Jewish Multiracial Network Thirteenth Annual Retreat: June 11 – 13, 2010

Join dozens of other Jewish multiracial families and Jews of Color of all ages for an inclusive Shabbat experience that will celebrate the diversity of our community. The weekend includes exciting adult discussions and workshops, youth and teen programming, childcare, multi-generational family programming and time to relax and enjoy all that the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center and JMN have to offer.

Ashkenazi and/or White Jewish Privilege Checklist

Jewish Multiracial Network Retreat 2007

I can walk into my temple and feel that others do not see me as outsider.

I can walk into my temple and feel that others do not see me as exotic.

I can walk into my temple and feel that my children are seen as Jewish.

I can walk into my temple with my family and not worry that they will be treated unkindly because of the color of their skin.

I can enjoy music at my temple that reflects the tunes, prayers, and cultural roots of my specific Jewish heritage.

No one at my synagogue will attempt to assign me to a ethnicity to which I do not belong (e.g., assuming all Jews of African descent are Igbo or Ethiopian).

I can easily find greeting cards and books with images of Jews who look like me.

I can easily find Jewish books and toys for my children with images of Jews that look like them.

I am not singled out to speak about and as a representative of an “exotic” Jewish subgroup.

When I go to Jewish bookstores or restaurants, I am not seen as an outsider.

I find my experiences and images like mine in Jewish newspapers and magazines.

I do not worry about access to housing or apartments in predominately Jewish neighborhoods.

My rabbi never questions that I am Jewish.

When I tell other members of my synagogue that I feel marginalized, they are immediately and appropriately responsive.

There are other children at the religious school who look like my child.

My child’s authenticity as a Jew is never questioned by adults or children based on his/her skin color.

People never look at me and say “But you don’t look Jewish” either seriously or as though it was funny.

I do not worry about being seen or treated as a member of the janitorial or administrative staff at a synagogue or when attending a Jewish event.

I am never asked “how” I am Jewish at Jewish dating events or on Jewish dating websites.

I can arrange to be in the company of Jews of my heritage most of the time.

When attempting to join a synagogue or Jewish organization, I am sure that my ethnic background will not be held against me.

I can ask synagogues and Jewish organizations to include images and cultural traditions from my background without being seen as a nuisance.

I can enroll in a Jewish day school, Yeshiva, and/or historically Jewish college and find Jewish students and professors with my racial or ethnic background.

People of color do not question why I am Jewish.

I know my racial or ethnic background will not be held against me if I attempt to join a minyan in prayer.

I know my ethnic background will not be held against me in being called to read the Torah.

I am not discriminated against in the aliyah process as a Jew of my particular ethnicity.

Text not copyrighted. Developed for educational purposes by the Jewish Multiracial Network, 2006–2009. Please distribute and add to the checklist.

“Jewish life will be fine with all sorts of communities and groupings with all sorts of people -Jews and non-Jews- being Jewish, using Jewish wisdom and practice, in many ways that we can not even imagine.” ~ Irwin Kula, Renowned Thinker, Teacher, Author & Rabbi

This article originally appeared in the March 2009 issue of Interfaithfamily.com, Encouraging Jewish Choices & a Welcoming Jewish Community. Reprinted by permission.

I’m a Jew, According Too…By Akira Ohiso

My father is Japanese. My mother’s father was Russian Jewish, her mother Irish. My wife is an Ashkenazi Jew of Polish and Hungarian descent. My son has Japanese, Irish, Russian, Polish and Hungarian blood coursing through his veins. He’s Jewish no matter whose version of Jewish law you follow. My wife is Jewish, so he’s Jewish.

But I was not born Jewish. Am I Jewish? Answer: yes, I converted with a Conservative rabbi. But Orthodox Jews don’t accept Conservative conversions. Answer: I converted Orthodox. But Israel doesn’t acknowledge Orthodox conversions from the United States. Answer … I cannot continue to define my Jewishness for judgmental Judaism. Two conversion ceremonies will have to do it.

I am Jewish. But what if an Orthodox rabbi decides to invalidate my conversion? Then I am not Jewish–to some people. Not to Conservative Jews … unless I become less “Conservative.”

Who is the arbiter of measuring the single experience of a “Jew” in feeling Jewish, of a Jew’s relationship with God?

Judgmental Judaism reinforces the comfort of belonging by using language. Language forms the experiences we choose to inhabit. And judgmental Judaism continues to fragment -Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative, Conservadox, Modern Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy, “Ultra,” Chassidism, Haredi, Post-Denominational, Interfaith, LGBT, Un-affiliated, Secular. I don’t mind that Jewish people inhabit religious and spiritual spaces of their choosing with like-minded Jews or non-Jews, but I do have an issue with the root cause of all this fragmentation–that Jews are denying the existence of a diverse Judaism.

I can already hear the accusatory pleas of all the fragments of Judaism. “They” are too religious and out-of-touch with the modern world. Unless “they” are observant Jews who observe kashrut, halacha and the 613 mitzvot, “they” are not real Jews. This is about acknowledging the subjective in order to get to the objective. There are religious hypocrites and those that are ideologically spiritual (which really isn’t spiritual). Woody Allen once said, “I’m a bigot, but for the left.” That’s how I feel about the fragments of Judaism. What happened to “tikkun olam” (repairing the world) and kabbalist Isaac Luria’s mystical story of returning the fragmented sparks of light to the divine vessels of wholeness and unity?

What does this infighting and fragmentation say to converts, the Jewish LGBT community and non-Jews of interfaith families? What kind of message do we send to the world?

I converted to Judaism because I felt and wanted to be Jewish. I’m now Jewish and proud of it. An Orthodox rabbi once said, “It’s in your blood. You have a Yiddishe neshama (Jewish soul).” But becoming Jewish to that rabbi required that I adhere to a certain Judaism. If I didn’t, does that mean I still have a Yiddishe neshama? Some accepted me only after an Orthodox conversion. Reform Jewish friends judged me for converting to a restrictive and out-dated Judaism. I see this gasp of horror with Jews towards other Jews. “Look at those clothes they are wearing, aren’t they hot?” “Oy, he’s not shomer shabbos” (observes the Sabbath). In some ways, I feel the most Jewish around non-Jews because they see me as a “Jew.” Jews don’t always see me as a Jew.

When I was studying for conversion, my mother gave me a silver kiddush cup that was my great-grandfather’s. I didn’t know I had Jews in the family, but he was a Latvian Jew who left Riga to avoid anti-Semitism and czarist pogroms. He came to the United States, made a name for himself in the shipping business and never spoke about being Jewish. He married a Catholic woman and renounced his Judaism to protect his family. Fragments, sparks of light.

Those sparks of light were manifest in a dusty kiddush cup in a Brooklyn basement and then into questions from some members of his family. Catholic members of the family heard rumors of rabbis in the family and gasped with horror.

As a person of mixed race, I have always struggled with being different, as an American, not only as a Jew. I was proud of my culture but always felt acutely aware of having a dual identity. It was hard to be both without the repercussion of exclusion. For all our freedoms in the United States, many Americans are marginalized and isolated for trying to be American. Perhaps this alienation as a child has fueled my passion to help people, specifically those who are deemed “different,” whether because of the majority society’s racism, sexism, ageism–or insistence on the right brand of Judaism.

I have a 2-year-old son named Boaz Jules and we are expecting our second son in May, God willing. Boaz is named after the husband of Ruth, the first convert. Jules was the name of his great-great-grandfather. This little miracle, a person we brought into this world,  is a combination of everything that came before him, Everything about parenting is amazing to witness and experience. I thought converting to Judaism was the most important and influential choice in my life. I learned that having a child is.

Judaism has survived over the millennia because we turned to each other, observed and honored tradition and passed on our Jewish faith and ideals to our children. It was necessary at those times to stick together, hunker down and consolidate in order to survive. Now it is time to reach out, open our arms and expand in order to survive. From the personal exchanges on the street to the world-stage politics of the Middle East, a paradigm shift is needed where we accept ourselves in order that the world may accept us. Our children are the only investment for Jewish survival. Figuring out what “Jewish” means is our greatest challenge.