I am a Jew of color. I think. I’ve always been confused by this idea, of being “of color.” I’m Sephardic, but I grew up in a white town, and my parents grew up in an Ashkenazi area of Israel, so, culturally speaking, I always felt identified with some degree of whiteness. It was a…
When Rabbi Rigoberto Emmanuel Viñas took the helm of the aging Yonkers, New York, synagogue Lincoln Park Jewish Center 15 years ago, the hope was that the Cuban-born Orthodox Jew would breathe new life into the sleepy congregation. And over the following years the strategy seemed to work. Membership swelled, garnering acclaim from the media….
At the annual conference of the Jewish Funders Network in Atlanta last month, a panel of Jewish women spoke about perceptions of race among American Jews — and their own experiences facing racism. “I’ve had a very racialized experience in the U.S. I’ve been called a monkey, accused of cheating on tests and told my…
During a community meeting on police accountability in Chicago, a prominent African-American rabbi read the names of individuals killed by the police and chanted the traditional mourners kaddish in Hebrew. Rabbi Funnye, @JCUA_News Pres, reads names of Chgoans killed by police, chants mourner’s kaddish. #ReformCPD pic.twitter.com/FR4HtRJ16i — Aryeh Bernstein (@aryehlou) April 2, 2017 Rabbi Capers…
“I have lived for 26 years under the illusion that I am unconditionally white…. Recently I have started looking at my face and going, ‘Oh man, do I look too Jewish?’” Sydney Brownstone, the reporter who voiced this question in a recent Blabbermouth podcast, is not alone in wondering this. Many Ashkenazi Jews who have…
If you want to get black Jews, Mizrahi Jews and a Palestinian-American Muslim to burst into tears at the same time, invite Yavilah McCoy to talk about hair. Speaking at the opening plenary of the Jews of Color National Convening, which took place May 1–3 in Manhattan, McCoy gestured at the woman beside her, a…
When I heard that Donald Trump would be speaking at the AIPAC conference, I hoped that all Jews would recognize him for the racist demagogue that he is and reject him. Instead he gave his speech, delivered his red meat talking points on Israel, and by and large the crowd applauded him. Kippot with Trump’s…
In the event that you’re not keeping track of the many permutations of Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise, the latest location is Potomac, the wealthy suburb of Washington, DC. Like the Real Housewives of Atlanta, RHOP’s entire cast is composed of black women, but unlike Atlanta, Potomac’s population is 75.8 percent white. The show has only…
