Jaylen Brown appeared to co-sign a religious movement rooted in anti-Semitic beliefs that showed up to show support to Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn.
Kyrie Irving is slated to return to the Brooklyn Nets after serving an eight-game suspension on Sunday.
Irving was suspended for sharing a movie that contained anti-Semitic themes and ideas and refusing to condemn the anti-Semitic ideas or explicitly say he didn’t hold anti-Semitic beliefs when asked directly by the media.
Upon his return to the lineup, a group that holds aligning ideas with the film Irving shared showed up outside Barclay’s Center ostensibly to show support for Irving and the Black Hebrew Israelite movement at-large.
Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown appeared to co-sign the group on Twitter.
Jaylen Brown appears to support group supporting Kyrie Irving, promoting anti-Semitic ideas
Quote-Tweeting a video of the group, Brown said, “Energy.”
While not a clear-cut nod of support, one can read between the pixels and assume Brown is co-signing the showing of support and the group’s overall ideals.
The group is Israel United in Christ. Here is what the Anti-Defamation says about the group’s anti-Semitic history:
“In a recorded sermon on January 21, 2020, Bishop Nathanyel and other leadership refer to Jews as: “the devil that the Bible even speaks of,” “the so-called Jews,” “the house of demons,” and specifically call Chasidic Jews “evil despots.”
During the same sermon, another leader disparages Jews by stating: “They lie in their media, they lie in their synagogues, they lie all over the place, everything they do is about lying.”
In October 2020, the main Facebook account of the IUIC posted: “Black people have been experiencing a Holocaust since the 1400s and the #Jewish man has perpetuated the situation.””
The group is listed by the ADL as an extremist sect of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. These groups reject, “widely accepted definitions of Judaism and asserts that people of color are the true children of Israel,” according to the ADL but are not always anti-Semitic.
Brown has been critical of the treatment of Irving and has implicitly supported Irving and his ideas since the situation began.
Brown did drop Donda sports as his agent, however, following Kanye West, its founder, making a slew of anti-Semitic remarks.