Moving Forward-Rabbi Boris' Blog

Reflections on Jewish Identity, Black Lives Matter and How We Listen

Dvar Torah, Parshat Naso, June 2020

What a week this has been.  It was clear that things have been tough for months now--living through this pandemic with no end in sight, there was more than enough on our minds.  But summer is here, and I had been hearing from so many people how it was clear that hope was in the air.  We were finding a way to not only cope, but to make the best of our situation and finding ways to connect and to grow from this crisis.

And then came the video, which threw the reality of our broken world back into the forefront.  The video of the brutal death of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer has sparked now over a week of endless protests and soul searching, not only in the US but also here in Canada.  For people of color who have been oppressed for generations, this feels like a turning point, a moment brimming with possibility of true change.  We can make some connections.  It is also about the continuing discrimination and challenges facing the First Nations communities, and it is about how we treat immigrants.  But what we know is the protests are strong, the support is growing, and the fight clearly is nowhere near over.  And for those who felt separated from the experience of black people in North America, for those who for too long have been watching from the sidelines, the painful reality is now impossible to ignore.  

As Jews too, this reality is now our reality.

There was a uniquely powerful collection of short reflections  posted last week from black Jews responding to the protests and the crisis in the US.  It was clear first of all that what was happening was devastating--devastating for them as members of the black community, but also painful for them as Jews.  So many of them feel not necessarily stuck between two peoples, or two causes, but even more caught between a people who know the reality of black lives, and a people that is only beginning to know how to listen.  

April Baskin the Racial justice director of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. wrote:

Personally, in terms of my energy right now, I’m 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’ve seen in over a hundred years, that they are compelled to take action — at their and our own peril. But it seems their thought is, “How can we not stand up?” As a Jewish social justice leader, I have a visceral, fundamental concern for people’s well-being in this moment — 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’s 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?

But the one that really got to me was from Gulienne Rishon is a diversity expert and chief revenue officer for TribeHerald Media:

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.

But mostly, if one more white-presenting Jew tries to tell me today that they don’t have white privilege (not that they aren’t White, but that they don’t have white privilege) because they’re 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’t exist because my story (the Ashkenazi experience) exists. But I do. And I am confident that part of why God 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.

The question truly is for us as Jews, not only what can we do to fight for the lives of black people, but also how can we listen.  It is all too easy to see the story of others through our story, to start the conversation with the trope which has been ingrained into our psyche from early on.  We were slaves in Egypt, we were oppressed, so we know suffering and we should always fight for the oppressed in the world.  Yes, we had Holocaust, and yes we did and do have the eternal pain of anti-Semitism.  But our suffering as slaves was an ancient experience, one which some scholars believe might have been only a story.  But no matter what, it importantly is a story which has become a core of our identity and our activism as Jews.  We can reflect on this crucible experience, and use it to fight for others, but when we encounter an oppression so deep so ingrained in our society today and in our way of thinking about the world, we need to do some stepping back, even as we step forward. 

We can’t allow our experiences, our story and our trauma lead the conversations that need to be had. It’s true of course that we have had our share of suffering, and have also historically been at the forefront of activism against oppression.  From the work for labor rights in the early 20th century, to civil rights in the 60s, to feminist and LGBTQ rights--we can be proud of what we have done as Jews. But these movements were different because most of us could easily see ourselves as part of the people we were fighting for, because many of us were those people.  We all needed better working conditions, Jewish women and LGBTQ people know what challenges that experience brings, and in the 60s, we were not entirely at the places of safety and of privilege we are now.  This is not in any way an attempt to weaken the power of what was done, or the reasons for all of the social justice fights we have been in in the past, but this one somehow feels so unique.  

What has changed?  First, the Jewish community in some ways is entirely different than it ever has been.  We are less monolithic and more diverse.  For better or worse, we are less connected with institutions, and yes, as a whole, more assimilated.  There are still plenty of problems in our communities, and there is still the undying issue of anti-Semitism and the new issues of Israel and our identity.  With the full knowledge that not all Jews are white, that today we celebrate all of the people in our community Jews of color, non-Jewish partners of other cultures and backgrounds, LGBTQ people and all members of our community.  Yet, for most of us in the Jewish community, we are in a place of power and of privilege.  It is possibly an uncomfortable realization, especially during this moment, but for many of us (but of course, not all of us), no matter how Jewish we may be, we can put our Jewishness aside, and we can pass as white.  While our buildings and our values may be attacked, many of us can walk down the street of any neighborhood in relative safety knowing that we will not be attacked because of the color of our skin, and we will not be killed by the police because of systemic racism. 

If anything has become clear over the past few weeks, the stories of Black Lives Matter tell us that most of us really don’t know what it is like to be black.  We don’t know what it is like for a black mother to watch her son walk to school, not knowing if he will be the next victim of police brutality.  We don’t know what it is like to be pulled over for driving while black, or be a black family taking a hike in a national park, or to be a black politician, or a black activist.  I know it is obvious for most of us, but I also think we all need the reminder.  Our oppression as Jews,cannot necessarily  be the starting point of the conversation about racial violence today.  It can and should be part of the core that calls us to fight and to reach out with compassion to others, but it has to be humbling even as it gives us the strength to move forward.

Let us step forward to fight, even as we step back to listen.   .

It is now the time to be humble and open, to start from a place of listening and understanding that allows us to see other stories.  This is the way that we can be allies, and this is the best way that we can truly see the pain and work to make things better.

Just last week, we celebrated Shavuot, the holiday of revelation of learning and growth as a Jewish community.  50 days after Passover, 49 days of counting the Omer, of deep and real reflection and spiritual growth, we made it to the mountain top and were ready to head back to the realities we confront in our lives.  Now as we head down from Mt Sinai, head down from the mountain we have to make the lessons of the Passover story we heard so many months ago true.  Let’s take this call that we were slaves in Egypt, let's take the lessons of all of the oppression, define suffering we have experienced, and let us now fight, and let us now listen.

As Canadians we know that by taking care of all of the people in our society we take care of each other.  Now is the time to step forward and fight, and now is the time to step back and listen.