With every news headline referencing the Covid-19 pandemic, the past few months ushered the world into unprecedented times. But recently, for the first time in what feels like forever, coronavirus has taken the back burner to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Are we still in unprecedented times? Absolutely not.
Racism is a scourge that’s ingrained in society. As a community of people who share the pain of serving as the world’s scapegoat, Jews — as well as everyone — have a responsibility to dismantle the systems that have oppressed Black people for centuries. Victims of racism cannot fight their battles alone, nor can they be at the forefront.
Many non-Black Jews are reckoning with how best to support the Black Lives Matter movement and, in an effort to help, they’re turning to People of Color for answers. This is a mistake. Even with good intentions, do not lean on Jews of Color, primarily Black Jews, to do the work for you. It’s exasperating and further illustrates privilege.
So, where to start? Listen to Black Jews, learn from Black Jews, but don’t ask them for help — they’re asking for ours. So here’s one super simple thing you can do: Check your privilege and begin with diversifying your social media.
I just want everyone to read Ariel Samson, Freelance Rabbi, by MaNishtana. It's a really good analysis of being black and Orthodox from birth, and it made me cry.
Pésaj (en hebreo פֶּסַח, ‘salto’) es una festividad judía que conmemora la liberación del pueblo hebreo de la esclavitud de Egipto, relatada en el Pentateuco, fundamentalmente en el Libro de Éxodo. El pueblo hebreo ve el relato de la salida de Egipto como el hito que marca la conciencia de los descendientes de Jacob, con su identidad entendida en términos de nación libre y provista de una Ley. También se la llama Pascua judía o Pascua hebrea (para distinguirla de la Pascua de Resurrección celebrada por el cristianismo) La festividad es uno de los tres Shalosh Regalim (Fiestas de Peregrinaje) del judaísmo, ya que durante la época en que el Templo de Jerusalén existía, se acostumbraba a peregrinar al mismo y realizar ofrendas. #happypassover #pesach #kosher #passover #seder #sederplate #kosherfood #happy #celebration #family #happiness #familytime #timeoftheyear #dayeinu #manishtana #pesaj #kasher (en Netive Ezra)
This month I had the great honor (and pleasure!) of being part of the cast for the show Kaleidoscope, produced by none other than Vanessa Hidary, the Hebrew Mamita herself. It was an amazing eclectic cast of twelve, each one of us with our own unique story, with no two tales alike. Yet the driving impetus behind our pieces was simple: to reflect on the different ways people of different ethnicities fit into the Jewish community.
As you can imagine, that’s a difficult message to get across, particularly if you take into consideration the pathological cognitive dissonance of those American Jews who acknowledge that there were twelve distinct yet equal tribes, yet simultaneously see different Jewish ethnicities as different spots on a totem pole. Or those who celebrate when Jewish communities from India to Ethiopia aren’t destroyed, but get shocked when they see someone who is both brown and Jewish. Or those who debate about whether or not white Jews are white, yet Jews of color are looked at suspiciously because…they’re not white. You get the point.
Of course, this isn’t terribly surprising given that Jews can’t really get along with the Jews that already look like them. After all, a cursory glance at the American Jewish denominational landscape reveals that we’re moving closer and closer to Judaism-“inspired” religions, and further away from Judaism itself. Until all that gets sorted out, the rest of us don’t really have a shot.
Actually let’s take a closer look at the messy American Jewish world: Every successive denomination—from Reform to Orthodox to Conservative to Reconstructionist to Humanist—has defined itself in negatives, moving in one direction in response to one or many other denominations moving in a different direction. And each denomination, rather than looking solely to the Torah or the Talmud—some more or less than others—has taken Judaism into its own hands, injected subjective social norms, and self-defined what makes a “good Jew.” Ideological clashes between socially-conscious Jews who pursue charity and philanthropy and social justice while eschewing the ritual observances and demands of the religion, and the more traditional, observant, ritualistic Jews, who value insularity over positive interaction with the non-Jewish (or even lesser observant) Jewish world, are framed in the context of who is the “better” Jew. Meanwhile, neither side takes a moment to consider that, perhaps, both sides are doing Judaism wrong, especially if they’re not acknowledging the right that the other side is practicing.
There’s a midrash that explains that the Ten Commandments were listed on two separate tablets for a reason. The first tablet, with the first five laws including Shabbat, idolatry and the like, represent those commandments concerning the relationship between Man and G-d. The second tablet, with the last five decrying theft, adultery, and lying, represent the commandments of the relationship between Man and Man. But when the Reform movement broke off from what was then just known as “Judaism” in the early 19th century, it did more than just break away from the traditional Jews it would later label as being “Orthodox.” Each “side” of the break ideologically took only one tablet and began declaring that it was more “whole” for it, rather than realizing that they were both equally broken.
What we—as American Jews, and as citizens of global Jewry—need to understand, and actually ingest, is that we all have something to learn from each other. We all have something to contribute to the mosaic of Judaism. Some of us more than other, some of us less. But no one has the full piece or the full picture. More observant Jews might learn more how to interact with the non-Jewish, or even secular Jewish world, and put the concept of derech eretz (social decency) into actual practical use. Not-as-observant Jews could glean the deeper aspects of Judaism— the ones that many Jews flock to Buddhism or Yoga to find—but are right in their backyard. And all of us could learn that injecting our ethnicity into our Jewish practices isn’t an anathema to anything except the contrived Jewish monolith that is invoked to pound square pegs into circular holes when we’re confronted by a Jewish too exotic for our tastes.
And that was the beauty of being a part of the Kaleidoscope cast. We all came into that dramatic space with our pieces, our stories, our lives. Some traditionally observant. Some not. All Jewish. All respectful. Whatever our religious or social leanings, we didn’t put them aside or ridicule them. Instead, we owned them, we meshed them together, and we formed not only a beautiful production, but a beautiful community as well. Because, like any good doctor, G-d said “Take these two tablets, and call Me in the morning.”
Maybe we should start taking that advice. Powerful things happen when we do.
NB ETA: Warning that of the links in the beginning one completely erases that Cameron Diaz married a Jewish man (”the very non-Jewish Cameron Diaz getting married under a chuppah") and the other is incredibly anti-liberal Judaism, anti intermarriage, and anti any sort of integration . As I’m a Reform Jew whose brother is intermarried... I obviously don’t agree at all with that “logic.” Also, I think that in including those links, MaNishtana is kind of arguing against his own claim that we should respect and not ridicule Jews who are of other denominations and is instead showing that he may actually be coming from a place of Orthodox Jewish essentialism.
