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good morning and welcome to "mosaic". i am honored to be your host this morning. throughout the country faith communities do a lot to pay attention to their own demographics . we would like to invite you into a wonderful conversation with the executive director of the field building initiative . welcome. faith communities really play attention to their own demographics and your involvement is a fascinating aspect of our own jewish community, locally and nationally. let's jump in and ask what is the initiative ? >> we have been around for about 19 months and we have three areas of focus. the first thing we do is we run the nations only going to take fund focus specifically on jews of color. we are interested in finding leadership development,

grassroots developing , knowledge making, developing new ideas and concepts and organizations for the jewish community. advocating for jews of color and helping the jewish community understand itself as a multi- cultural. in the last 18 months we conducted a study called counting inconsistencies with stanford university and it was a demographic analysis of jews of color in the united states. and we get to do education in the community and it is a privilege that we get to work with fellowships , boards, influencers in ecosystem with the idea of helping understand that the jewish community is not all white, not all ask when ozzie , and in the united

states we are multiracial community. how do we educate leaders about understanding the demographics, about planning forward and understanding about what the jewish community is and who we are now in the u.s. and moving forward and we will be. >> thank you. he used a particular inside word . that word is a hebrew word that refers specifically to jews of eastern european origin. and in the context of the united states, jews is all white. >> yes that is the origin of the word. on the one hand we might think that flags or signals white but on the other hand you think about the jewish families in the u.s.

where you have one white parent and one parent of color. their kids are going to be jewish people of color with culture . but it codes for white . >> i think you are touching is something so important. racism is so complex and in the north american context. when we talk about something like this this says there is a way we aspire to something or something declared as mainstream. i know it is a complex question but what does it mean in our own context to assimilate to something that is perceived as normative but we say it is not completely and a jewish person

of color is not just a person of a particular skin color who happens to want to assimilate into a ashkenazi jewish life. imagine the initiative works very seriously with that kind of an issue. can you speak to that? >> largely when jews came to the united states and the second wave of jews in 1800s into the 1900 and into the 20th century, the first wave were often german jews and often moving toward something but not necessarily fleeing their european background or environment. as we look we consider the largest wave of european jews are eastern european jews came in the 20th century and they were fleeing the marginalized and oppressed and targeted in their own countries . and the whole group of eastern european jews came to the united states when u.s. did not identify them as white . is very important when we

talk about the complexity of rights, the u.s. is obsessed with race. we stratified our nation on dark to light skin tone to white as normative and everything else in some way is not normal in the u.s. to white as normative and everything else in some way is not normal in the u.s. eastern european jews came to the u.s. they were not classified as why. they were classified as other. and overtime because of u.s. politics around race , eastern european jews had the opportunity to assume some privileges that come with whiteness . others were things like tools for upward mobility like access to college education, access to home loans and bank loans, access to homes in the suburbs. before that moment for that moment, jews were assimilating into the u.s. because of running from at the semitism. in some ways assimilation was a way to protect ourselves from being targeted as jews and overtime the u.s. racial politics

invited folks from eastern europe, greece, armenia, turkey, italy, ireland to fade into whiteness while the u.s. community , further separated itself from blackness. >> we will continue this conversation but we need to take a quick break here on "mosaic".

good morning and welcome back to "mosaic". i am honored to be your host and we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation with the executive director of the jews of colors initiative. we were talking about the complexity of race and jews of colors and the jewish community and that landscape. i am wondering if we think about it as a tactic, why choose philanthropy and the initiative as a philanthropic fund to in some ways articulate a vision and hopefully form change? >> what a great question. when we think about the pathways to leadership , about the pathways to create programs, to match policies with the people were

trying to serve, there has to be an organizational vehicle to make that happen. international ecosystem, like many other major fields and ecosystems, one of the vehicles is philanthropy. giving communareto programs, t different vehicles to create change and to create programs, policies and organizations that support the work of the field . in this case there were almost no communal leadership pathways focused on jews of colors. there are two fellowships in the national region that focus on jews of colors. every other fellowship has either no jews of colors or maybe one in a cohort of class . there has been almost no communal philanthropic giving to jews of colors in the history of jewish communal philanthropy in the u.s. no

focused effort and no real resources expressed in that area. if you think about some communal foundations, some colleagues we work with and foundation resources enable them to give away $2 million a week. in that context, we need to make sure that some of the resources for our jewish communal ecosystem programs and field are going to jews of colors until i find opened up, there was no focused effort to bring funds to jews of colors. what a wonderful way to match amazing people and amazing leaders and programs with the resources to help them build out ideas and support the work and to knit together leaders and programs and experiences to create a field for the jewish community in the u.s. and to knit together leaders and programs and experiences to create a field for the jewish community in the u.s. >> that is fascinating philanthropy is such a complex topic and certainly when we talk about any group of people that is either, the rise in a society especially in a capitalistic society is economic. use of philanthropy

of giving and giving back, has a very strong force for how we as jews make ourselves capable in a society. i am wondering if you know of any way in which that example has been followed by other faith communities? where other folks of color in the catholic church , in the muslim world, in the buddhist world, et cetera, are there ways in which this example has been followed in any way for those other particular communities of color? >> i'm not aware of any specific examples but i will respond with two points. some of what we are learning about how to conduct our philanthropy is informed outside the jewish world. we work with networks of color and atlanta be to inform some of our practices and approaches . part of what is

going on we are learning from outside the jewish space from colleagues of color and that is important. when i think about parlaying that into the faith world and working with muslim colleagues and we had this conversation and they said we need a version for the muslim community. any community in the u.s. that is faith-based and as multiracial dynamics at play, it means the attention of navigating its own issues. the u.s. creates race and racism issues. this is not something to be blamed for , but every faith group in the u.s. is multiracial and every faith group that is multiracial is affected by in informed by racism. >> thank you. we will continue this conversation in a moment on "mosaic".

welcome back to "mosaic". i am honored to be your host we are in the middle of a wonderful conversation. and welcome back. i wonder if we can talk a little bit about on a more personal level, what is the spiritual jewish drive for us commonly, to make jews of colors and really all of us spiritually nourished in our own jewish communities among ourselves ? >> what a beautiful question. maybe i will respond with a brief, personal story. being in the jewish community and being involved in our jewish spiritual life gives us tools to navigate life. for jews of

colors it is so important that we don't push jews of colors so far away from jewish life we cannot access the tools of spiritual growth, spiritual nourishment. i had a conversation with a colleague where a races thing had happened . i knew this colleague was wonderful and was unaware of the situation and i said to myself, i will make sure i talk with her before yom kippur so that she has an opportunity to reflect on this and we can come into the relationship around the racism incident that happened. i said to the rabbi, if it had not been for the tool of reflecting and preparing yom kippur, i would not have been able to have this conversation . it occurred to me how important was for me to be able to navigate and moment that was awkward , and to help

us grow because we are in community together. access to jewish spiritual life means we get to be in community. when we have hard times we have tools to grow or grieve or reflect . what does it mean in the u.s. context that is so marred by negativity around politics and identity conflicts in the land ? this is a more important time for jews in general to be connected to spiritual tools and pathways and what a shame, if racism keeps jews of colors 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. whether somebody is a faith adherence as they believe or secular. in a jewish context it occurs to me that

everybody is created equally in god's image. for myself, it seems to me if that is true, that it must be that our diversity is a testament to god's unfathomable creativity. i just wonder if part of our inside work is that , in a let's say an odd way that is a clumsy word but in an odd way , our theology has been -- and part of the work of our faith community and other faith communities may say differently , somehow there is an internal theological repair for us to do to understand our own selves as a diversity of god's creativity and of course, god is not white. we think of god

as affable anyway. i don't know what your reflection is on that but it seems to me that all the ways about what it is to belong and go in and to feel welcome has a lot to do with how we actually understand what our core theological foundation really is and maybe that is where the repair is . >> i think that is right on. i would add, i am unable to access the hebrew phrase. when we walk into synagogue we are not sure before whom we stand . as we understand ourselves as diverse and multifaceted , it would remind us that each time we see somebody our charges did not size them up and make sense of them and try to figure out what kind of jewish they are or whose parent is jewish in that context or are they really jewish 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. the dimensions are as diverse as we are. we must never forget

we don't know who is in front of us and we ought to be careful and loving and kind. >> maybe racism is a civic wound that theology heals. >> is civic wound that theology heals and somehow we need to access the tools of the in connection to bridge the gap. >> absolutely. we will come back to this wonderful conversation in just a moment.

it's just so inspiring to do research that impacts human lives stand up to cancer has been a critical partner in advancing research for cancer. so please help us fight in this battle against cancer. good morning and welcome back to "mosaic". we are talking to the executive director of jews of colors

initiative. we have talked so much about the work of the initiative and its vision and his philosophy. let's just go over the numbers. >> what are we talking about? in the united states according to the data and the research, there are about 7.2 million jews in the u.s. and that number comprises both adults and young people ages 18 and under. and of that number, our study tells us that at a minimum , 12% to 15% of that number are jewish people of color. 1 million of ourselves and million jews are people of color. to put that in a jewish context, when you are in a minion and you open your eyes at least one person of every minion should be a person of color. let me add that over time in the u.s. the general

population of the united states, every next generation of jews born in the united states will be increasingly people of color. more and more each generation of jews in the u.s. will be people of color. and just like national data, while the timing is not the same, the data tells us that someday the majority of u.s. jews will 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 will become racially diverse and we want to make sure we are connected and strong and finding. >> are most of our jews of colors in our jewish urban environment? >> good question. we looked at studies that looked at the

jewish community from other angles. there is a majority of jews in general and jewish people of color on the coast and major metropolitan areas, better research says we find them and omaha, nebraska. austin, texas . raleigh, north carolina. seattle, wisconsin, in cleveland . there are pockets of jews of colors where there are people of color in the u.s. because the other thing is racism makes people move to environments that are more hospitable and diverse. everywhere you see people of color communities in the u.s. you see jews of colors. we are overrepresented on the coast, but in some ways there are robust populations and the same communities that provided hospitality and safety for people of color when they that races communities all over the u.s. historically. >> in the jewish community

itself, you know we have an ongoing conversation about who is a jewish person whether they converted or born jewish or in a jewish family. from the jews of colors perspective does it encompass what we may think of as a mainstream jewish understanding, you are in a jewish family if you are intermarried , how does that work for jews of colors perspective? >> the way it works for the general jewish community. you have families that are interfaith . you have families that may have adopted somebody . you have families where they might be jewish adjacent. you have families that might be generally jewish overtime. each one of these different expressions of a jewish family include people of color. we have families in the u.s. who are african-american, mono racial, both parents are african-american, and judaism

goes back many generations in the u.s. and we have families where they became jewish by choice . and all living like a focused, observant jewish life. and you have families like the rest of the jewish community in the u.s. who identify strongly as jewish and do-nothing religious and nothing in their spiritual life but for their jewish identity it may be cultural or based on different practices that may fall out of what somebody may view as a very religious life and they are still jewish. we see this mirrored with jewish people of color. when jews of colors, because people challenge our judaism based on our identity, often jews of colors no a tremendous amount of torah and text. jews of colors tend to be learned. they tend to be observant in some

cases. they tend to be committed to the jewish community in ways we don't see. >> we have come to the end of our time together. i want to ask you a big question. where do you want us to be in 10 years? >> where i want us to be, i want us to comfortably understand ourselves is multiracial. i want us to embrace the idea that when we look at a jewish base we should see people of color. and i want us to be comfortable with it and i want us to be authentically part of a dynamic where we understand race is complicated and racism is real and our jewish community is intact and together and committed to enabling everyone to have access to torah. >> thank you so much for being with us on mosaic. please continue this conversation in

the community. have a wonderful day. ♪ tododos alcans lalas estrellalas ♪ ♪ sunny statate of mindnd ♪ ♪ flexixin' all thehe time ♪ ♪ todo o es dorado o ♪ ♪ feels so o golden ♪ ♪ v vive en el estado o dorado ♪ - you okok? - ththere's a flflex alert t ty so i'm m mentally prpreparing r the e power outatage. oh, well w we can helplp stop e becaususe we're gogonna reducecr enerergy use frorom 4-9pm. - - what now?? - i stepepped on a p plug. oh that's s my bad... . unplugg. whenen it comes s to preventng ououtages, thehe power is our.

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