Too many historical documentaries feel like audiovisual textbooks, slogging blandly through sepia-tone photos and letters of the “Dearest Abigail, I write to you with a heavy heart” variety. There’s a place for that kind of thing, don’t get me wrong, but its predominance makes it all the more exciting when a documentarian approaches history from a unique, analytical perspective that feels tailored to the present. Which is precisely what Henry Louis Gates Jr.—the Harvard professor, author, and driving force behind PBS docuseries including The Black Church and Great Migrations—is doing in Black and Jewish America, a four-part exploration of the complicated relationship between two inextricably connected minority communities.