{"id":78696,"date":"2020-06-01T17:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=78696"},"modified":"2020-06-01T08:07:20","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T06:07:20","slug":"10-00-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=78696","title":{"rendered":"Black Jews respond to the George Floyd protests, in their own words"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Black Jews respond to the George Floyd protests, in their own words<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

JOSEFIN DOLSTEN\/JTA<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

We reached out to black Jews to understand their feelings at this wrenching moment and what their message is for the broader Jewish community. Here\u2019s what they told us.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Top left, clockwise, April Baskin, Anthony Russell, Yitz Jordan and Tema Smith. \/ (photo credit: BASKIN: JILL PELTZMAN; RUSSELL: COURTESY OF RUSSELL; JORDAN: COURTESY OF JORDAN; SMITH: COURTESY OF)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As Enzi Tanner participated in an online havdalah ceremony marking the end of Shabbat Saturday night, his city \u2014 Minneapolis \u2014 was being torn apart during a fifth night of unrest following the death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody there last week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tanner, a social worker who supports LGBT families experiencing homelessness, said the ceremony \u2014 hosted by Jewish Community Action, a local social justice group, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, a national organization \u2014 conveyed a powerful message for black Jews like him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs the Jewish community reaches in and says how do we support their cause and how do we support the black community, it\u2019s really important that people reach in to black Jews and other Jews of color and realize that we\u2019re here,\u201d Tanner said. \u201cAnd we need our community.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

We reached out to black Jews like Tanner to understand their feelings at this wrenching moment and what their message is for the broader Jewish community. Here\u2019s what they told us.<\/span><\/p>\n

Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity. We will add more as we hear from more people.<\/span><\/p>\n

April Baskin<\/strong> is a diversity consultant and racial justice director of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable.<\/span><\/p>\n

Personally in terms of my energy right now, I\u2019m just exhausted. Just seeing all the suffering particularly in light of the people going out into the streets without a plan or adequate protections in place (friends, march marshalls, legal aid contact info, etc.), the poignancy of people whose politics otherwise have them mostly sheltering in place during the worst pandemic we\u2019ve seen in over a hundred years, that they are compelled to take action \u2014 at their and our own peril. But it seems their thought is, \u201cHow can we not stand up?\u201d As a Jewish social justice leader, I have a visceral, fundamental concern for people\u2019s well-being in this moment \u2014 that people are very triggered and that this is all in the context of pre-existing heightened anxiety and stress because of the pandemic. And for black folks, whether it\u2019s conscious or not, the sense of terror we feel for when is the shoe going to drop for someone we know, someone in our town, for us?<\/span><\/p>\n

I am experiencing more white Jews sending me private messages. A lot of them are saying \u201cWhat can we do?\u201d and in time I hope we can advance our collective knowledge and education enough so it can become more of \u201cI\u2019ve been proactively learning from people of color and here is what I am doing,\u201d or \u201cThese are the things I\u2019m considering. I\u2019m mostly leaning towards this one, does that sound like it\u2019s in alignment with your vision?\u201d<\/span>
\nThat said, it\u2019s a step forward and it\u2019s good, but it\u2019s asking more of us as Jews of color to not only figure out how to maintain our jobs and do additional leadership and activism in this moment, but then also being asked to support and manage white Jews\u2019 work during a time in which many of us are traumatized and heartbroken. But this is progress, and I would rather people reach out, however they best know how, than apathy and not doing anything or paralysis from fear.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yitz Jordan<\/strong> is the founder of TribeHerald, a publication for Jews of color, and a hip hop artist also known as Y-Love.<\/span><\/p>\n

What am I feeling? Anxiety. That\u2019s what I\u2019m feeling. I had an anxiety attack on Friday. I live in the \u2018hood, I live in Bushwick, so I\u2019m not really geographically in the Jewish community, but I know that somebody on Friday for instance was shot not too far from me and I was terrified as to what the response to that was going to be, were cops going to respond and was rioting going to happen in my neighborhood?<\/span><\/p>\n

And in the Jewish community, this is the kind of fight that I\u2019m having: \u201cThis didn\u2019t happen after the Holocaust, why are black people acting like this?\u201d It\u2019s that role of explaining over and over again to people who quite often don\u2019t want to listen.<\/span><\/p>\n

I feel like there\u2019s the same split that\u2019s going through America in ideological lines, is going through the Jewish community \u2026 whatever percent of Orthodox Jews that support Trump, you see it more from these people. When we say the Jewish community in general that also consists of people like JFREJ [Jews for Racial and Economic Justice] and Jewish Voice for Peace and these other organizations, but in the Orthodox world, the pro-Trump wing is where I\u2019m hearing these types of conversations. And I\u2019m seeing this, ranging from lack of knowledge to callousness regarding people of color. There are some people who genuinely don\u2019t know, and to whom a lot of these issues are very new. Especially Hasidish people, for instance, this just isn\u2019t part of the Shabbos-table conversation \u2014 police brutality, inequality, systemic racism. But you have some people who just show callousness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gulienne Rishon<\/strong> is a diversity expert and chief revenue officer for TribeHerald Media.<\/span><\/p>\n

I am thankful for true allies, who understand that this is not the time to center their own experiences. I am thankful for true allies, who understand that the experiences they and their ancestors have had are to be used in this moment as empathy, and that no one is denying them their experiences in asking them to listen and learn.<\/span><\/p>\n

But mostly, if one more white-presenting Jew tries to tell me today that they don\u2019t have white privilege (not that they aren\u2019t White, but that they don\u2019t have white privilege) because they\u2019re Jewish\/the Holocaust\/Jews got kicked out of schools, I might lose my mind. I should not have to deal with people telling me that my story (the Black part) doesn\u2019t exist because my story (the Ashkenazi experience) exists. But I do. And I am confident that part of why G-d put me in the skin of a biracial Jewish woman descended from a kindertransport survivor, a WWII veteran who was kicked out of his Hamburg Gymnasium for being Jewish, and two Southern Black Virginians, is to help us as a people face our sinat chinam and take responsibility for being the light unto the nations by helping, not closing our ranks and denying the pain others feel because of the freshness of ours.<\/span><\/p>\n

Facilitating difficult conversations about race is literally my profession. Yet, some days, I\u2019m just a person behind a keyboard on Facebook who came out of our day of rest hearing that the world erupted in flames, and I look at the beautiful brown skin of my daughter and her parents, and I\u2019m angry and afraid. I\u2019ve worked so hard to have these conversations with grace when you\u2019re caught up in your feelings about the complexity. On a day when it\u2019s not about the complexity, but processing and mourning actual death, can you please give the same grace to mine?<\/span><\/p>\n

Isaiah Rothstein<\/strong> is a multiracial rabbi who serves as the rabbi-in-residence at Hazon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both sides of my ancestry hold a lot of pain of being othered and being oppressed. During these moments it\u2019s sometimes hard to process and it\u2019s a lot to integrate, but it\u2019s a time where we\u2019re expected to stand up and to speak up so I\u2019m trying to find my voice every single day.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the one hand, I feel restless and frustrated and fed up. On the other hand, I think that like anyone who\u2019s reading or seeing the headlines, I feel frustrated because so many people don\u2019t care enough, or they care adjacently or from the outside. So there\u2019s those emotions but then on the flip-side, I think that this moment is calling on all of us as Americans to stand up.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I could say in short what do I think the Jewish community should be doing, I would want every community to have an educational platform for communities to contextualize discussions around race, specifically as it relates to the Jewish community. I would want to have platforms, summits, days of learning. I would want every community to sign on to have educational campaigns around racial equity and racial awareness and racial sensitivity, so that we could find a bridge to understanding and perspectives through history, through knowledge of the past, so that we could better create a stronger, healthier bridge for the future.<\/span>
\nAnthony Mordechai Tzvi Russell is a musician who blends traditional Yiddish and African-American music.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get real here, American Jews: You are living in an Old Country, whether you choose to recognize it or not. The state-sanctioned violence visited upon Black communities happens in ghettos you can easily pronounce, in towns you visit without the aid of a tour guide and cities you reside in without a granted law of return.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, who are you in this narrative, this country from which there is no real option of flight, this century which is your own, your heartless ruler, hands slick with the blood of children and refugees, the cavalries, maintaining \u201corder\u201d on your behalf over a people whose mere existence for centuries has been deemed disorderly?<\/span><\/p>\n

Solidarity with Black people doesn\u2019t require a radical act of historical imagination. You are here. We are here. You know what to do. Do it. Now.<\/span>
\nTema Smith is a writer and the director of professional development at 18Doors, an organization for interfaith families.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m deeply upset about George Floyd and also that he is not the first and not the last, and that it\u2019s taken a murder so egregious to really get people out into the streets in this way, and get a lot of people to wake up to what happens unfortunately too frequently.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also have deep gratitude for the moment that we\u2019re in, for so many people who hadn\u2019t previously spoken out are speaking out.<\/span><\/p>\n

As far as the Jewish community, the number of people who either have spoken out publicly or who have reached out privately as people who just care and want to make sure that me and other Jews of color are feeling OK right now \u2014 and I think most of my friends who are Jews of color are experiencing similar things from their friends \u2014 is huge. Frankly, I\u2019ve gotten messages from people who I\u2019ve never corresponded with beyond public tweets, just reaching out saying \u2018Are you OK?\u2019 and a recognition that is in many ways at a new level.<\/span><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that something like this has happened. This is the first time I\u2019ve received messages from so many people and that makes me hopeful for that grassroots community level being there to support each other, and that is huge. And the fact that there is a growing chorus of voices in the Jewish community speaking up, that\u2019s huge, and that people are showing up at protests, I can\u2019t say enough of how meaningful it is to see that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Enzi Tanner<\/strong> is a social worker in Minneapolis and works with LGBT families experiencing homelessness.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday we hosted a havdalah with JCA [Jewish Community Action] and JFREJ and I did a little talk and for me the thing that is really real for me is black Jews and Jews of color all across the country during this time have been incredibly supportive and amazing and just speaking for me, it has made this time so much more doable and bearable.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also say that because at this time, it\u2019s also important that as the Jewish community reaches in and says how do we support their cause and how do we support the black community, it\u2019s really important that people reach in to black Jews and other Jews of color and realize that we\u2019re here. And we need our community.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the other thing is: believe us. When George Floyd said I can\u2019t breathe, he was not believed. When black women tell doctors and nurses during childbirth that they\u2019re in pain, they\u2019re not believed which is why they die at a higher rate. We don\u2019t want to have to give a dissertation when we say we\u2019re experiencing racism in our communities. We want to be believed. And in this moment now, it\u2019s really important that, in those situations, that we\u2019re able to be believed.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we say our elected officials aren\u2019t doing the best job they could be, we want that to be believed, we don\u2019t want to be told that they\u2019re doing the best they can because we\u2019ve been here for far too long and our cities are literally burning and we just need folks to believe us and to support us.<\/span><\/p>\n

And to reach out to the Jews of color, the black Jews within the community as well as reaching out and being in it for the long haul. This isn\u2019t about just one person, this is about all these different people and different things. And it\u2019s hopefully not just about right now, it\u2019s so that a different world will be possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Evan Traylor<\/strong> is an educator, activist and soon-to-be rabbinical student at the Hebrew Union College \u2014 Jewish Institute of Religion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, Black Jews are grieving. We\u2019re grieving for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. But we\u2019re grieving for so many more lives, Black lives, that have been taken from this earth far too early because of brutal, systemic racism. And that pain isn\u2019t going away tomorrow, or next week, or next month. It\u2019s going to last for generations to come. And, if we want a better world, we have to change the system.<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m grateful for so many white Jewish allies who have reached out, comforted me, supported me not just over the last week, but for years now. And right now, we need more from our white Jewish siblings, and more from our Jewish institutions \u2014 we need support, allyship, resources, and strategies to confront racism in our community, and in our world. We are all created in the image of God \u2014 it\u2019s time to build the Jewish community and world that makes our Torah true in this age.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Black Jews respond to the George Floyd protests, in their own words JOSEFIN DOLSTEN\/JTA We reached out to black Jews to understand their feelings at this wrenching moment and what their message is for the broader Jewish community. Here\u2019s what they told us. Top left, clockwise, April Baskin, Anthony Russell, Yitz Jordan and Tema Smith. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78696"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78696"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78722,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78696\/revisions\/78722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}