going to be both jewish people of color. it's not exclusively white, but it is what we projected as to us in the united states. >> some of it is so important, which is so complex. so complex in north america and really the united states context. >> when we talk about something about oscar normative that says there is a way in which we kind of suddenly aspire to something . i if cn a jewish context about, i know it's a complex question, but what does it mean then in our own context to assimilate to something that is perceived as normative, that we are seeing is completely normative.

and a jewish person of color is a just a person of a particular skin color who happens to want to assimilate into and asking isaac normative jewish life. there is a lot of plexaderm to that. i would imagine if it works very seriously with that kind of an issue, i'm wondering if you can come speak to it a little bit? >> let's unpack it a little bit. largely, when the jewish came to the united states, let's say the second wave in the 1800s into the 1900s and then into the 20th century the first wave that came to the united states were often german. they were often moving toward something, but not necessarily fleeing their european background and environment. as we look at what we consid mee night wave of european states, eastern european jews that came of the 20 century there were fleeing being marginalized a crossed targeted in their own countries.

that whole group of eastern european jews came to the united states at a time when the u.s. did not identify them as right , white. we talk about the complexity of race, i think the u.s. is obsessed with race. we have stratified our nation based on race from dark to light skin tone, from white as a normative and everything else in some way is not normal in the u.s. with eastern european jews came to the united states they were not classified as white they were classified as other. over time, because of u.s. politics around race, eastern european jews have the opportunity to assume some privileges that come with whiteness. those were things like upward mobility, access to college education, hormones, access to bank loans, access to homes in the suburbs. before that moment for the most part jews were assimilating into the u.s. because of running from anti-semitism. in some ways assimilation was a way to protect ourselves from

being targeted as jews. over time the u.s. racial politics invited folks from eastern europe, greece, armenia, turkey, italy, ireland to sort of fade into whiteness while the u.s. community further separated itself from blackness. >> where going to continue this conversation in just a moment. we need to take a quick break here on the mosaic.

good morning a welcome back to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with ivana kaufman, the executive director of theof color film initiative. we were talking a lot about the complexity of race and use of color in the jewish community. that whole big landscape. i'm wondering if we think about it as a tactic, why choose philanthropy and the initiative as a philanthropic fund to in some ways articulate our mission and, hopefully, we form change. >> what a great question. when we think about the pathways to leadership in a

national communal ecosystem, when we think about the pathways to being able to create programs, to be able to match policies with the people we are trying to serve there has to be some organizational vehicle to make all of that happened. in our national ecosystem, like many other major fields and ecosystems, one of the vehicles is philanthropy, which is like giving community resources to leaders to programs, to different vehicles to great change and to create programs, policies, organizations that support the work of the field. in this case, there are almost no communal leadership pathways focused on jews of color. there are two yellow ships in the whole national region that focus on jews of color. every other fellowship in the jewish communal space has either noof color in a cohort or a class. there has been almost no communal philanthropic giving to jews of color in the history of the jewish communal philanthropy in

the u.s. there have been ribs and wraps, but no focused efforts and no real resources expressed in that area. if you think about so miles an hour foundations, some of the callings that we work with, their foundations resources enable them to give away, for example, $2 million a week. in that context we need to make sure that some of the resources for our jewish community ecosystem programs and field are going to jews of color until our fund opened up there was no focused effort to bring funds to jews of color. what a wonderful way to match amazing people, amazing leaders, amazing programs with the resources to not only help them build out those ideas, help support that work, but then to knit together these leaders, these programs, and these experiences to create a field for the jewish community in the u.s. >> that's fascinating. philanthropy is such a complex topic and, certainly, when we talk about any group of people that is other, a rise in the

society, especially in the capitalistic society, is economic. >> right. >> use of philanthropy within the jewish value of giving back has a very strong force. >> yeah. >> for how we, as jews, make yourselves capable in a society. i'm wondering if you know of any way in which that example has been followed by other faith communities or other folks of color in the catholic church, in the muslim world, in the buddhist world, etc. ? are there ways in which this example has been followed in any way from those other particular communities of color? >> i'm not aware of any specific examples. i will respond with two brief points. one, some of what we are learning with the philanthropy is informed by outside of the jewish world. we work with networks of color

in philanthropy to inform some of our practices and our approaches are part of what is going on is we are actually learning from outside the jewish space from our colleagues of color out there. that's really important. when i think about parlaying that into the faith world i was working with some of our muslim colleagues and we have this conversation and they said, we needed a version of this for the muslim community. in a community in the u.s. that is a faith-based community that has multiracial dynamics at play needs the attention of navigating its own race and racism issues. the u.s. great race and racism issues. this is not something to be blamed for, but every faith group in the u.s. is multiracial . every faith group that is multiracial is affected by a form of racism. >> we will continue this conversation in a moment here on mosaic.

welcome back to mosaic. i'm honored to be your host. we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with elana man. lcome back. >> thank you. >> so, i wonder if we could talk a little bit about, on a more personal and individual level, what is the spiritual jewish drive for us commonly to make jews of color , really, all of us, spiritually nourished in our own jewish communities >> ithink what a beautiful question. maybe i will respond with a very brief personal story.

being in the jewish community and being involved in our jewish spiritual life and faith gives us tools to navigate life. for jews of color it's so important that we don't push jews of color so far away from jewish life that we can ask less the tools of spiritual growth, spiritual nourishment. i had a conversation with a rabbinical colleague where a racist thing had happened. i knew this call it was a wonderful colleague. she was unaware of the situation that had happened. i said to myself, i'm going to make sure i talked with her before yom kippur, so she has an opportunity to reflect on this and we have an opportunity to come back into a relationship around this incident that had happened. i thought to myself, i actually said this to the rabbi, i say, you know, if it had not been for the tool of reflecting and preparing for yom kippur i wouldn't have been able to come back to you and have this conversation. it occurred to me how important it was for me to be in a relationship with my special pathway in my spiritual

tools to stay in the relationship, to navigate a moment that was awkward and clunky and felt not great around racism and to help both of us grow, because we are in community together. access to spiritual life means we get to be in committed. access to jewish community life means that when we have hard times we have the tools to grow or grieve or reflect what does it mean in the u.s. context that is, quite frankly, so marred by negativity around politics and identity, sort of, conflicts out there in the land? this is even more important time for jews in general to be connected to spiritual tools and pathways. what a shame if racism keeps jews of color away from the jewish community and away from our spiritual tools and pathways. >> you remind me that every faith community, essentially, rests on a theological foundation. >> that's right. >> whether somebody is a faith adherent as a close believer or secular. >> that's right.

>> in the jewish context it occurs to me that everybody is created in gods image. for myself it seems to me if that is true then it must be that our diversity is a testament to gods unpalatable creativity. >> yes. >> i just wondered if part of our inside work is that, let's say, in an odd way, our theology has been oscar normative. and part of the work of our faith community and other faith communities might say it differently, is that somehow there is an internal theological repair for us to do to understand our own selves as a diversity of gods creativity. and then, of course, god is not white god is not a lot of things

>> that's right. don't know what your reflection is on that, but it just seems to me that all these ways about what it is to belong, what it is to go in, what it is to feel welcome has a lot to do with how we actually understand what our core theological foundation believe is. maybe that is where the repair is >> i think that's totally right on. i would add, i'd are able to access the hebrew phrase right now, but when we walk into synagogues we never know before who we stand. if we understood ourselves as diverse, if we understood ourselves as multifaceted and multidimensional it would remind us that each time we see somebody our charge is to not size them up and make sense of them and try to figure out what kind of jewish they are or who parent is jewish in that context. if they don't look familiar to me the invitation is to remember that god is in everyone of us and we are each

a reflection of that. e dimensions d as ware, tts a as verse we are. we musr hat wen't know who is i we ought to be loving. we ought to be kind. >> maybe racism is a civic wounded that theology heals. >> it is a civic word that theology heals and we need access to tools of connection to bridge that gap >> yes. absolutely. gosh, we're going to come back to this wonderful conversation in just a moment.

good morning and welcome back to mosaic. we would like to welcome back elana coffman, the executive director of the jews of color initiative. welcome back. >> thank you. >> so, we have talked so much about the work of the initiatives and its vision and its philosophy. let's just go over the numbers. >> okay. what are we talking about? in the united states, according to the data and the research there are about seven point to million at jews in the u.s. . that number comprises both adults and young people ages 18 and under. of that number our study tells us that at a minimum 12% to 15% of that number are jewish people of color. at a very minimum in the united states 1 million of our 7 million jews are people of

color. just to put that into jewish context, when you are in a minion when you open your eyes at least one person of every megan should be a person of color. let me just add that over time in the u.s., like, the general population in the united states, every next generation of jews born in the night states is going to game people of color. more and more each generation of jews in the u.s. will be people of color. our community is becoming more and more people of color. just like national data, while the timing is not the same the data tells us someday the majority of u.s. jews will also be people of color. this is not just a theoretical intellectual opportunity to grapple with racial diversity and racism, the u.s. jewish community is multiracial and it's going to become more racially diverse. we want to make sure our community is connected and strong and thriving. in its own diversity in the jewish community. >> fascinating.

minion is a hebrew word for the rfora prayer folks >> that's ri >> a prayer or a formal prayer. most of our jews of color in our jewish urban environments? >> we look at 15 national studies and another five studies to look at the jewish community from other angles. what we can tell you is there is a majority of jews in general, therefore jewish people in the color are on the coasts and major metropolitan areas. our research and our relationships a graph making tells we find jews in omaha nebraska, austin, texas , raleigh, north carolina. in the seattle. in wisconsin. in cleveland. so, there are pockets of jews of color where there are people of color. in the u.s.. the other thing is racism makes the people moved to environments that are more hospitable and diverse. so, everywhere you see people of color in communities in u.s. you see jews of color.

every where you see jews in the u.s. you see jews of color. where both ever represented a on the coasts, but also in some ways really robust populations in those same communities that provide hospitality and safety for people of color when they have been in committees all of the u.s. historically. >> in the community itself we have an ongoing conversation about who is a jew and how does so many say they are jewish, whether they have converted to judaism, born jewish, or in a jewish family. from the jews of color perspective , does it encompass what we might think of as a mainstream jewish understanding of, like, your image of in a jewish family if you are intermarried how does that work for the jews of color prospectively? >> i think it works the same way as in the general jewish community. have families that are interfaith. you have the families that may have adopted somebody. you have the families where

they might be jewish adjacent. you have the families that might be general ashley jewish over time. each one of these different expressions of a jewish family include people of color. we have families in u.s. who are people of color who are african-american, mono racial, meeting both parents are african-american and there judaism goes back generation after generation after generation in the u.s.. we have some families where the became a jew by choice in the last three years are five years and are living a focused observant jewish life, then you have some families just like the rest of the jewish community in the u.s., who identify strongly as jewish and do-nothing religious. that in their spiritual life. for their jewish identity might be cultural. it might be based on different kinds of practices that might fall out of what so many might view as a very religious life and still they are jewish the same way we see people coming to jewish life across the jewish community in different ways, we see we are among

jewish people of color. the one thing i want to put in there is when jews of color or jewish communal spaces, because people challenge our judaism based on our identity or how they perceive our identities very often jews of color know a tremendous amount of torah and text. jews of color tend to be very learned and observant in some cases. jews of color tended to be very committed and focused to the jewish community in ways we don't see sometimes with the general jewish community. >> we have come to the end of our time together. i want to ask you a big question in a moment, which is that where you want us to be in 10 years? >> where i want us to be is i want us to comfortably understand ourselves as multiracial. i want us to comfortably embrace the idea that when we look in the jewish space we should be seeing people of color. i want us to be not only comfortable with, i want us to be authentically part of a dynamic where we understand races are cup located.

we understand racism israel. we understand our jewish community is intact and together , and really committed to enabling every jews to have access to torah. >> thank you so much for being with us your on mosaic. please continue this conversation in the community. have a wonderful day. ♪

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live from the cbs bay area studios this is kpix5 news. a warning from some of the world's top health experts. if you have recovered from the coronavirus you may not be immune to getting it again. and blood donations could save lives during the pandemic, the first of the kind trance fusion happening in san francisco. the doctors hope it will curb the outbreak. warmer weather prompted crowds to ignore the stay-at- home order and head to california beaches. it is just about 6:00 a.m. on sunday, april 26 i'm devin fehely and lee has the day off. let's check in with darren in the weather center. it's 6:00 a.m.