lived side by side, but separately. HEN: As time passed, those communities became closer together, still quite separated, but they became closer and closer. And perhaps the reason they were becoming closer was because of the hardship that they faced as Jews.  For the leaders of Muslim armies that came to Tunisia, it didn't matter if you were a Sephardi Jew, or if you were an Amazigh Jew. You were a Jew for them. MANYA: Algeria's invasion of Tunisia in the 18th century had a disproportionate effect on Tunisia's Jewish community. The Algerian army killed thousands of the citizens of Tunis, many of whom were Jewish. Algerians raped Jewish women, looted Jewish homes. LUCETTE: There were moments of trouble when you had an invasion of the Algerian army to impose a prince. The Jews were molested in Tunis. MANYA: After a military invasion, a French protectorate was established in 1881 and lasted until Tunisia gained independence in 1956. The Jews of Tunisia felt much safer under the French protectorate.  They put a lot of stock in the French revolutionary promise of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Soon, the French language replaced Judeo-Arabic. LUCETTE: Well, under colonization, the Jews were in a better position. First, the school system. They went to modern schools, especially the Alliance [Israélite Universelle] schools, and with that started a form of Westernization.  You had also schools in Italian, created by Italian Jews, and some Tunisian Jews went to these schools and already in the 19th century, there was a form of acculturation and Westernization.  Access to newspapers, creation of newspapers. In the 1880s Jews had already their own newspapers in Hebrew characters, but Arabic language.  And my grandfather was one of the early journalists and they started having their own press and published books, folklore, sort of short stories. MANYA: In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and quickly overran the French Third Republic, forcing the French to sign an armistice agreement in June. The armistice significantly reduced the territory governed by France and created a new government known as the Vichy regime, after the central French city where it was based.  The Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis, establishing a special administration to introduce anti-Jewish legislation and enforce a compulsory Jewish census in all of its territories including Tunisia. Hen grew up learning about the Holocaust, the Nazis' attempt to erase the Jewish people. As part of his schooling, he learned the names of concentration and death camps and he heard the stories from his friends' grandparents.  But because he was not Ashkenazi, because his grandparents didn't suffer through the same catastrophe that befell Europe, Hen never felt fully accepted.  It was a trauma that belonged to his Ashkenazi friends of German and Polish descent, not to him. Or so they thought and so he thought, until he was a teenager and asked his grandmother Kamisa to finally share their family's journey from Tunisia. That's when he learned that the Mazzig family had not been exempt from Hitler's hatred. In November 1942, Tunisia became the only North African country to come under Nazi Germany's occupation and the Nazis wasted no time. Jewish property was confiscated, and heavy fines were levied on large Jewish communities. With the presence of the Einsatzkommando, a subgroup of the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units, the Nazis were prepared to implement the systematic murder of the Jews of Tunisia. The tide of the war turned just in time to prevent that. LUCETTE: At the time the Germans came, they did not control the Mediterranean, and so they could not export us to the camps. We were saved by that. Lanor camps for men in dangerous places where there were bombs by the Allies. But not for us, it was, I mean, they took our radios. They took the silverware or they took money, this kind of oppression, but they did not murder us.  They took the men away, a few families were directly impacted and died in the camps. A few men. So we were afraid. We were occupied. But compared to what Jews in Europe were subjected to, we didn't suffer.  MANYA: Almost 5,000 Jews, most of them from Tunis and from certain northern communities, were taken captive and incarcerated in 32 labor camps scattered throughout Tunisia. Jews were not only required to wear yellow stars, but those in the camps were also required to wear them on their backs so they could be identified from a distance and shot in the event they tried to escape. HEN: My grandmother never told me until before she died, when she was more open about the stories of oppression, on how she was serving food for the French Nazi officers that were occupying Tunisia, or how my grandfather was in a labor camp, and he was supposed to be sent to a death camp in Europe as well. They never felt like they should share these stories. MANYA: The capture of Tunisia by the Allied forces in May 1943 led the Axis forces in North Africa to surrender. But the country remained under French colonial rule and the antisemitic legislation of the Vichy regime continued until 1944. Many of the Vichy camps, including forced labor camps in the Sahara, continued to operate.  Even after the decline and fall of the Vichy regime and the pursuit of independence from French rule began, conditions for the Mazzig family and many others in the Tunisian Jewish community did not improve.  But the source of much of the hostility and strife was actually a beacon of hope for Tunisia's Jews. On May 14, 1948, the world had witnessed the creation of the state of Israel, sparking outrage throughout the Arab world. Seven Arab nations declared war on Israel the day after it declared independence.  Amid the rise of Tunisian nationalism and its push for independence from France, Jewish communities who had lived in Tunisia for centuries became targets. Guilty by association. No longer welcome. Rabbinical councils were dismantled. Jewish sports associations banned. Jews practiced their religion in hiding. Hen's grandfather recounted violence in the Jewish quarter of Tunis.  HEN: When World War Two was over, the Jewish community in Tunisia was hoping that now that Tunisia would have emancipation, and it would become a country, that their neighbors and the country itself would protect them. Because when it was Nazis, they knew that it was a foreign power that came from France and oppressed them. They knew that there was some hatred in the past, from their Muslim neighbors towards them.  But they also were hoping that, if anything, they would go back to the same status of a dhimmi, of being a protected minority. Even if they were not going to be fully accepted and celebrated in this society, at least they would be protected, for paying tax. And this really did not happen. MANYA: By the early 1950s, life for the Mazzig family became untenable. By then, American Jewish organizations based in Tunis started working to take Jews to Israel right away.  HEN: [My family decided to leave.] They took whatever they had left. And they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression of living as a minority that knows that anytime the ruler might turn on them and take everything they have and pull the ground underneath their feet, they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected. And maybe they will face hate, but no one will hate them because they're Jewish.  And I often dream about my grandmother being a young girl on this boat and how she must have felt to know that the nightmare and the hell that she went through is behind her and that she was coming home. MANYA: The boat they sailed to Israel took days. When Hen's uncle, just a young child at the time, got sick, the captain threatened to throw him overboard. Hen's grandmother hid the child inside her clothes until they docked in Israel. When they arrived, they were sprayed with DDT to kill any lice or disease, then placed in ma'abarot, which in Hebrew means transit camps. In this case, it was a tent with one bed. HEN: They were really mistreated back then. And it's not criticism. I mean, yes, it is also criticism, but it's not without understanding the context. That it was a young country that just started, and those Jewish communities, Jewish refugees came from Tunisia, they didn't speak Hebrew. They didn't look like the other Jewish communities there. And while they all had this in common, that they were all Jews, they had a very different experience. MANYA: No, the family's arrival in the Holy Land was nothing like what they had imagined. But even still, it was a dream fulfilled and there was hope, which they had lost in Tunisia. HEN: I think that it was somewhere in between having both this deep connection to Israel and going there because they wanted to, and also knowing that there's no future in Tunisia. And the truth is that even–and I'm sure people that are listening to us, that are strong Zionists and love Israel, if you tell them ‘OK, so move tomorrow,' no matter how much you love Israel, it's a very difficult decision to make.  Unless it's not really a decision. And I think for them, it wasn't really a decision. And they went through so much, they knew, OK, we have to leave and I think for the first time having a country, having Israel was the hope that they had for centuries to go back home, finally realized. MANYA: Valensi's family did stay a while longer. When Tunisia declared independence in 1956, her father, a ceramicist, designed tiles for the residence of President Habib Bourguiba. Those good relations did not last.  Valensi studied history in France, married an engineer, and returned to Tunisia. But after being there for five years, it became clear that Jews were not treated equally and they returned to France in 1965. LUCETTE: I did not plan to emigrate. And then it became more and more obvious that some people were more equal than others [laugh]. And so there was this nationalist mood where responsibilities were given to Muslims rather than Jews and I felt more and more segregated.  And so, my husband was an engineer from a good engineering school. Again, I mean, he worked for another engineer, who was a Muslim. We knew he would never reach the same position. His father was a lawyer. And in the tribunal, he had to use Arabic. And so all these things accumulated, and we were displaced. MANYA: Valensi said Jewish emigration from Tunisia accelerated at two more mileposts. Even after Tunisia declared independence, France maintained a presence and a naval base in the port city of Bizerte, a strategic port on the Mediterranean for the French who were fighting with Algeria.  In 1961, Tunisian forces blockaded the naval base and warned France to stay out of its airspace. What became known as the Bizerte Crisis lasted for three days. LUCETTE: There were critical times, like what we call “La Crise de Bizerte.” Bizerte is a port to the west of Tunis that used to be a military port and when independence was negotiated with France, the French kept this port, where they could keep an army, and Bourguiba decided that he wanted this port back. And there was a war, a conflict, between Tunisia and France in ‘61.  And that crisis was one moment when Jews thought: if there is no French presence to protect us, then anything could happen. You had the movement of emigration.  Of course, much later, ‘67, the unrest in the Middle East, and what happened there provoked a kind of panic, and there were movements against the Jews in Tunis – violence and destruction of shops, etc. So they emigrated again. Now you have only a few hundred Jews left. MANYA: Valensi's first husband died at an early age. Her second husband, Abraham Udovitch, is the former chair of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Together, they researched and published a book about the Jewish communities in the Tunisian island of Djerba. The couple now splits their time between Paris and Princeton. But Valensi returns to Tunisia every year. It's still home. LUCETTE: When I go, strange thing, I feel at home. I mean, I feel I belong. My Arabic comes back. The words that I thought I had forgotten come back. They welcome you. I mean, if you go, you say you come from America, they're going to ask you questions. Are you Jewish? Did you go to Israel? I mean, these kind of very brutal questions, right away. They're going there. The taxi driver won't hesitate to ask you: Are you Jewish? But at the same time, they're very welcoming. So, I have no trouble. MANYA: Hen, on the other hand, has never been to the land of his ancestors. He holds on to his grandparents' trauma. And fear.  HEN: Tunisia just still feels a bit unsafe to me. Just as recent as a couple of months ago, there was a terror attack. So it's something that's still occurring.  MANYA: Just last year, a member of the Tunisian National Guard opened fire on worshippers outside El Ghriba Synagogue where a large gathering of Jewish pilgrims were celebrating the festival of Lag BaOmer. The synagogue is located on the Tunisian island of Djerba where Valensi and her husband did research for their book. Earlier this year, a mob attacked an abandoned synagogue in the southern city of Sfax, setting fire to the building's courtyard. Numbering over 100,000 Jews on the eve of Israel's Independence in 1948, the Tunisian Jewish community is now estimated to be less than 1,000.  There has been limited contact over the years between Tunisia and Israel. Some Israeli tourists, mostly of Tunisian origin, annually visit the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba. But the government has largely been hostile to the Jewish state.  In the wake of the October 7 attack, the Tunisian parliament began debate on a law that would criminalize any normalization of ties with Israel. Still, Hen would like to go just once to see where his grandparents lived. Walked. Cooked. Prayed.  But to him it's just geography, an arbitrary place on a map. The memories, the music, the recipes, the traditions. It's no longer in Tunisia. It's elsewhere now – in the only country that preserved it. HEN: The Jewish Tunisian culture, the only place that it's been maintained is in Israel. That's why it's still alive. Like in Tunisia, it's not really celebrated. It's not something that they keep as much as they keep here.  Like if you want to go to a proper Mimouna, you would probably need to go to Israel, not to North Africa, although that's where it started. And the same with the Middle Eastern Jewish cuisine. The only place in the world, where be it Tunisian Jews and Iraqi Jews, or Yemenite Jews, still develop their recipes, is in Israel.  Israel is home, and this is where we still celebrate our culture and our cuisine and our identity is still something that I can engage with here.  I always feel like I am living the dreams of my grandparents, and I know that my grandmother is looking from above and I know how proud she is that we have a country, that we have a place to be safe at.  And that everything I do today is to protect my people, to protect the Jewish people, and making sure that next time when a country, when an empire, when a power would turn on Jews we'll have a place to go to and be safe. MANYA: Tunisian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who, in the last century, left Arab countries to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Join us next week as we share another untold story of The Forgotten Exodus. Many thanks to Hen for sharing his story. You can read more in his memoir The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they'd never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to ask those questions. Find your stories. Atara Lakritz is our producer. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Nicole Mazur, Sean Savage, and Madeleine Stern, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name really, for making this series possible.  You can subscribe to The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can learn more at AJC.org/theforgottenexodus.  The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts or Spotify to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

Ever found yourself in a foreign land, hilariously fumbling through new phrases? That was us in Cancun! From our Spanish-speaking escapades to a memorable encounter with a hardworking little person at the airport, we're unpacking all the laughter and joy from our trip. Plus, we're catching up on our social media adventures and sharing our love for the wings and drinks at Queen Sheba. Oh, and let's not forget the camaraderie from our time in Charlotte during "Training Day"—it was a blast, and we're thrilled to be back, bringing the same energy and joy to your ears!This episode doesn't shy away from the spicy topics either! Celebrating Jennifer Lopez's 55th birthday, we speculate about her rumored split from Ben Affleck and delve into the ongoing debate around Barry Bonds' Hall of Fame controversy. We even venture into the realm of conspiracy theories—did Amelia Earhart secretly live in North Carolina? Could Tupac be alive? These conversations are packed with twists and turns that will keep you hooked from start to finish.As we navigate the political landscape, we discuss President Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 race and the implications for Vice President Kamala Harris's nomination. With thoughts on systemic change following police brutality incidents and a look at the readiness for female leadership, this episode strikes a balance between serious reflections and lighter relationship dynamics. From the heartbreaks of catching a partner cheating to the joys of daily intimacy, we cover it all with humor, sincerity, and a touch of raw emotion. Tune in for a rollercoaster of insights, debates, and unfiltered fun!Support the Show.Follow us on social media www.instagram.com/noadvisoryclt

“In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA, we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us . . . I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity... I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation.”  Hen Mazzig, a writer, digital creator, and founder of the Tel Aviv Institute, shares his powerful journey as a proud Israeli, LGBTQ+, and Mizrahi Jew, in the premiere episode of the second season of the award-winning podcast, The Forgotten Exodus. Hen delves into his family's deep roots in Tunisia, their harrowing experiences during the Nazi occupation, and their eventual escape to Israel. Discover the rich history of Tunisia's ancient Amazigh Jewish community, the impact of French colonial and Arab nationalist movements on Jews in North Africa, and the cultural identity that Hen passionately preserves today. Joining the conversation is historian Lucette Valensi, an expert on Tunisian Jewish culture, who provides scholarly insights into the longstanding presence of Jews in Tunisia, from antiquity to their exodus in the mid-20th century. ___ Show notes: Sign up to receive podcast updates here. Learn more about the series here. Song credits:  "Penceresi Yola Karsi" -- by Turku, Nomads of the Silk Road Pond5:  “Desert Caravans”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Tiemur Zarobov (BMI), IPI#1098108837 “Sentimental Oud Middle Eastern”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Sotirios Bakas (BMI), IPI#797324989. “Meditative Middle Eastern Flute”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Danielyan Ashot Makichevich (BMI), IPI Name #00855552512, United States BMI “Tunisia Eastern”: Publisher: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Composer: Edi Surya Nurrohim, Item ID#155836469. “At The Rabbi's Table”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI), Composer: Fazio Giulio (IPI/CAE# 00198377019). “Fields Of Elysium”; Publisher: Mysterylab Music; Composer: Mott Jordan; ID#79549862  “Frontiers”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: Pete Checkley (BMI), IPI#380407375 “Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel)”; Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081 “Tunisian Pot Dance (Short)”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI); Composer: kesokid, ID #97451515 “Middle East Ident”; Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Alpha (ASCAP); Composer: Alon Marcus (ACUM), IPI#776550702 “Adventures in the East”: Publisher: Pond5 Publishing Beta (BMI) Composer: Petar Milinkovic (BMI), IPI#00738313833. ___ Episode Transcript: HEN MAZZIG: They took whatever they had left and they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected, and that she was coming home. MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: The world has overlooked an important episode in modern history: the 800,000 Jews who left or were driven from their homes in the Middle East and North Africa in the mid-20th century. Welcome to the second season of The Forgotten Exodus, brought to you by American Jewish Committee. This series explores that pivotal moment in history and the little-known Jewish heritage of Iran and Arab nations. As Jews around the world confront violent antisemitism and Israelis face daily attacks by terrorists on multiple fronts, our second season explores how Jews have lived throughout the region for generations–despite hardship, hostility, and hatred–then sought safety and new possibilities in their ancestral homeland. I'm your host, Manya Brachear Pashman. Join us as we explore untold family histories and personal stories of courage, perseverance, and resilience from this transformative and tumultuous period of history for the Jewish people and the Middle East.  The world has ignored these voices. We will not. This is The Forgotten Exodus.  Today's episode: leaving Tunisia. __ [Tel Aviv Pride video] MANYA BRACHEAR PASHMAN: Every June, Hen Mazzig, who splits his time between London and Tel Aviv, heads to Israel to show his Pride. His Israeli pride. His LGBTQ+ pride. And his Mizrahi Jewish pride. For that one week, all of those identities coalesce.  And while other cities around the world have transformed Pride into a June version of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Israel is home to one of the few vibrant LGBTQ communities in the Middle East. Tel Aviv keeps it real. HEN: For me, Pride in Israel, in Tel Aviv, it still has this element of fighting for something. And that it's important for all of us to show up and to come out to the Pride Parade because if we're not going to be there, there's some people with agendas to erase us and we can't let them do it. MANYA: This year, the Tel Aviv Pride rally was a more somber affair as participants demanded freedom for the more than 100 hostages still held in Gaza since October 7th.  On that day, Hamas terrorists bent on erasing Jews from the Middle East went on a murderous rampage, killing more than 1,200, kidnapping 250 others, and unleashing what has become a 7-front war on Israel. HEN: In the Israeli DNA and the Jewish DNA we have to fight to be who we are. In every generation, empires and big forces tried to erase us, and we had to fight. And the LGBTQ+ community also knows very well how hard it is. I know what it is to be rejected for several parts of my identity. And I don't want anyone to go through that. I don't want my children to go through that. I'm fighting for my ancestors, but I'm also fighting for our future generation. MANYA: Hen Mazzig is an international speaker, writer, and digital influencer. In 2022, he founded the Tel Aviv Institute, a social media laboratory that tackles antisemitism online. He's also a second-generation Israeli, whose maternal grandparents fled Iraq, while his father's parents fled Tunisia – roots that echo in the family name: Mazzig. HEN: The last name Mazzig never made sense, because in Israel a lot of the last names have meaning in Hebrew.  So I remember one of my teachers in school was saying that Mazzig sounds like mozeg, which means pouring in Hebrew. Maybe your ancestors were running a bar or something? Clearly, this teacher did not have knowledge of the Amazigh people. Which, later on I learned, several of those tribes, those Amazigh tribes, were Jewish or practiced Judaism, and that there was 5,000 Jews that came from Tunisia that were holding both identities of being Jewish and Amazigh.  And today, they have last names like Mazzig, and Amzaleg, Mizzoug. There's several of those last names in Israel today. And they are the descendants of those Jewish communities that have lived in the Atlas Mountains. MANYA: The Atlas Mountains. A 1,500-mile chain of magnificent peaks and treacherous terrain that stretch across Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, separating the Sahara from the Mediterranean and Atlantic coastline.  It's where the nomadic Amazigh have called home for thousands of years. The Amazigh trace their origins to at least 2,000 BCE  in western North Africa. They speak the language of Tamazight and rely on cattle and agriculture as their main sources of income.  But textiles too. In fact, you've probably heard of the Amazigh or own a rug woven by them. A Berber rug. HEN: Amazigh, which are also called Berbers. But they're rejecting this term because of the association with barbarians, which was the title that European colonialists when they came to North Africa gave them. There's beautiful folklore about Jewish leaders within the Amazigh people. One story that I really connected to was the story of Queen Dihya that was also known as El-Kahina, which in Arabic means the Kohen, the priest, and she was known as this leader of the Amazigh tribes, and she was Jewish.  Her derrogaters were calling her a Jewish witch, because they said that she had the power to foresee the future. And her roots were apparently connected to Queen Sheba and her arrival from Israel back to Africa. And she was the descendant of Queen Sheba. And that's how she led the Amazigh people.  And the stories that I read about her, I just felt so connected. How she had this long, black, curly hair that went all the way down to her knees, and she was fierce, and she was very committed to her identity, and she was fighting against the Islamic expansion to North Africa.  And when she failed, after years of holding them off, she realized that she can't do it anymore and she's going to lose. And she was not willing to give up her Jewish identity and convert to Islam and instead she jumped into a well and died. This well is known today in Tunisia. It's the [Bir] Al-Kahina or Dihya's Well that is still in existence. Her descendants, her kids, were Jewish members of the Amazigh people.  Of course, I would like to believe that I am the descendant of royalty. MANYA: Scholars debate whether the Amazigh converted to Judaism or descended from Queen Dihya and stayed.  Lucette Valensi is a French scholar of Tunisian history who served as a director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris, one of the most prestigious institutions of graduate education in France. She has written extensively about Tunisian Jewish culture.   Generations of her family lived in Tunisia. She says archaeological evidence proves Jews were living in that land since Antiquity. LUCETTE VALENSI: I myself am a Chemla, born Chemla. And this is an Arabic name, which means a kind of belt. And my mother's name was Tartour, which is a turban [laugh]. So the names were Arabic. So my ancestors spoke Arabic. I don't know if any of them spoke Berber before, or Latin. I have no idea. But there were Jews in antiquity and of course, through Saint Augustin. MANYA: So when did Jews arrive in Tunisia? LUCETTE: [laugh] That's a strange question because they were there since Antiquity. We have evidence of their presence in mosaics of synagogues, from the times of Byzantium. I think we think in terms of a short chronology, and they would tend to associate the Jews to colonization, which does not make sense, they were there much before French colonization. They were there for millennia. MANYA: Valensi says Jews lived in Tunisia dating to the time of Carthage, an ancient city-state in what is now Tunisia, that reached its peak in the fourth century BCE. Later, under Roman and then Byzantine rule, Carthage continued to play a vital role as a center of commerce and trade during antiquity.  Besides the role of tax collectors, Jews were forbidden to serve in almost all public offices. Between the 5th and 8th centuries CE, conditions fluctuated between relief and forced conversions while under Christian rule.  After the Islamic conquest of Tunisia in the seventh and early eighth centuries CE, the treatment of Jews largely depended on which Muslim ruler was in charge at the time.  Some Jews converted to Islam while others lived as dhimmis, or second-class citizens, protected by the state in exchange for a special tax known as the jizya. In 1146, the first caliph of the Almohad dynasty, declared that the Prophet Muhammad had granted Jews religious freedom for only 500 years, by which time if the messiah had not come, they had to convert.  Those who did not convert and even those who did were forced to wear yellow turbans or other special garb called shikra, to distinguish them from Muslims. An influx of Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal arrived in the 14th Century. In the 16th Century, Tunisia became part of the Ottoman Empire, and the situation of Jews improved significantly. Another group who had settled in the coastal Tuscan city of Livorno crossed the Mediterranean in the 17th and 18th centuries to make Tunisia their home. LUCETTE: There were other groups that came, Jews from Italy, Jews from Spain, of course, Spain and Portugal, different periods. 14th century already from Spain and then from Spain and Portugal. From Italy, from Livorno, that's later, but the Jews from Livorno themselves came from Spain.  So I myself am named Valensi. From Valencia. It was the family name of my first husband. So from Valencia in Spain they went to Livorno, and from Livorno–Leghorn in English–to Tunisia. MANYA: At its peak, Tunisia's Jewish population exceeded 100,000 – a combination of Sephardi and Mizrahi. HEN: When we speak about Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, specifically in the West, or mainly in the West, we're referring to them as Sephardi. But in Tunisia, it's very interesting to see that there was the Grana community which are Livorno Jews that moved to Tunisia in the 1800s, and they brought the Sephardi way of praying.  And that's why I always use the term Mizrahi to describe myself, because I feel like it encapsulates more of my identity. And for me, the Sephardi title that we often use on those communities doesn't feel accurate to me, and it also has the connection to Ladino, which my grandparents never spoke.  They spoke Tamazight, Judeo-Tamazight, which was the language of those tribes in North Africa. And my family from my mother's side, from Iraq, they were speaking Judeo-Iraqi-Arabic.  So for me, the term Sephardi just doesn't cut it. I go with Mizrahi to describe myself. MANYA: The terms Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi all refer to the places Jews once called home.  Ashkenazi Jews hail from Central and Eastern Europe, particularly Germany, Poland, and Russia. They traditionally speak Yiddish, and their customs and practices reflect the influences of Central and Eastern European cultures.  Pogroms in Eastern Europe and the Holocaust led many Ashkenazi Jews to flee their longtime homes to countries like the United States and their ancestral homeland, Israel.  Mizrahi, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew, refers to the diaspora of descendants of Jewish communities from Middle Eastern countries such as: Iraq, Iran, and Yemen, and North African countries such as: Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco. Ancient Jewish communities that have lived in the region for millennia long before the advent of Islam and Christianity. They often speak dialects of Arabic. Sephardi Jews originate from Spain and Portugal, speaking Ladino and incorporating Spanish and Portuguese cultural influences. Following their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, they settled in regions like North Africa and the Balkans. In Tunisia, the Mizrahi and Sephardi communities lived side by side, but separately. HEN: As time passed, those communities became closer together, still quite separated, but they became closer and closer. And perhaps the reason they were becoming closer was because of the hardship that they faced as Jews.  For the leaders of Muslim armies that came to Tunisia, it didn't matter if you were a Sephardi Jew, or if you were an Amazigh Jew. You were a Jew for them. MANYA: Algeria's invasion of Tunisia in the 18th century had a disproportionate effect on Tunisia's Jewish community. The Algerian army killed thousands of the citizens of Tunis, many of whom were Jewish. Algerians raped Jewish women, looted Jewish homes. LUCETTE: There were moments of trouble when you had an invasion of the Algerian army to impose a prince. The Jews were molested in Tunis. MANYA: After a military invasion, a French protectorate was established in 1881 and lasted until Tunisia gained independence in 1956. The Jews of Tunisia felt much safer under the French protectorate.  They put a lot of stock in the French revolutionary promise of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Soon, the French language replaced Judeo-Arabic. LUCETTE: Well, under colonization, the Jews were in a better position. First, the school system. They went to modern schools, especially the Alliance [Israélite Universelle] schools, and with that started a form of Westernization.  You had also schools in Italian, created by Italian Jews, and some Tunisian Jews went to these schools and already in the 19th century, there was a form of acculturation and Westernization.  Access to newspapers, creation of newspapers. In the 1880s Jews had already their own newspapers in Hebrew characters, but Arabic language.  And my grandfather was one of the early journalists and they started having their own press and published books, folklore, sort of short stories. MANYA: In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France and quickly overran the French Third Republic, forcing the French to sign an armistice agreement in June. The armistice significantly reduced the territory governed by France and created a new government known as the Vichy regime, after the central French city where it was based.  The Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis, establishing a special administration to introduce anti-Jewish legislation and enforce a compulsory Jewish census in all of its territories including Tunisia. Hen grew up learning about the Holocaust, the Nazis' attempt to erase the Jewish people. As part of his schooling, he learned the names of concentration and death camps and he heard the stories from his friends' grandparents.  But because he was not Ashkenazi, because his grandparents didn't suffer through the same catastrophe that befell Europe, Hen never felt fully accepted.  It was a trauma that belonged to his Ashkenazi friends of German and Polish descent, not to him. Or so they thought and so he thought, until he was a teenager and asked his grandmother Kamisa to finally share their family's journey from Tunisia. That's when he learned that the Mazzig family had not been exempt from Hitler's hatred. In November 1942, Tunisia became the only North African country to come under Nazi Germany's occupation and the Nazis wasted no time. Jewish property was confiscated, and heavy fines were levied on large Jewish communities. With the presence of the Einsatzkommando, a subgroup of the Einsatzgruppen, or mobile killing units, the Nazis were prepared to implement the systematic murder of the Jews of Tunisia. The tide of the war turned just in time to prevent that. LUCETTE: At the time the Germans came, they did not control the Mediterranean, and so they could not export us to the camps. We were saved by that. Lanor camps for men in dangerous places where there were bombs by the Allies. But not for us, it was, I mean, they took our radios. They took the silverware or they took money, this kind of oppression, but they did not murder us.  They took the men away, a few families were directly impacted and died in the camps. A few men. So we were afraid. We were occupied. But compared to what Jews in Europe were subjected to, we didn't suffer.  MANYA: Almost 5,000 Jews, most of them from Tunis and from certain northern communities, were taken captive and incarcerated in 32 labor camps scattered throughout Tunisia. Jews were not only required to wear yellow stars, but those in the camps were also required to wear them on their backs so they could be identified from a distance and shot in the event they tried to escape. HEN: My grandmother never told me until before she died, when she was more open about the stories of oppression, on how she was serving food for the French Nazi officers that were occupying Tunisia, or how my grandfather was in a labor camp, and he was supposed to be sent to a death camp in Europe as well. They never felt like they should share these stories. MANYA: The capture of Tunisia by the Allied forces in May 1943 led the Axis forces in North Africa to surrender. But the country remained under French colonial rule and the antisemitic legislation of the Vichy regime continued until 1944. Many of the Vichy camps, including forced labor camps in the Sahara, continued to operate.  Even after the decline and fall of the Vichy regime and the pursuit of independence from French rule began, conditions for the Mazzig family and many others in the Tunisian Jewish community did not improve.  But the source of much of the hostility and strife was actually a beacon of hope for Tunisia's Jews. On May 14, 1948, the world had witnessed the creation of the state of Israel, sparking outrage throughout the Arab world. Seven Arab nations declared war on Israel the day after it declared independence.  Amid the rise of Tunisian nationalism and its push for independence from France, Jewish communities who had lived in Tunisia for centuries became targets. Guilty by association. No longer welcome. Rabbinical councils were dismantled. Jewish sports associations banned. Jews practiced their religion in hiding. Hen's grandfather recounted violence in the Jewish quarter of Tunis.  HEN: When World War Two was over, the Jewish community in Tunisia was hoping that now that Tunisia would have emancipation, and it would become a country, that their neighbors and the country itself would protect them. Because when it was Nazis, they knew that it was a foreign power that came from France and oppressed them. They knew that there was some hatred in the past, from their Muslim neighbors towards them.  But they also were hoping that, if anything, they would go back to the same status of a dhimmi, of being a protected minority. Even if they were not going to be fully accepted and celebrated in this society, at least they would be protected, for paying tax. And this really did not happen. MANYA: By the early 1950s, life for the Mazzig family became untenable. By then, American Jewish organizations based in Tunis started working to take Jews to Israel right away.  HEN: [My family decided to leave.] They took whatever they had left. And they got on a boat. And my grandmother told me this story before she passed away on how they were on this boat coming to Israel.  And they were so happy, and they were crying because they felt that finally after generations upon generations of oppression of living as a minority that knows that anytime the ruler might turn on them and take everything they have and pull the ground underneath their feet, they are going to come to a place where they are going to be protected. And maybe they will face hate, but no one will hate them because they're Jewish.  And I often dream about my grandmother being a young girl on this boat and how she must have felt to know that the nightmare and the hell that she went through is behind her and that she was coming home. MANYA: The boat they sailed to Israel took days. When Hen's uncle, just a young child at the time, got sick, the captain threatened to throw him overboard. Hen's grandmother hid the child inside her clothes until they docked in Israel. When they arrived, they were sprayed with DDT to kill any lice or disease, then placed in ma'abarot, which in Hebrew means transit camps. In this case, it was a tent with one bed. HEN: They were really mistreated back then. And it's not criticism. I mean, yes, it is also criticism, but it's not without understanding the context. That it was a young country that just started, and those Jewish communities, Jewish refugees came from Tunisia, they didn't speak Hebrew. They didn't look like the other Jewish communities there. And while they all had this in common, that they were all Jews, they had a very different experience. MANYA: No, the family's arrival in the Holy Land was nothing like what they had imagined. But even still, it was a dream fulfilled and there was hope, which they had lost in Tunisia. HEN: I think that it was somewhere in between having both this deep connection to Israel and going there because they wanted to, and also knowing that there's no future in Tunisia. And the truth is that even–and I'm sure people that are listening to us, that are strong Zionists and love Israel, if you tell them ‘OK, so move tomorrow,' no matter how much you love Israel, it's a very difficult decision to make.  Unless it's not really a decision. And I think for them, it wasn't really a decision. And they went through so much, they knew, OK, we have to leave and I think for the first time having a country, having Israel was the hope that they had for centuries to go back home, finally realized. MANYA: Valensi's family did stay a while longer. When Tunisia declared independence in 1956, her father, a ceramicist, designed tiles for the residence of President Habib Bourguiba. Those good relations did not last.  Valensi studied history in France, married an engineer, and returned to Tunisia. But after being there for five years, it became clear that Jews were not treated equally and they returned to France in 1965. LUCETTE: I did not plan to emigrate. And then it became more and more obvious that some people were more equal than others [laugh]. And so there was this nationalist mood where responsibilities were given to Muslims rather than Jews and I felt more and more segregated.  And so, my husband was an engineer from a good engineering school. Again, I mean, he worked for another engineer, who was a Muslim. We knew he would never reach the same position. His father was a lawyer. And in the tribunal, he had to use Arabic. And so all these things accumulated, and we were displaced. MANYA: Valensi said Jewish emigration from Tunisia accelerated at two more mileposts. Even after Tunisia declared independence, France maintained a presence and a naval base in the port city of Bizerte, a strategic port on the Mediterranean for the French who were fighting with Algeria.  In 1961, Tunisian forces blockaded the naval base and warned France to stay out of its airspace. What became known as the Bizerte Crisis lasted for three days. LUCETTE: There were critical times, like what we call “La Crise de Bizerte.” Bizerte is a port to the west of Tunis that used to be a military port and when independence was negotiated with France, the French kept this port, where they could keep an army, and Bourguiba decided that he wanted this port back. And there was a war, a conflict, between Tunisia and France in ‘61.  And that crisis was one moment when Jews thought: if there is no French presence to protect us, then anything could happen. You had the movement of emigration.  Of course, much later, ‘67, the unrest in the Middle East, and what happened there provoked a kind of panic, and there were movements against the Jews in Tunis – violence and destruction of shops, etc. So they emigrated again. Now you have only a few hundred Jews left. MANYA: Valensi's first husband died at an early age. Her second husband, Abraham Udovitch, is the former chair of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Together, they researched and published a book about the Jewish communities in the Tunisian island of Djerba. The couple now splits their time between Paris and Princeton. But Valensi returns to Tunisia every year. It's still home. LUCETTE: When I go, strange thing, I feel at home. I mean, I feel I belong. My Arabic comes back. The words that I thought I had forgotten come back. They welcome you. I mean, if you go, you say you come from America, they're going to ask you questions. Are you Jewish? Did you go to Israel? I mean, these kind of very brutal questions, right away. They're going there. The taxi driver won't hesitate to ask you: Are you Jewish? But at the same time, they're very welcoming. So, I have no trouble. MANYA: Hen, on the other hand, has never been to the land of his ancestors. He holds on to his grandparents' trauma. And fear.  HEN: Tunisia just still feels a bit unsafe to me. Just as recent as a couple of months ago, there was a terror attack. So it's something that's still occurring.  MANYA: Just last year, a member of the Tunisian National Guard opened fire on worshippers outside El Ghriba Synagogue where a large gathering of Jewish pilgrims were celebrating the festival of Lag BaOmer. The synagogue is located on the Tunisian island of Djerba where Valensi and her husband did research for their book. Earlier this year, a mob attacked an abandoned synagogue in the southern city of Sfax, setting fire to the building's courtyard. Numbering over 100,000 Jews on the eve of Israel's Independence in 1948, the Tunisian Jewish community is now estimated to be less than 1,000.  There has been limited contact over the years between Tunisia and Israel. Some Israeli tourists, mostly of Tunisian origin, annually visit the El Ghriba synagogue in Djerba. But the government has largely been hostile to the Jewish state.  In the wake of the October 7 attack, the Tunisian parliament began debate on a law that would criminalize any normalization of ties with Israel. Still, Hen would like to go just once to see where his grandparents lived. Walked. Cooked. Prayed.  But to him it's just geography, an arbitrary place on a map. The memories, the music, the recipes, the traditions. It's no longer in Tunisia. It's elsewhere now – in the only country that preserved it. HEN: The Jewish Tunisian culture, the only place that it's been maintained is in Israel. That's why it's still alive. Like in Tunisia, it's not really celebrated. It's not something that they keep as much as they keep here.  Like if you want to go to a proper Mimouna, you would probably need to go to Israel, not to North Africa, although that's where it started. And the same with the Middle Eastern Jewish cuisine. The only place in the world, where be it Tunisian Jews and Iraqi Jews, or Yemenite Jews, still develop their recipes, is in Israel.  Israel is home, and this is where we still celebrate our culture and our cuisine and our identity is still something that I can engage with here.  I always feel like I am living the dreams of my grandparents, and I know that my grandmother is looking from above and I know how proud she is that we have a country, that we have a place to be safe at.  And that everything I do today is to protect my people, to protect the Jewish people, and making sure that next time when a country, when an empire, when a power would turn on Jews we'll have a place to go to and be safe. MANYA: Tunisian Jews are just one of the many Jewish communities who, in the last century, left Arab countries to forge new lives for themselves and future generations.  Join us next week as we share another untold story of The Forgotten Exodus. Many thanks to Hen for sharing his story. You can read more in his memoir The Wrong Kind of Jew: A Mizrahi Manifesto. Too many times during my reporting, I encountered children and grandchildren who didn't have the answers to my questions because they'd never asked. That's why one of the goals of this project is to encourage you to ask those questions. Find your stories. Atara Lakritz is our producer. T.K. Broderick is our sound engineer. Special thanks to Jon Schweitzer, Nicole Mazur, Sean Savage, and Madeleine Stern, and so many of our colleagues, too many to name really, for making this series possible.  You can subscribe to The Forgotten Exodus on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can learn more at AJC.org/theforgottenexodus.  The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC.  You can reach us at theforgottenexodus@ajc.org. If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to spread the word, and hop onto Apple Podcasts or Spotify to rate us and write a review to help more listeners find us.

II Chronicles 9 details the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon and the subsequent exchange of wealth and wisdom. The chapter also recounts the opulence and grandeur of Solomon's reign, showcasing his wisdom, wealth, and the splendor of his kingdom. The narrative concludes with Solomon's death and a summary of his reign. Donations can be given through the following CashApp - https://cash.app/$ShariseJohnsonMoore Paypal - https://paypal.me/SNJMoore?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sharise-johnson-moore/message

Today we read about King Solomon and Queen Sheba in the story “The King and the Bees” which comes to us from the book “Fifty Famous People” written by James Baldwin.   Website: http://www.thefightingmoose.com/   Blog https://thefightingmoosepodcast.blogspot.com/   iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fighting-moose/id1324413606?mt=2/   Story (PDF): http://ww.thefightingmoose.com/episode389.pdf   Reading List: http://www.thefightingmoose.com/readinglist.pdf   YouTube: https://youtu.be/ByMNJqnHwh0/   Book(s): “Fifty Famous People” http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6168   Music/Audio: Artist – grapes http://beta.ccmixter.org/people/grapes http://www.facebook.com/grapes510   National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): http://www.nasa.gov   Song(s) Used: I dunno by grapes (c) copyright 2008 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626 Ft: J Lang, Morusque

Grammy-nominated guest Queen Sheba shares the difference between Poetry and Spoken word. She shares how her journey to the Grammy's began and having a hand in pushing for Spoken Word to be its own category. Social Impact is where Spoken Word lives as people share their stories about places, people, and things.

We are getting transparent with Queen Sheba- Grammy Nominated Poet Sheba is a Master Spoken Word Artist and Poet and was featured on the Grammy Nominated album “F-Your Feelings” by Robert Glasper. Sheba has 9 albums, 4 of which are/were up for a Grammy under the Spoken Word category. Her works have appeared in Voyage ATL, Creative Loafing, Rolling Out and the focus of college student's papers, everywhere! Queen Sheba is, also, a current Grammy U Mentor, teaching college students about the billion-dollar Art and Entertainment industry. Sheba has two books: From Foster Care to Fame short stories and poems too long for three minutes and Run Ugly! A motivational book for runners. A 2x NAACP Image Award Nominee, Atlanta's Creative Loafing's People's Choice Spoken Word Artist of the Year, a recent candidate for the Atlanta Public School Board, Professor of Creative Writing at Clark Atlanta University and also received the Gentlemen's Foundation ‘Gentle Woman of Artistry' Artist of the Year award for her work in the LGBT community for HIV Prevention. She has been recognized by PATREON & Furious Flower.Spoken Word artist, motivational speaker, comedian, Dj and bathroom concert singer, Sheba tours internationally and has conducted performances and workshops at over 300 colleges and universities An APCA - Performer of the Year Nominee, Sheba has published over 20+ students as a Creative Writing Professor at the Historical Black Clark Atlanta University where she teaches Poetry, Story Telling, Literature and Fiction.Listen to our candid discussions about the trials and triumphs of entrepreneurs and entertainers in music, TV, and film right here on Transparency Talks Podcast.Our podcast airs on multiple syndicated stations overseas and on major digital platforms. Advertise with us! We're also offering affordable and creative advertising opportunities to businesses, sponsors, and music artists. info@orobinsonprmediagroup.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@transparencytalkspodcast Follow me on IG/FB/Twitter @ Transparency Talks Podcast and @buttabrocka Thanks so much for your support! ** I do not own the rights to this music #transparencytalkspodcast #podcast #livestream #inspirational #motivational #applepodcast #artistinterviews #filmmakersinterviews #youtube #smallbusiness #soulcitythebeat #italy #uk #iheartradio #entrepreneur #londonsenergyradio #guestspeaker #stitcher #transparencytalks #transparency #spotify #pandora #blaze1radio #liverecordings #onairwithbuttabrocka #buttabrocka #podcastlover #actorsaccess #directoraccess #film #tv #music #podcast #movie #television #musicpodcast #filmpodcast #tvpodcast #cinema #filmmaking #hollywood #filmlover #movielover #musician #audiopodcast #musicproducer #audiodrama #screenwriter #cinematography #director #actor #production #soundtrack #media #entertainment #indiefilm --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/transparencytalkspodcast/support

Max Hines, chef of one of Atlanta's hottest new restaurants, "Breaker Breaker," joins us to discuss what Michelin really means for Atlanta. Plus, director Candy McLellan discusses Stage Door Theatre's production of "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play," Queen Sheba takes the stage in our series, "Speaking of Poetry."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Queen Sheba's Ring

When you purchase an item after clicking a link from this post, we may earn a commission.Devin: What is your superpower?Sheba: My superpower is taking a risk, so when I'm writing my poems, I try to leave it all on the paper or all on the stage. I take nothing with me. I tell all my secrets.Queen Sheba is the poet who founded Poetry vs. Hip-Hop Live! and its associated foundation to support LGBTQ women navigating a cancer diagnosis. We connected as guests in a delegation of social impact creators invited to Israel by its Foreign Ministry.I'm glad we did. She is doing inspiring work I may not ever have discovered otherwise.AI Summary* Sheba founded Poetry versus Hip Hop, a social impact platform that aims to bridge cultural gaps and dissolve stereotypes.* The platform disguises itself as a stage show, but the team also reaches out to people from different backgrounds and cultures.* Human connection is essential, especially since people often misjudge and misunderstand each other.* Her personal and professional journey in poetry and spoken word began with experiences of growing up in Detroit and being adopted by a white family.* Her work has evolved to cover a range of social and political issues.* She emphasizes the importance of offering solutions in her work and teaching her students to do the same.* Her superpower is taking risks with her writing and leaving everything on the paper or stage.* She advises allowing oneself time to grieve and be sad but to show up for life and take risks.* Start small and gradually build up to bigger risks, and find a supportive community to share work with.* Her books and albums can be found on Amazon, and information on her upcoming performances can be found on her website and social media.Poetry vs. Hip-Hop Live!“Poetry vs. Hip-Hop is a social impact platform disguised as a stage show,” Sheba says. The performances are merely the context for bringing people together from across sometimes antagonistic divides.She says:We purposely reach out to people that are from all walks of life, including but not limited to any race, color, creed, LGBTQIA community—anything at all—so that we can bridge these gaps and start conversations with people to help dissolve stereotypes, to help people understand different cultures, to maybe introduce them to cultures they have never seen or talked to before or worked with before.Demonstrating the impact, she shares the story of an event in Texas where two antagonistic hip-hop gang rivals were invited to perform. They were reluctant to even share the stage with one another.Sheba says:We had to sit down and say, “Hey, this is the perfect opportunity to say, ‘Hey, we're not the stereotype that you think that we are. We're not these gangsters. We're not we're not these thugs. We're writers and creatives and thought leaders and thinkers and social activists. Come over and meet my crew over here.'” We were able to dissolve that a little bit and get at least one from each crew to come.Sheba's work is an extension of who she is. “I'm adopted. I'm adopted by white people. I grew up in a major city. I present Black, but I'm biracial. I'm also part of the LGBTQIA community. So, I have all of these facets and umbrellas that are amazing.”“I get misread and misunderstood a lot of times,” in part as a result of the intersectionality of who she is. Appreciating that she is often misunderstood, she could see how others are treated similarly and wanted to help improve mutual understanding.In the on-stage “battle” between a hip-hop artist and a poet, Sheba requires the participants to hug “so that there is a human connection.”Sheba launched the foundation after her partner passed away in January 2022.In all her work, she builds on her superpower of taking risks with her poetry, in an effort to be authentic and share something meaningful.Superpowers for Good is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.How to Develop Risk-Taking In Your Writing As a SuperpowerTo help us understand how she uses her risk-taking in her poetry, she describes a poem she's working on now, called “New Booty,” inspired by her recent plastic surgery. She says:It's going to start off a little light and funny, but then I'm going to go left to social-political and say, “Well, now that I have a new booty, maybe I'll be considered black. Maybe I'll be less of [a target for] the microaggression to the mixed girl. Maybe I won't be called white anymore.” Because those are things that I struggle with; those are the things that come up in my life, in my adult life.“My superpower is taking a risk writing, writing to the edge, and then going over it,” Sheba says.She shared a story that highlights the good that can come from risk-taking in poetry and in life. It happens to explain how we met.I gave myself all of ‘22 to be depressed. Not that I'm still not processing the grief or the things that I went through, but I gave myself all of ‘22 to eat, sleep, not do anything, not do anything. If I had to go to work, I told myself I had to go to work. I went to work. If I had a gig, I would show up for the gig. If I had a responsibility to show up. But then I gave myself permission to immediately go home and get in bed.I literally spent—can you imagine the amazing summer in Atlanta, Georgia, in bed? July 4th in bed. Labor Day weekend in bed. Just not doing anything. So, I did not want to commit suicide. I was just tired, and I was exhausted. I told myself, “Do not commit suicide. Just keep showing up for your life. Just keep going. Just wake up and go to the next day and go to the next day.”Labor Day weekend, I was invited last minute to come perform at the mayor's LGBT opening reception for Black Pride weekend.Of course, I accepted the gig. I said, “You know what? Let's go all out.” I got a dress made. I had my friend design a dress for me. I was really honored to be a part of this. I show up, I perform “We Are the Women.” That was the only poem they commissioned me to do. I performed that in front of at least a thousand people.We were in City Hall. This has never been done before. We were in City Hall! A thousand people sitting and standing around from the LGBTQIA community. Elected officials, anybody you could think of, was there. I end the poem to a standing ovation.I was very excited that I decided to get up and take that gig that day.That is where I run into the Israeli consul general, and that is how I ended up meeting you.As we talked, I asked Sheba how to take risks safely. She says you can't. That's the point.As a creator, “You're going to be judged. You can't avoid it,” she says.“You only have one go. So, do what you're going to do every single day and do it big, bold,” Sheba says.“You only have one go. There is no putting it off,” she says, reiterating her point. “There's no putting it off, so take the risk.”Sheba shared a final note. Noting that she has lots of tattoos, she described one she has on her wrist that says, “Not Today.” She got it when she was working as a substitute teacher and saw an influx of middle-school suicides.“As adults, we know that we're just taller children,” she says. “So, I tell people, allow yourself time to grieve and be sad, but show up for your life. Because if you don't, you never know what could unfold positively.”If you follow Sheba's advice and example, you can make risk-taking in your creative work a superpower that enables you to do more good in the world.SuperCrowd23Sheba has graciously agreed to perform at SuperCrowd23, which will be held on May 10 and 11. Superpowers for Good readers are invited to purchase tickets at half price, meaning that you can purchase a general admission ticket for just $49.50. Be sure to register before the end of early-bird pricing!Guest-Provided ProfileQueen Sheba (she/her)Founder, Poetry vs. Hip-Hop Live & Foundation About Poetry vs. Hip-Hop Live & Foundation: Poetry versus hip-hop live! Is an international social impact platform disguised as a live stage production.Poetry vs Hip-Hop foundation was created when  Dj KNODAT (know-dat) passed away from breast cancer on January 3, 2022. The Poetry vs Hip-Hop foundation is created in her honor to support, educate and make sure that LGBTQIA women of color have the resources they need while navigating their cancer journey.Website: www.thequeensheba.liveTwitter Handle: @thequeenshebaCompany Facebook Page: PoetryvshiphopBiographical Information: Queen Sheba 60-Second Bio: * Born in Detroit, MI, now living in Atlanta, GA - Sheba is a featured poet on the 2021 Grammy-Nominated album “F-Your Feelings” by Robert Glasper.* Recently released her 8th album on August 19th, 2022, “The Fukc-it Pill,” produced by Triumph Reigns, Clayco Music Group, with guest production by Multi-Grammy award winner in Artists Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Robert Glasper!* She recently returned from Israel, invited by the Israeli consul general of Atlanta, and was one of eight people chosen from around the country by the office of the foreign ministry of Israel for a social impact and education tour. * Being who is Sheba is, of course, she found a POETRY group to connect with while learning about technology, agriculture, antiracism practices, youth, LGBT, and anything that involves Israel.* You can hear Queen Sheba every Thursday on V-103 as the co-host with Joyce Littel for the poetic moment segment on the quiet storm from 10 PM to midnight!* In 2020 during a global pandemic, Queen Sheba was invited to participate in a collection of poetry, short stories & visual art by the city of Atlanta.* Sheba is Atlanta's previous “Creative Loafing's” People's Choice Spoken Word Artist of the year!* She also received the Gentlemen's Foundation ‘Gentle Woman of Artistry' of the Year award for her work in the LGBT community for HIV Prevention.* Sheba is a ‘Women of the World' & Individual World Poetry Slam Finalist.* Sheba is also a featured performer on season two of Verses and Flow, brought to you by Lexus on TV One, and has been on Spoken, a featured poet on Lyric Café on BET, 106&Park, the Apollo and the feature-length film ‘Spit.'* Sheba has eight albums, three of which were up for a Grammy under the Spoken Word category, including her current album, “The F-It Pill,” which was in the running for best spoken Word album of the year.* Sheba is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee. Her works have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Vibe Online and the focus of college students' papers everywhere!* Queen Sheba has two books: From Foster Care to Fame, short stories and poems too long for three minutes and Run Ugly! A motivational book for runners, with two forthcoming books “Clemency: poems to help you accept the apology as you will never receive, and The day I almost died in D.R.- how to leave your body and toxic relationship behind.* With a Master in Poetry from Queens University - Spoken Word artist, motivational speaker, comedian, and bathroom concert singer, Sheba tours internationally and has conducted performances and workshops at over 200 colleges and universities domestically and abroad, an APCA - Performer of the Year Nominee, and is a Creative Writing Professor at the Historical Black Clark Atlanta University where she teaches Poetry, Story Telling and Fiction.* YouTube: We Are The WomenPersonal Facebook Profile: fb.com/thequeensheba8Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/bethshebaaremInstagram Handle: @thequeensheba @poetryvshiphop Get full access to Superpowers for Good at devinthorpe.substack.com/subscribe

We continue our year of the badass woman with extreme adventurer Chloe Phillips-Harris. Joni Kuhn tells us what it is like to own and take care of a camel and some Realli Bad Adz. Listen in…. HORSES IN THE MORNING Episode 3135 – Show Notes and Links:The HORSES IN THE MORNING Crew: Glenn the Geek: co-host, executive in charge of comic relief, Jamie Jennings: co-host, director of wacky equestrian adventuresTitle Sponsor: Kentucky Performance ProductsPhoto: Horse Radio NetworkGuest: Joni Kuhn | Facebook​Guest: Chloe Phillips-Harris | Facebook | InstagramLink: "Fearless: The Life of Adventurer, Equestrian and Endurance Rider Chloe Phillips-Harris"There's an App for that! Download the new FREE Horse Radio Network App for iPhone and AndroidFollow Horse Radio Network on TwitterAdditional support for this podcast provided by: Wintec Saddles, and Listeners Like YouTime Stamps04:12 - Daily Whinnies08:00 - Lion Country Safari21:34 - Joni Kuhn - Camels33:10 - Chloe Phillips-Harris50:30 - Realli Bad AdzMentioned in this episode:Southern Bell Auction:Southern Belle Classic Auction

We continue our year of the badass woman with extreme adventurer Chloe Phillips-Harris. Joni Kuhn tells us what it is like to own and take care of a camel and some Realli Bad Adz. Listen in…. HORSES IN THE MORNING Episode 3135 – Show Notes and Links:The HORSES IN THE MORNING Crew: Glenn the Geek: co-host, executive in charge of comic relief, Jamie Jennings: co-host, director of wacky equestrian adventuresTitle Sponsor: Kentucky Performance ProductsPhoto: Horse Radio NetworkGuest: Joni Kuhn | Facebook​Guest: Chloe Phillips-Harris | Facebook | InstagramLink: "Fearless: The Life of Adventurer, Equestrian and Endurance Rider Chloe Phillips-Harris"There's an App for that! Download the new FREE Horse Radio Network App for iPhone and AndroidFollow Horse Radio Network on TwitterAdditional support for this podcast provided by: Wintec Saddles, and Listeners Like YouTime Stamps04:12 - Daily Whinnies08:00 - Lion Country Safari21:34 - Joni Kuhn - Camels33:10 - Chloe Phillips-Harris50:30 - Realli Bad AdzMentioned in this episode:Southern Bell Auction:Southern Belle Classic Auction

I am wonderfully delighted to talk with Queen Sheba the Founder of Poetry vs. Hip-Hop. We talk about how she got her pen name of Queen Sheba, how she has been fired from every job ever, and so has decided being an entrepreneur was her style. Sheba shares that it is so important that you keep going and share what you are. We talk about how important it is to be shameless in your self promotion, and how you need to be your own authentic self. We discuss about the devastating loss of Queen Sheba's partner, and how she went through that loss. She shares about how important it is to have a therapist, and shares so much of what she had been going through, and her book that is coming out to help share about how to go through reconstruction plastic surgery. Commission her here: https://www.thequeensheba.live/ Check out her Twitter: https://twitter.com/thequeensheba And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheQueenSheba8/ Partnered with the African American Film Critics Association for #29DaysofMagic 2023 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theaafca/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aafca/?hl=en Website: aafca.com --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-reset-podcast/support

Ep249 The post Queen Sheba appeared first on Canada Comedy.

The real spill on the Goddess Queen Sheba.

Today's episode explores the attributes and works of  Queen Sheba. A Queen in the pursuit of knowledge and answers changed a nation and culture. Queens, you are an influencer to your community, your families, and your workplace. Be bold in who God created you to be. 

International music superstars, Angélique Kidjo and Ibrahim Maalouf, have teamed up for their very first album together and both join us in our latest episode of JAZZIZ Travel to tell us all about it. Queen of Sheba is a spectacular record that is inspired by and reimagines the myth of Queen Sheba, the African Queen who challenged King Solomon's wisdom via a series of wisdom. An icon of female empowerment, her story has appeared in several sacred texts, literary traditions, films and other artworks. Queen of Sheba was composed and scored entirely by Maalouf with all lyrics by Kidjo, who sings in the Yoruba language, and prior to it being recorded, the album has been performed live by Maalouf and Kidjo on some of the world's most prestigious stages. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jazziz/support

Welcome Harvesters! This week our guest speaker Rev. Dr. Eu Hon Seng will be bringing us the Word of God in his sermon, "Queen Sheba is in town". We believe this message would inspire and challenge us as we grow deeper in God's Word!

Is it hard to unfriend someone who has passed away ? the Atlanta Braves are one win away from winning the world series, who you picking ? We have an exclusive interview with Queen Sheba who is running for school; board here in Atlanta.

Our guest this week is  Bath-Sheba McMahon who is founder of her own clothing line Sheba M. Collection which was launched in November 2020. Sheba  is a  28 year old woman  who currently lives in Los Angeles, California. She's  originally from Queens, NY and the youngest of 11 children. Her mother was born and raised in Jamaica and her father is from New York City. Sheba's parents instilled in her the importance of sports and wellness at a young age and that is when she decided basketball would be a passion of hers. Sheba earned an  athletic scholarship where she studied Psychology and then proceeded to play basketball professionally in Czech Republic. Shortly after returning from abroad, Sheba found her  new passion in modeling. She participated in a number of photoshoots and prestigious fashion shows including New York & LA Fashion Week. One life motto, Sheba lives by is  “If you aren't making mistakes, you aren't taking enough chances.” This mindset has awarded her many opportunities and relationships she would have never encountered if she never took the chance. Connect/Shop Sheba's Collection : https://www.instagram.com/sheba.mc/ https://shebamcollection.com/ https://www.patreon.com/kumosunfilteredconvos?fan_landing=true https://www.instagram.com/kumosunfilteredconvos/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/kumosunfilteredconvos/message

Bring on the floodlights. I once heard an actor say, if all the world's a stage, then I want better lighting. It's a common direction for actors, meaning they must find the light on the stage and make sure that they're acting in the light. Now we're not actors. But we need to find the light, we need to step out of the shadows and turn our face to the light. We need to fill our eyes with the light of His love. We need to make sure that we are looking to God and not to self that we're looking to Jesus. Jesus says, make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. If you're filled with lights, no corners of darkness, then your whole life will be radiant as though a floodlight we're filling you with light. We need to make sure that we're looking into the light, the true light of His love. Not to self not to religion, not to false lights, and there are many, many that besmirched the very character of God. Their theologies turn God into a monster, when Jesus has come to show us the very nature in the heart of who God is. So many of these lies are simply a way of controlling and coercing you with fear. They say they're light, but they're keeping you in the dark about how good God really is. Queen Sheba, and the people of Nineveh responded to the light of God's wisdom, His mercy, his love. But religion tradition, the self, so much can tragically eclipsed the light of God's love, and deceive many. To think that what we think of light is actually darkness is such a tragedy. In fact, it's so tragic that Jesus comes on really strong here. His rebuke of the purveyors of false light is scathing. He doesn't come after these Pharisees and teachers of religious law for vengeance sake, he's coming on strong because he wants to rouse their hearts, to open their blind eyes. These are the passionate declarations of a man who is full of love, and is wanting desperately for all to see clearly the light that is common to this dark world, to set people free. So let's make sure that the light that you think you have, is actually not darkness. And we can keep our eye on Jesus, not ourself. Not our religion, not our piety, not our accomplishments, or our tithes are all the many ways we seek to justify ourselves, we simply look to him, look to what he has done. His light has come into your darkness into this world, and he is making all things new. Bring on the floodlights. And let the radiance of God's love fill you to day. Find your light friend, and walk in, revel in it. Breathe deep in it, and know his love. That's the prayer that I have for my own soul. That's the prayer that I have for my family for my wife, my daughters, my son. And that's a prayer that I have for you may be so

The queen herself, Queen Sheba will be on the show to talk all things education. Yes, the queen is running for Atlanta board of education. Join us as we sit with her to see what she has in store. @queenshebaforatlanta. Informative Comedic Promotional Journalism Tune in Monday-Friday from 10am-12pm EST with us live in the @hits92.3 app or on all social media platforms Host

Special guest, QUEEN SHEBA, Atlanta School Board Candidate & Grammy Nominated poet joins us to discuss whether LIL NAS X's kiss of another man on the BET AWARDS was a harmless gesture or part of a larger RACIST agenda aimed at EMASCULATING BLACK MEN or a GAY AGENDA aimed at normalizing HOMOSEXUALITY to children? Would this kiss be celebrated had LIL NAS X kissed a woman? Does the BLACK COMMUNITY need to get over its HOMOPHOBIA or is the LGBTQ community pushing unwarranted culture shifts down BLACK AMERICA'S throat? MENTAL DIALOGUE asking the questions America's afraid to ask. ALL I ASK IS THAT YOU THINK --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/montoya-smith/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/montoya-smith/support

Tuesday marks one year since George Floyd was killed by police. From Floyd’s death to a murder verdict, the days and the months since are fueling continued calls for change. Today we’re turning inward and sitting down with Black artists and business owners, celebrating culture and community, but also asking how they’re reflecting on what’s changed and what hasn’t. Today's Guests Queen Sheba Ethiopian Restaurant in SacramentoVicki Gonzalez / CapRadio Ethiopian restaurant Queen Sheba Owner and Sheba Farms Founder Zion Taddese explains how food is intertwined with mental health, justice, equity, and the strength of community Sacramento-based Trinidadian Steel DrummerCourtesy Shawn Thwaites Sacramento-based Trinidadian Steel Drum Musician Shawn Thwaites on becoming the SF Chapter Governor for the Recording Academy, ambassador for the Black Music Collective within the GRAMMYs, and founder of the production company Crew, all taking place within the past year "Inauguration Day"Courtesy Brandon Gastinell Digital visual artist Brandon Gastinell, who participated in 2020 Wide Open Walls, discusses his work saturated in modern pop culture, staggering the contrasts and juxtapositions of collage with celebrities, elected officials, and other public personas at the centerpiece Lauren Boyd, dancer and director at Sac Dance LabVicki Gonzalez / CapRadio Sac Dance Lab Youth Hip Hop Director Lauren Boyd, who holds weekly dance classes and leads the Starbursts youth hip hop dance team, reflects on how the meaning of dance transformed over the past year amid pandemic restrictions, distance learning, and participating in demonstrations calling for racial justice

Legends of the Poetry Slam with poet and novelist Danny Solis Article by James Navé Twice 5 Miles Radio welcomes poet and novelist Danny Solis to the microphone. In this interview titled Legends of the Poetry Slam, Danny Solis speaks at length about the legendary spoken-word poets who experimented, invented, and defined the Poetry Slam. You might be wondering. How does a poet become legendary in the Poetry Slam? Danny Solis is qualified to tell the story because he is indeed one of the Poetry Slam legends. Of course, Danny wasn't the only one; many poets contributed to what became an international phenomenon that continues to this day. In this interview, Danny offers the idea that participation, generosity, and mentorship are the reasons why one becomes legendary in a chosen genre, especially in the Poetry Slam community. If you didn't know, the Poetry Slam is a performance poetry competition that requires poets to perform their work for five judges, arbitrarily chosen from the audience. The judges score the poets 0-10 like a diving match. Each poet has a three-minute limit. When the poet leaves the stage, the emcee, otherwise known as the slammaster, asks the judges to raise their scoreboards: 7.1 -7.7 - 8.5 - 9.3 - 9.4. The scorekeeper drops the high and low score and keeps the middle three: 7.7 - 8.5 - 9.3 for a total score of 25.5, out of a possible 30. The poet who has the highest score at the end of the competition wins the Poetry Slam. Prizes range from bragging rights to $5000, depending on the venue. As Danny said, participation, generosity, and mentorship are why poets become legends of the Poetry Slam. The Poetry Slam, led by Marc Smith, emerged from experimental Chicago poets in the mid-80s. By 1992, the Poetry Slam had expanded beyond Chicago to New York, San Francisco, Boston, Ann-Arbor, Asheville, and beyond. I first met Danny in 1992 at the National Poetry Slam Championships held in Boston. Danny was on the Boston Slam Team; I was on the Asheville Slam team. Our Asheville Slam team fell to the wayside in the early rounds, sniff, sniff. However, Danny's Cantab Lounge Boston Slam Team won the Nationals year. Even in those early days, Danny was legendary for starting his poems in the back of the room, performing them down the aisle, and stepping on stage with the audience firmly in his hand. As the years continued, Danny was on eight National Poetry Slam teams in this order: Boston, 1992 - Asheville, 1994, 1995 - Austin, 1996 - Albuquerque 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. Danny was on two winning National Poetry Slam teams, Boston in 1992 and Asheville in 1995. In 2008, Danny was on the International Poetry Slam (Oxford England, 2008) with Beau Sia, Queen Sheba, and Taylor Mali. Well, gentle reader, as you can see, Danny's contributions to the Poetry Slam Community ripple in all directions. Today, Danny is still at it performing, teaching, writing, and showing up when needed anywhere, anytime. Yes, you can bet your bottom dollar, Danny Solis indeed belongs in that magic circle of poets who are the Legends of the Poetry Slam. Enjoy listening to the interview. Please share it with your friends.

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Queen Sheba (Bethsheba Rem), is a Grammy Nominated Poet and Founder of “Below the Radar + CODAW” talks about parlaying her love of the arts into a “poetry business” and what that really entails. www.thequeensheba.live - Born in Detroit, MI, now living in Atlanta GA - Queen Sheba is the co-founder of Poetry vs. Hip-Hop the production and the organization, an Int’l 4 Countries Slam Champion, two-time National Poetry Slam Champ, three-time Regional Poetry Slam Champ, and a WOWps Finalist. Sheba is also a featured performer on season two of Verses and Flow, brought to you by Lexus on TV One, and has been on Spoken, a featured poet on Lyric Café on BET, 106 & Park, the Apollo, and the feature-length film Spit. Sheba has six albums, two of which were up for a Grammy under the Spoken Word category and she is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee. Her works have appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines including Vibe Online, and the focus of college student’s papers. Queen Sheba has two books: From Foster Care to Fame short stories and poems too long for three minutes and Run Ugly! A motivational book for runners. With a Masters in Poetry from Queens University Spoken Word artist, motivational speaker, comedian, and bathroom concert singer, Sheba tours internationally and has conducted performances and workshops at over 200 colleges and universities domestic and abroad. Schedule your guest appearance on the show: https://bwstlive.as.me/schedule.php Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Email BlackWallStreetTodayPodcast @ gmail. com. The Black Wall Street Today (BWST) radio show is focused on all things Black entrepreneurship and hosted by Virginia Tech alumnae Blair Durham, co-founder and co-President of Black BRAND. BWST occurs live in the studios of the historic and prestigious HBCU Hampton University. The BWST podcast is produced by using selected audio from the radio show and other Black BRAND events. BWST is the media outlet for Black BRAND. Black BRAND is a 501(c)(3) organization that stands for Business Research Analytics Networking and Development. We are Hampton Roads Regional Black Chamber of Commerce. We promote group economics through professional development and community empowerment, and we unify the black dollar by providing financial literacy, entrepreneurship training, and networking resources! http://blackbrand.biz m.me/blackwallstreettoday + info@blackbrand.biz + (757) 541-2680 Instagram: www.instagram.com/blackbrandbiz/ + Facebook: www.facebook.com/blackbrandbiz/ Jazzy Version of Shimmy Shimmy Ya – Jashsaun Peele & Grandpa Crunk. https://youtu.be/tp25ToCluBI Produced by Seko Varner for Positive Vibes Inc. http://www.PositiveVibes.net + (757) 932-0177 Fix your credit yourself: https://positivevibes.myecon.net/my-credit-system/ Debt consolidation & Private Money lending: PositiveVibesFinancial@gmail.com + (757) 932-0177 Start your own financial business: https://positivevibes.myecon.net/lp/wfh-v1/?a=1-930503E- --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/black-wall-street-today/message

In this episode I get the chance to sit down with Grammy-nominated poet, "Queen Sheba." From socially-conscious heavy hitting words to the sweet, metaphorical morsels of romantic expressions, she shares what inspires her when the pen is in hand. If you stay to the end, she even blesses us with a sample of her poetic artistry.    Follow her: @thequeensheba Follow us: @speakyourlyfe Support: https://patreon.com/speakyourlyfe Connect: https://speakyourlyfe.com

Queen Sheba traveled miles to find knowledge. Solomon give her that and more... How far will you go to know the truth?    

Join Lady B Bless on Facebook & YouTube LIVE for Women Wednesday - February 17, 2021 - 3pm EST (NewYorkTime) Special Guest: Queen Sheba - Host of K is 4 Knowledge Podcast Topic: Tips on Starting a Business K is 4 Knowledge is a weekly podcast, whose mission is to be uplifting, empowering, motivating to black businesses and entrepreneurs. LIVE @ www.facebook.com/ladybbless, www.facebook.com/GPWNetwork, and www.youtube.com/ladybbless Women Wednesdays with Lady B Bless is sponsored by The Global Progressive Women Network --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/iamladybbless/message

Born in Detroit, MI, now living in Atlanta GA - Queen Sheba is the co-founder of Poetry vs. Hip-Hop the production and the organization, a Int’l 4 Countries Slam Champion, two time National Poetry Slam Champ, three time Regional Poetry Slam Champ and a WOWps Finalist. Sheba is also a featured performer on season two of Verses and Flow, brought to you by Lexus on TV One, and has been on Spoken, a featured poet on Lyric Café on BET, 106 & Park, the Apollo and the feature length film Spit. Sheba has six albums, two of which were up for a Grammy under the Spoken Word category and she is a two-time NAACP Image Award Nominee. Her works have appeared in numerous anthologies, magazines including Vibe Online and the focus of college student’s papers. Queen Sheba has two books: From Foster Care to Fame short stories and poems too long for three minutes and Run Ugly! A motivational book for runners. With a Masters in Poetry from Queens University Spoken Word artist, motivational speaker, comedian, and bathroom concert singer, Sheba tours internationally and has conducted performances and workshops at over 200 colleges and universities domestic and abroad.

Rich, powerful and mysterious. The Queen of Sheba (Saba) captured the imagination of many, but did she actually exist? Instagram: QandRpod Email: QueensandRebelspod@gmail.com Sources: - Mamman Musa Adamu "The Legend of Queen Sheba, the Solomonic Dynasty and Ethiopian History: An Analysis", African Research Review, Vol. 3 (1), 2009. - Suzanne Conklin Akbari "Where Is Medieval Ethiopia? Mapping Ethiopic Studies within Medieval Studies" Getty Publications, 2019, pp. 80-91. - Toy, C. H. “The Queen of Sheba.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 20, no. 78, 1907, pp. 207–212. - Campbell, Colin. “Was There a Queen Of Sheba? Evidence Makes Her More Likely.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Feb. 1986, www.nytimes.com/1986/02/04/science/was-there-a-queen-of-sheba-evidence-makes-her-more-likely.html. - “Archaeologists Strike Gold in Quest to Find Queen of Sheba's Wealth.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 12 Feb. 2012, www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/12/archaeologists-and-quest-for-sheba-goldmines. - Delano, Photograph by James Whitlow, et al. “In Search of the Real Queen of Sheba.” Travel, 11 Nov. 2020, www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/africa/ethiopia/mysterious-queen-sheba-legend-church-archaeology/. - “Two Riddles of the Queen of Sheba.” Metmuseum.org, www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/465954. - “In Search of Myths &Amp Heroes . The Queen of Sheba.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, www.pbs.org/mythsandheroes/myths_four_sheba.html.

JRose sits with ATL based Poets, Queen Sheba & Milk to talk about the differences and similarities between Poetry & Hip Hop. Tune in for deep discussions about their journey through the performance scene in ATL. Stick around for our “Off The Top'' segment when we have some guessing fun with Hip Hop. Catch up with JRose and her guests every Tuesday on: Facebook/YouTube ➡️ The Rose Garden Events Coming soon to IGTV ➡️ @jroseexperience ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Follow | Subscribe | Turn ON Notifications ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

We engage in a rich and robust conversation with the owner and top chef at Queen Sheba Ethiopian restaurant in Sacramento, CA. Not only is food appraised, but the international context in which food enlivens the places we live, yet is a cultural carry-bag, is appreciated.

 BRING ON THE FLOODLIGHTS Today’s readings are Zechariah 1 – 3 and Luke 11.  We are reading from the New Living Translation. I once heard an actor say that, If all the world is a stage, then I want better lighting.   It’s a common direction for actors performing, to ask for the light. They have to find the light on the stage and make sure that they are acting in the light.   We are not actors, but we do need to find the Light.  We need to fill our eyes with the light of his love. We need to make sure that we are looking to God and not to Self – that we are looking to Jesus, and not to Religion.  Jesus says, Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness.  If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light. (Lk 11:35-36 NLT) We need to make sure that we are looking into the true light of his love, my friends, and not looking to the self, or religion, or any other false lights.  Queen Sheba and the people of Ninevah responded to the light of God’s wisdom, mercy and love.  But religion, tradition, and self can, tragically, eclipse the light of God’s love, and deceive many. To think that what we think of as light, is actually darkness is such a tragedy.  In fact, it is so tragic that Jesus comes on strong here.  His rebuke of the purveyors of false light is scathing. He doesn’t come after these teachers of religious law and Pharisees, for vengeance sake.  He’s coming on strong because he wants to rouse their hearts,  to open their blind eyes.  These are the passionate declarations of a Man who is full of love and is wanting desperately for all to see clearly the Light that has come into this dark world to set them free.   Make sure that the light that you think you have is actually not darkness.  Keep your eye on Jesus – not yourself, not religion, your accomplishments, or titles.   Simply look to what He has done for you.  His light has come into your darkness and is making you new.     If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, (Lk 11:36 NLT). Bring on the floodlights and let the radiance of God’s love fill you today.  Find His light and walk in it.

In this Episode, I Join forces with Queen Nish and Queen Sheba on the topic of self-love. We start from the foundation of self-love within our own lives and discuss our journeys with loving ourselves and speak on the journey of pursuing love outside of ourselves. We share stories from our lives about self-love and pursuing love and we also share some tools and techniques that can be used to evolve yourself while on your self-love journey. We create and share a mentality and discuss foundation principles that people can apply and use in their everyday lives. Support The Show https://journeyvip.supercast.com/donations/new

City Beats with Efrem Smith is about the engaging of urban subcultures, issues, and challenges for the purpose of life and community transformation. We are living in the age of urbanization, diversity, and unfortunate division. Host Efrem Smith will explore reconciliation, justice, and bridge building as the way forward.

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Zion Taddese is living the American Dream. Born and raised in Ethiopia, she moved to Sacramento to run the family restaurant, Queen Sheba. Now 10 years later, after moving to the new location on Broadway, Zion runs and operates one of the hottest restaurants in town. Queen Sheba is known for it's vegan-friendly lunch buffet. So I found it only fitting to record the podcast with Zion while eating lunch at the buffet. Hear about her upbringing in Ethiopia (4:30), how Sacramento has changed over the years (12:00), what still needs to be done to ensure quality for all (16:00), and how her vegan food has changed people for the better (25:00).

Call in (657) 383-1431. It's going to be LIT! Phenom to phenom. The legendary Queen Sheba chops it up with Suite Franchon about Poetry vs Hip Hop and the live event series that's sweeping the nation. Next stop Philly, Sept 6th. Discover how you can be a part as artist, promoter, school, or fan. Suite Franchon OMG

7-19-2017 Recorded at Mahogany Urban Poetry Series Located at Queen Sheba Restaurant 1704 Broadway, Sacramento, California 95818 Mahogany Urban Poetry Series meets every Wednesday at Queen Sheba @ 9pm

In which Sharea Harris and i talk about SURPRISE HAIKU and something keeps getting bumped (sorry about that, y'all)... website - www.shareaharris.com/ instagram - @sharea_rea other things referenced: Haiku: The Last Poems of an American Icon by Richard Wright - www.amazon.com/Haiku-Last-Poems-…con/dp/1611453496 Honey, I Love by Eloise Greenfield - www.harpercollins.com/web-sampler/9780064430975 The Lucky Stone by Lucille Clifton - www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKiGbL2cKj0 Southern Fried Poetry Slam - www.southernfried2016.com/ Queen Sheba - www.thequeensheba.org/ Shaun Judah - shaunjudahyo.bandcamp.com/ bone by Yrsa Daley-Ward - www.amazon.com/bone-Yrsa-Daley-Ward/dp/1499170718

King Solomon’s Queen of Sheba David dives deep into this subject with a fascinating look into the myth and legend of Queen Sheba. Also, we get into some curious mystical history. Join David as we discover: * Where is the Land of Sheba? * How King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba met * The […]

Survivor, Activist, and Spoken Word Artist: She is a Greenville, SC native who has grown to be an outstanding budding artist in the poetry community. A member of the Upstate SC Poetry Slam Team- Say What?! Bitter Sweet has ranked top 3 in several slam competitions and throughout the upstate of South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. The 2013 and 2014 'Say What?!' Slam Team Grand Slam Champion, the 2013 Soul Sister Slam Winner, winner of Queen Sheba's Rough Language Slam in 2013 and 2014 Say What?! Venue's 12th Annversary Slam winner She also works with Wits End Poetry, a non-profit organization built around serving the youth and senior citizens along with hosting writing and performing workshops. She's performed for elementary and middle school students. Bittersweet's poetry is filled with raw emotion and personal triumph that will inspire, no matter your walk in life. Her most influential and favorite poets are Dr. Maya Angelou, Langston Hughes and Edgar Allen Poe. She is quoted as saying "I only write about what i've been through. My poetry is raw and uncut just like me. I spit from the depths of my soul, there's truth in my saliva. The taste is BitterSweet."  

Did you miss the poetry slam? No worries, we have a few posts from one of our very favorite "slam" artists. Listen the the message from the incomparable Queen Sheba. She has performed at over 200 universities, authored a book, and has countless cds of spoken word under her belt. Inspiring, thought provoking, she is nothing short of phenomenal. Lend this an ear and prepare to be impressed. More to come in 2014!   Queen Sheba DJ Come of Age

Lets open our Bibles up this morning to James 3 together. As youre turning there, I want to share a story with you. Its about a young preacher who was really climbing the ranks as far as popularity and notoriety went. He really wanted to make a name for himself. At first, his heart was in the right place. He wanted to please God; he wanted to build the Kingdom of God, but somewhere along the line, it got skewed, and it became about him. It became about building his name rather than Gods name. He started to get a little prideful and arrogant. It kind of reached a climax when he was invited to speak at a conference. At this conference, pastors and leaders would be there. Before he was introduced, he thought to himself, Look at how prominent Ive become. I am now the teacher of teachers. Im the leader of leaders. I really have accomplished a lot for my young age, he thought to himself. He knew he had a sermon that was just going to be incredible. He anticipated the standing ovation hed receive after he was done. He reflected on how hed have more accolades and more invitations to speak. His name would get even more well-known. Finally, they read his resume. They talked about all hed accomplished in his young life, and everybody applauded as he got up to speak. He was supposed to speak for an hour that day. About ten minutes into his sermon, he realized he was more than halfway through his notes. He started to lose a little bit of that air of confidence; he started to get a little shaky, a little nervous, but the crowd could not detect it at this point. He kept trying to stretch it out and elaborate, but still five minutes later he was almost done. He was supposed to fill an hours time. Now, he realizes he isnt going to be able to make this thing stretch to an hour, so he started to get a little tongue-tied; a little knee knocking was going on. He started to perspire, and now his confidence-or lack thereof-was clearly seen. He was embarrassed and ashamed when he had to say, Im sorry. Thats all I have. I know I was supposed to speak for an hour, but my material didnt last as long as I thought. Thanks for having me! He put his tail between his legs, humbly walked down the seats, and sat down. The MC got up and said, Well, we still have a lot of time to kill. The meal is not even close to being ready. Pastor so-and-so, would you come up and just greet us? Its so good to see you. And the guy was like, Oh, I cant. I cant. I havent prepared anything. He said, No, just come up and bring a greeting. Share what the Lord is doing in your life since you retired from ministry. He was like, No, really, I cant. I dont have anything prepared. He said, Well, just come on up. Just say hi to us. So he went up, he started to share, and the Lord started giving him words to say. The next thing you knew, he was preaching this spontaneous sermon; and it was moving people. In fact, when he was done, they rose to their feet giving glory to God for the inspirational words theyd just heard. They applauded as he returned to his seat, knowing that he had been used by God. He sat down next to the young man who was all embarrassed still from his ministry or lack thereof; and he said, That was amazing! I hope to be able to do that some day! He said, Can you just tell me what your secret is? Just give me a bit of advice to help me. He said, Well, young man, if you would have gone up like you came down, you could have came down like you went up. If you would have gone up humbly and meek, you could have come down knowing that youd honored God; but because you went up proud and arrogant, you came down humbled. God opposes proudness and gives grace to the humble. Jesus says, Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. James is going to talk about the importance of humility, and hes going to talk about the danger of being self-centered. That is our topic for today. Lets turn to James 3:13 (page 1198 of pew Bibles), Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. Just like faith would show itself in action, according to James, somebody who is wise, it shows by their life. Its demonstrated by their good works. James says, Wisdom too is something that we see. In Hollywood, you find wisdom, you find enlightenment. You climb a mountain and find a guru who is sitting in a lotus position somewhere. He doesnt really do anything, doesnt go anywhere. He just has all this head knowledge, and hes going to tell you the secret to life. Thats kind of how it works, right? James knows nothing of that. He said, That guys not wise. A wise person is out there living the life, doing wise things, and their wisdom is apparent. He says, Another thing thats apparent in a wise person is humility because humility comes from wisdom. Why? Because you cannot teach a proud person anything. You think you know all the answers, and you have it all. Youre proud, youre not going to learn, and youre not going to have wisdom. He said, A wise person is a humble person. A wise person realizes he or she has so much more to learn, so many more opportunities to grow, and so many people they can learn from. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. In other words, lets be honest here. To some of you who Im writing to today, youve become proud. Youre consumed with selfish ambition. Youre consumed with selfish ambition. He said, Lets tell the truth. Lets talk about where that lifestyle takes you. Such wisdom does not come down from Heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. What was Satans downfall? Isaiah writes and says, Satan said, I will be like God. I will ascend to Heaven. I will make my throne in the Heavens, and I will be like God. That was his downfall, pride. He says, When we act in a prideful way, that's exactly who were imitating. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. Where you find envy and selfish ambition, things break down. Things dont work; life doesnt function well. Have you ever been a part of a church? I think one of the reasons why our church works well is because we have a lot of humble people who are serving the Lord. I look at our staff and how theyve worked together, and I watch every week how they try to help each other out. What happens when churches get territorial? This is our budget, our room, our agenda! Have you been part of a church like that that gets divided and split because of these trivial matters, because people are being selfish? Instead of focusing on just their goal, building their agenda, what happens? Things break down. When were serving one another, were working together for a common good, theres unity, theres productivity, and good things happen. So he says, When theres selfish ambition and envy, [there you will find disorder and every evil practice]. Ive shared this before, as a friend of mine always said, the smallest package in the world is a person all wrapped up in themselves. When you become self-centered, you shrink. You lose that bigger picture that that song just sang about. What if theres a bigger picture? What if theres more than just me out there and population me? Now, Im going to talk a bit like I did last week. Last week, we talked about the tongue and the dangers of the tongue. We looked in James, and then we looked at David and saw when he really started to have a downward spiral to his life was when he began to speak-his deceit and lies, and he started doubting Gods promises and speaking out. With that discouragement and negativity, a downward spiral began to happen; and how did he turn it around? Through his words and his faith-confession, adoration, and thanksgiving-which changed his perspective; so were going to take a look at a person thats living both sides of this Passage. He started out wise, started out humble, started off giving glory to God, and then were going to see things go south. Were going to see them become self-centered. Were going to see them seek to glorify themselves instead of God, and were going to watch what happens to their Kingdom and their lives. Lets turn in our Bibles please to the Book of 1 Kings 3. Were going to take a panoramic look at the life of King Solomon. Were going to see him as a young man, as a middle-aged man, and as an old man. Were going to be spanning through many different chapters and kind of taking snapshots along the way and assessing where were at. David chooses Solomon to be his successor. We all know the story of Solomon and how he was conceived, how he was conceived out of wedlock through Davids relationship with Bathsheba. Yet David saw within Solomon these leadership qualities. He saw within Solomon a heart for God. He knew that though he was not his oldest, he was his wisest. He was most fit to be king, so he is the one whom David appoints. Some of you may be familiar with the story. In case you arent, Solomon is newly appointed king. Hes making sacrifices to God. He wants to try to get off on the right foot, and hes nervous. Hes nervous because hes king. The buck stops with him. Hes responsible for a nation, hes accountable to God, and hes scared by that fact. Thats on his mind when he goes to bed one night; and then while he is sleeping, God appears to him in a dream in Verse 5 (page 329 of pew Bibles). It says, At Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon during the night in a dream, and God said, Ask for whatever you want me to give you. It was very unusual for God to say something like this. Some people think thats what Gods for, right? He is the divine dispenser. Were Christians, and that just means ask God for stuff. Hes the cuddly grandfather in the sky who just lives to give good things to you and spoil His kids; and thats a much distorted picture of whom God is. Actually, we are there to serve Him-not He [to serve] us; but in this particular case, God does say almost like an Aladdin kind of thing, What do you want? Ask Me anything. Ill give it to you. What would you say if God said that to you? Im not going to ask for answers because I know youre in church, and youd just give me churchy answers, I just want to love Jesus more. I just want world peace. There would be no talk of sport cars or bank accounts or anything like that. You would just give me all kinds of churchy answers, so Im not even going to bother asking you. In your heart of hearts, what would you say if God said, What do you want? What can I do for you? So here [we have] Solomons answer. Remember God can see if hes just pulling His leg here, if hes just giving lip service. God can tell that, so Solomons answer really is from his heart. Notice how many times he uses the word servant. He talks about his father, David. Then he begins to talk about himself in Verse 7 and says, Now, O Lord my God, You have made Your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people You have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give Your servant a discerning heart to govern Your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of Yours? This is a game show. Its ding, ding, ding, Thats the correct answer. You just nailed it. Solomon knocked it out of the park. Thats exactly what the Lord wanted to hear. He just said, What do I want? I want to do this job, and I want to do it well. I want to be a king that youre proud of. I want to be a king that my dad would be proud of. I want to serve Your people. In fact, Im Your servant. How many times have some of us just come out of the blocks really good? Maybe when we were young or just a new Christian, we were really living for God. Things were going well, and our life was counting for the Kingdom. Then somewhere along the line, we messed up. Somewhere along the line we got off track. Thats whats going to happen to Solomon, but at this point in time, his heart is right where it needs to be. Its tender. Its humble. It says, God, I dont know what Im doing, quite honestly, and I ask You to lead me and guide me because if You dont, I dont know whats going to happen. God says, Because youve asked not for long life or wealth for yourself or the death of your enemies-because youve asked for discernment in administering justice, I will give you what youve asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never be anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what youve not asked for-both riches and honor-so that in your lifetime, you will have no equal among kings. If you walk in My ways and obey My statues and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life. So riches and honor are going to come. The third promise of a long life is conditional on how you live your life. When Solomon awakens from that dream, hes a new man. God often would speak in dreams, so even though they were dreams, the experience somehow was real. Unless youve experienced this [you wouldnt understand it]; sometimes God still does speak to believers today through dreams. In the last days, Hell speak through dreams. He spoke many times through dreams, so this is a real experience for Solomon; and he has wisdom. He doesnt just have wisdom about theological things. He doesnt just have wisdom about the Bible. He has wisdom about everything. In fact, in Chapter 4, if you look at Verse 29, it says, God gave Solomon wisdom about everything. Hes smarter than any of these men, and he names prominent men, and it tells you how he writes Psalms and Proverbs. He knows about plants, animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. He talks about how all the nations would send their people-the kings would send their people-to Solomon and listen to his wisdom. Solomon was a master of all. You name the subject, and Solomon could talk about it. People would come from all over the world and were astonished at his wisdom. Thats because it was a gift. It was the divine gift. God had enabled him to just absorb all of this knowledge and wisdom. Then in the next chapter, Solomon gets about the business of building his palace and building his temple, Gods Temple. Building Gods Temple was not going to be something easy. This was going to cost millions and millions of dollars, and it was going to take craftsmen many years to build. It was going to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It just consumed his time. He spent his time building buildings and gardens, and you can read about it in the Book of Ecclesiastes; but the next 20 years are years of construction. Theyre years of hard work, and Solomon is very busy; and hes accomplishing a lot. Finally, the great day comes. Its the time of dedication. The dedication of the Temple takes days. You can read about it in Chapter 8. Solomon prays to God, and its a wonderful prayer. Its a beautiful prayer. Hes about 40 years old now. Hes middle-aged, the middle of his life. He is doing pretty well, and hes still on track. Listen to his words in Verse 55 of Chapter 8 (page 337 of pew Bibles), He stood and blessed the whole assembly of Israel… Imagine the whole nation there to celebrate the dedication of the Temple. He said, Praise be to the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel just as He promised… That was a reference back to their 40 years of wandering in the Desert. Think about that. Their nation was once just a dream or a seed planted in Abrahams mind. Then they became a nation, and they lived in slavery for many years. Then God delivered them out of slavery, and then they finally established a kingdom and a capital, but still there was war and turmoil. There were nations that would rise against them. [There was] never really a time of total peace. Now in Solomons reign, there is peace and prosperity as never before. There was nobody gunning for them. Theyre the top of the food chain. Solomon was the most famous man in the world, the richest man in the world, and he had 100 percent approval rate in the polls. Can you imagine that? Everybody loves this guy. Everybodys working. Everybody has a home; everybody has food to eat. Life is just good in Israel right now. This was the peak of the monarchy in the history of Israel, right here, and then they had this grand opening for the Temple. The Arc of the Covenant is no longer in a tent somewhere. The Arc of the Covenant is in a palatial Temple. Truly the prophesy has been fulfilled to Abraham. God has made a great nation, and theyre there. Solomons the head of it. At this point, it would almost seem that you could just put on the autopilot. What is there left to do? What is there left to accomplish? Thats going to be the problem. He encourages the people, and he says in Verse 56, …Not one word has failed of all the good promises He gave through His servant Moses. May the Lord our God be with us as He was with our fathers; may He never leave us nor forsake us. May He turn our hearts to Him, to walk in all His ways and to keep the commands, decrees and regulations He gave our fathers. And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that He may uphold the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel according to each days need… And what does that cause? …so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other. Solomon says, Thats what I live for. Thats what our nation lives for, that we might know God. Is he on track? Hes on track. But your hearts must be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by His decrees and obey His commands, as at this time. Excellent speech. Its wonderful! But God sees something in Solomon. God sees something coming down the road that nobody else sees-not even Solomon sees it. God is going to appear to him for a second time. Whats interesting is the prayer that Solomon has just prayed for his people and the admonition hes going to give to his people, God is going to take that same admonition, turn it around, and give it right back to Solomon in his second appearance. Look at Verse 1 of Chapter 9 (page 338 of pew Bibles), When Solomon had finished building the Temple of the Lord and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do… Stop right there. Do you see the red flag there? What had Solomon done? Achieved all he desired to do… Friends, thats a scary place to be. Theres a time when you roll up your sleeves, and youre getting to work for the Kingdom of God. Youre building the Kingdom of God; youre busy in ministry; and youre serving the Lord. Then theres that time when you put the sleeves down, button them up, wipe your hands, and say, Done. Im done. Ive done everything I wanted to do. Ive done everything Ive intended to do for the Kingdom. Thats a bad place to be. When you stop living for the Lord and building the Kingdom, who do you live for? Yourself. Whose kingdom do you build? Your own. How small does that become-when you lose sight of the greater picture? Apathy begins to set in; self-centeredness begins to set in. James says when that happens, bad things come. So heres Solomon. Solomon is like hey, Ive done everything I planned to accomplish. I think Im pretty much done. Ive accomplished everything I wanted to do. God comes on the scene in tenderness and kindness. Hes not rebuking Solomon, but its a wake-up call. Solomon has to think, Why did God tell me this? How could He not be happy with my leadership? How could He not be happy with the state of affairs in Israel and with the beautiful Temple that weve built? God says in Verse 3, I have heard the prayer and plea that youve made before Me; I have consecrated this Temple, which you have built, by putting My Name there forever. My eyes and My heart will always be there. Nothing will change that. As for you, if you walk before Me in integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe My decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, You shall never fail to have a man on the throne of Israel. But if you or your sons turn away from Me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this Temple I have consecrated for My Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. And though this Temple is now imposing, all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, Why has the Lord done such a thing to this land and to this Temple? People will answer, Because they have forsaken the Lord their God, who brought their fathers out of Egypt and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them-that is why the Lord brought all this disaster on them. Solomon does not respond. Solomon has to be thinking, Why did this happen? Now Solomon is getting a lot of accolades. Nothing but praises, What a wonderful leader! What a wonderful king he is! What a great man of God he is, and Solomon starts to believe his own clippings. He starts to believe his press. He starts to think, Yeah, look what Ive done. I am a great king! Look at what Ive accomplished! Look how people love me, how magnificent I am! His ego is stroked even more when the queen of Sheba comes to visit. Now, her name is not Sheba. Sometimes people say, Queen Sheba. No, shes the queen of Sheba, this country near Ethiopia. She comes and bears gifts of gold, spices, and all kinds of good things. She comes in Chapter 10, and shes curious; so she begins to ask Solomon all kinds of questions. The Bible says in Verse 3, …nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. Then she sees all of his wisdom. She sees the palace, all the food, how well everything functions, and she sees the Temple. It says in Verse 5 at the end, …she was overwhelmed. She said to the king, The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth, you have far exceeded the report I heard. She continues to fawn all over him, How happy your kingdom must be! They must just wake up every morning, pinch themselves and say, We cant believe Solomons our king! She is just like, Oh, Solomon, youre so wonderful! Oh, youre so handsome! Can I feel your muscles, and oh, youre great! She is just fawning all over this guy to the point where it crosses the line from being diplomacy to almost like flirtatious or whats your motivation here? She is just laying it on thick. Solomon is like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hes taking it all in, and then she gives him gold. She gives him all these things. Its interesting in Psalm 72. Read that when you have some time. Its a Psalm in which David was writing about his son Solomon and his future reign as king. Its interesting. Its a prayer, but its also a prophesy. In one of the lines from David, he talks about may his kingdom be great, and may Israel be prosperous. One of the lines he says is may gold be given him from Sheba, and thats exactly what happens. Then Solomon becomes even richer, but then things change. Remember hes done all that hes wanted to do. Everybody thinks hes great and wonderful. The queen of Sheba comes in and is just worshipping the guy. Things turn for Solomon. Turn to Chapter 11:1 (page 340), King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaohs daughter… Up to this point, the only wife we encounter is Pharaohs wife, who was from Africa. She was from Egypt. There was nothing wrong with that. God had not forbidden them to marry Egyptian women. As far as we know, they were living happily ever after; but in the winding down decades of Solomons life, things change drastically. It says that he begins to fall in love with these other women from other nations. In Verse 2, it says, They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, You must not intermarry with them because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods. Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. In other words, Solomon is doing the exact opposite of what he said he wanted to do, the exact opposite of what God had commanded him to do, exact opposite of what he told the people. Solomon has taken his eyes off God and put them on himself in his own pleasures. He was building his own kingdom. Everything Solomon does is big. Like Trump has to do everything big, Solomon does everything big. It says he goes on to have 700 wives and 300 concubines. If you do the math, that adds up to 1,000-1,000 women. His honey-do list was a mile long (congregation laughing), but he could hire out anybody he wanted to do what was on that list. Im thinking of mine right now. Lets move on. Some of those items have been on there so long, the paper is yellow. Verse 4, As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. It says he even goes on to follow the Ashtoreth, fertility goddess. He follows Molech, a god so awful that child sacrifice was part of the worship of this god, the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done. Solomon had an Achilles, didnt he? Was what Solomons Achilles? Women. That was his downfall. Its said everybody has a weakness. Everybody has a vice. You know the story of Achilles, right? Achilles in Greek mythology-his mom wanted him to live forever, so she took baby Achilles to the river, dumped him in the River Styx. By doing that, he became immortal except the river did not touch his ankle because she had a hand on his ankle as she dipped him in the water; so in that area, hes vulnerable. If you used a sword, spear, or a knife anyplace else, he would be immortal; but if something were to get him in that heal, hed be dead. Thats how Achilles died-an arrow went right to his heal, and he was vulnerable there. So the argument goes everybody had an area where were vulnerable, and that becomes an excuse. How many times have we heard people say, Well, you know, thats my vice. Thats how I was raised. You know my dad! He liked women too, you know, and Bathsheba-thats kinda how I ended up here. Im just a chip off the old block, so the Lord goes, Yeah, yeah, I forgot. That's the way I made you. I made you with that vice. Yeah, youre right. Yeah, thats okay. No, God doesnt buy it. Thats not an excuse for God. God holds him accountable. Somebody has to! Do you realize Saul was held accountable by Samuel? David was held accountable by Nathan. Solomon is held accountable by nobody-nobody. So God has to become his accountability buddy. When God comes on the scene, he says, Solomon, you are no longer living for Me. You are living for yourself. You are building your own kingdom. The Bible goes on to tell us that he began to build temples to these foreign gods. He just totally lost his mission and purpose. Dont use your vice as an excuse. God doesnt count as an excuse. Everybody has a weakness. Im not going to argue with that. There will be areas that youre weak in that Im not weak in, and areas that Im weak in that youre not weak in. Whats a temptation for you may not be a temptation for this person. I understand that. All of us have weaknesses, but those weaknesses are not an excuse. If we get to the point where we become self-centered, then those weaknesses are going to be exploited by the enemy; and he is going to attack like any good soldier would-attack where the enemy is most vulnerable. He becomes apathetic, and he is vulnerable. Satan knows his Achilles heel, and he attacks for these beautiful women. Solomon, in the end of his days, accomplishes absolutely nothing. When God confronts him, there is no repentance. There is no sorrow. From after the temple on, Solomon accomplishes not one thing for the Kingdom of God. Friends, if the wisest man who ever lived-aside from the Lord-could fall like that, anybody could. What does that do? It keeps us humble. It keeps us teachable. It keeps us aware. We know our Achilles heel. We know where hes going to attack, so I need to stay dependent. I need to stay focused on Kingdom matters and not become self-centered. Read that Passage one more time from James in light of what we just studied. He who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. That characterized Solomon during the first 40 years of his life. He was the epitome of that verse. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts and do not boast about it or deny the truth, such wisdom does not come down from Heaven but is earthly, unspiritual and of the devil. That describes his decline. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder in every evil practice. He went from worshiping God to worshiping the Pagan gods of all of his many hundreds of wives. The Bible then tells us what happened was the Kingdom broke down. Adversaries began to be raised up and began to come against Israel. The prosperity began to leave when people started to rebel. The Kingdom was taken away from him. One sad story: remember how Saul tried to kill David because David was everything Saul wanted to be? David was everything Saul used to be, so he got mad, he took his spear, and threw it at him, chucked it at him, and tried to kill him just because he was jealous. Remember that? Then he pursued him all over the countryside and all that? Now generations later, Davids grandson is a shadow of what he used to be. Theres a young man by the name of Jeroboam who is living for God and who is a servant. The last recorded act we have of Solomon is him trying to take that young mans life because he was jealous because Jeroboam was everything he used to be. Jeroboam would go on to become king. Lets pray together: Father, when we hear this message, it humbles us. It makes us realize that if the wisest among us could fall, so could we. If we take our eyes off the Kingdom, if we get to the point where we say, I have accomplished everything I needed to do for the Lord, apathy and self-centeredness will set in. Sometimes we begin to believe our clippings. We begin to think that were the reason were successful instead of You. We think were the founder of the feast. We become prideful. Its then that we fall. Lord, when we are living according to Your Word, when we are seeking first Your Kingdom and Your righteousness, life goes well. Unity takes place. Theres prosperity, but when we take matters into our own hands, we become envious and selfish. Great is the collapse. We pray for those who have fallen-people that we know who once loved You and served You who are heading down the wrong road right now. Lord, we call them back into the Kingdom. We call them back to repentance, to that place where their hearts were tender and soft to the things of God. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.

Tonight's special guest-esteemed poet, writer and activist, Bethsheba "Queen Sheba" Ram of the Rough Language poetry group. In celebration of Woman's History the Rough Language poets are blessing us with spectacular poetry slam session right here in the ATL. Come join us as we get better acquainted with the one and only Queen Sheba.

Tonight's special guest-esteemed poet, writer and activist, Bethsheba "Queen Sheba" Ram of the Rough Language poetry group. In celebration of Woman's History the Rough Language poets are blessing us with spectacular poetry slam session right here in the ATL. Come join us as we get better acquainted with the one and only Queen Sheba.

Peace fam! I'm back in the mix now. I must admit the hiatus was planned. Took a minute to reflect on where we're going and where we've been. As it turns out, we're on the right track. Thank God for friends like Myoshi, ONUTSS, Carmen McDonald, Tara Caballero, and a slew of others who have, in their own way, boosted my spirits. So here is the format to digest: A new mix every two weeks and a weekly spotlight artist as the free download. "The Return" features music from Shanelle Gabriel, Elyse "Elle" Johnson, Carmen Dura, Liquid Lounge, Foreign Exchange and Peven Everett, Big Brooklyn Red, Queen Sheba, and Sean Mooney. The show has grown by leaps and bounds. Many guest djs have appeared the past two months. Be sure to get all the downloads, burn 'em, and share them with others. Also visit us on iTunes. Stay tuned for the first in a series of mixes titled 'ONUTSS' as we show love to One Nation Under the Soul Shack. The best is yet to come....                                         The Return Intro                                                 Thin P (Japan) Start Something                               Shanelle Gabriel Come Around                                  Foreign Exchange Love It                                              Choklate Sonrise                                              Stico Von Drake Interlude                                           DJ COA Slums of Paradise                                      Wayna Blue                                                  Carmen Dura Pawns                                               Queen Sheba Still Here                                          Anonomas My Destiny                                       Big Brooklyn Red COA’s Groove                                 Sean Mooney My Peoples                                       Jazzy Jeff Driftin                                              Elle aka That Chick Martin’s Civil Break                        Bekay the Brass King COA

Queen Sheba is nothing short of the realness! Spoken word poet, author, educator, hailing the crown on many fronts.  Out of Norfolk, Virginia her resume is loaded so take note, this is just a taste . My brother gave me the cd titled "The Message" and I've been hooked on her wit ever sense. She's as we say when we can't quite explain to another, "deep". Poetry for me is like a language that I can't speak but understand very well. In such instances, I sit back and let one who knows tell the story. Check out the free download of the week and see if you hear what I heard. Holla! COA

I was really into this one. The lineup includes some dope exclusives, a couple of spoken word tracks, some hip hop, and a healthy portion of smooth grooves. Almost done and close to the 80 minute mark, the power went out in the neighborhood...guess it's one way to slow down the movement. ha ha So here is "Power Outage" which features the talent of Candis Francis, Eboni Wilson, Desdemona, Queen Sheba, Sticko Von Drake w/Camasiya, Reci Semien, Aaron Acosta, Celestial Dancer, Natalie Brown,  Mooli,  Big Brooklyn Red, Niki Andre, Jo Beng, Dagga Layne, Slow-B Productions, and Flo..... Reach out to me at Myspace.com and check the links for the artists. This is your "free" mixtape. In a couple of weeks, all episodes will be done like the mixtapes we grew up on. Finally, thanks for your support. Find DJ COA at iTunes and CD Baby.com . All music purchases go to support the show. Until next time, I hope the lights stay on....enjoy!!! DJ Come of Age Germany/France/The World............