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Neither the Jewish Emergent Network nor Dimensions are directly endorsing any of the artists, healers, diverse teachers of faith, or other content creators whose work is linked in this challenge. We are sharing the world of spirit equitably with many people as we endeavor to learn more about our need to work together across diverse faith communities to dismantle racism and white supremacy for us all.
White Jews Learning Track
REFLECT:
From Rabbi Deena Cowans (Mishkan)
In 2011, I was working at a small non-profit that provided legal services for immigrants and refugees who were incarcerated and facing deportation. The majority of our clients were Latinx, and came into immigration custody after being pulled over by the police while driving. As part of our intake, we had to ask what they were arrested for. Some said they were arrested for “driving without a license”. Others said they were never actually charged with a crime, they were just handed over to ICE after the police scanned the system for their immigration status.
Another client, a refugee from Sudan, was arrested for trespassing at a drugstore; he was waiting for the pharmacy to open before he went to work. He saw the lights on and the pharmacist at the counter, so he knocked on the locked door; the cops came and arrested him for trespassing.
As a white woman, I couldn’t imagine being pulled over just for driving without a license; didn’t the police need some reason to ask for my ID? And I am sure if I had knocked on that drugstore door before the store opened, the pharmacist would have come over to talk to me. It quickly became clear: my clients were pulled over for existing in America while black or brown.
I spent a lot of time that year ranting to anyone who would listen about how cops were getting away with blatant racial profiling. And then I moved, started a new job, and stopped talking about racism in American policing.
The same pattern repeated itself over the next few years. I would get fired up about something I saw in my work, and then that frustration would fade when I moved on to the next job or place. My anger over the ways I witnessed the evils of racism was real. But in the last nine years, have I been consistent in my anti-racist work? If I have to get real with myself, the answer is no.
I saw racism in individual areas or moments, but I did not commit to seeing racism as an ever-present, systemic evil. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel described racism as a “treacherous denial of the existence of God”. Yet many of us have tried to insist that racism is not a religious concern.
In recognizing this sin, how can we commit to calling out the evils of racism even when these stories fade from our social media or news headlines?
LISTEN: Code Switch podcast: A Decade of Watching Black People Die
READ: How to Make Sure Your Anti-Racism Work Is A Lifelong Endeavor
Black, Indigenous, Sephardi/Mizrachi and More Broadly Identified Jews of Color Learning Track
LISTEN: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s The Three Evils of Society
REFLECT: We came together, three generations of women who now identify as non-Black People of Color. Our parents came from other lands to this country for refuge, for that second and third chance. We asked these questions posed to us by our Black siblings: How did attitudes of anti-Blackness find its way into my own upbringing? What is my role today in the larger communities of Jews of Color and People of Color? How do I stand with Black and brown siblings when some of us are lighter skinned?
