Dressing in White: Privilege and the High Holy Days
A Hillel Conversation
26 October 2015 - 14 Heshvan 5776
Communication Guidelines*
1. I will speak for myself, not as a representative of a group. I will not ask others to represent, defend
or explain an entire group. I will make ‘I’ statements rather than ‘we’ or ‘you’ statements.
2. I will avoid making broad generalizations and grand pronouncements. Instead, I will connect
what I know and believe to my experiences and particular sources of information.
3. I will express my different viewpoints in a thoughtful manner and without an insulting spirit. I
will keep in mind my goals of learning and reflection. I may respectfully disagree with others, but I
will resist the urge to persuade them to “my side.”
4. I will listen with resilience, “hanging in” when I hear something that is hard to hear. I will take
personal time if I find that I am no longer able to listen with a clear mind and an open heart.
5. I will share airtime and refrain from interrupting others, except to indicate that I cannot hear a
speaker. I will participate within the time frames suggested by the facilitators. I will avoid making
lengthy statements and will not argue with other participants in connected conversation.
6. All small-group conversations are confidential. In conversations outside of the group I will not
attribute particular statements to particular individuals by name or identifying information without
permission.
7. I will ask questions from a place of genuine curiosity and in service of the asked.
*Adapted from Encounter’s Communication Guidelines, inspired by the 2004 Public
Conversations Project.
Free-write: What themes emerged for you over the course of the High
Holidays?
Framing Question: What is our Jewish obligation to antiracism?
Honoring the Sixth Day Creations
Rosh Hashanah Sermon1
Rabbi Heather Miller at Beth Chayim Hadashim in Los Angeles
Framing Question: How does this challenge or reaffirm your understanding of the Jewish
community?
All lives matter, but the Torah itself specifies that we should care for the stranger, the widow, the
orphan. The Torah doesn’t say that ALL lives matter. That is self-evident. Rather, concentration
is paid to those lives that are the most vulnerable. Once upon a time, we, in the Gay community
were once told that the phrase “Gay Pride” was an anti-straight movement. That gay marriage
would somehow degrade straight marriage. But saying Gay lives matter does not mean that
straight lives don’t matter.
See where I’m going with this?
1
http://www.bcc-la.org/honoring-the-sixth-day-creations/
[...] If our society is set up to privilege some over others, and society is built by individuals, what
activities are we as individuals doing to continue the inequality pervasive in our communities
today?
And I mean not only our universal community or our community of the United States or even
our beloved city of Los Angeles. I also mean our Jewish community. Because if Jewish
communities more explicitly recognized that Black and Jewish were not entirely different
communities, and instead we affirmed that the identity of being Black AND Jewish can exist
within the same person, we might institutionally begin to realize that the
#BLACKLIVESMATTER movement is ALSO a Jewish issue.
And when we, as an LGBT affirming community, recognize that the identity of being Black
AND LGBorT can exist within the same person, we might institutionally begin to realize that the
Black Lives Matter movement is ALSO an LGBT issue. And an issue of women’s rights. And an
issue of immigrants’ rights. And so forth.
We begin to see this when we realize that three women founded the Black Lives Matter
movement– and two of them identify as queer. These facts, then, seem to be clear reminders that,
as reflections of Adonai, we really are all One, as the Shema affirms.
And, in colloquial speech, an affront to one group really is an affront to all groups. As a Jewish
LGBT-affirming multiracial community, we at BCC need to be aware of not only blatant
systemic racism in the world, but also microagressive interpersonal acts, especially ones that
occur within the Jewish community. Microagressions occur as everyday verbal, non-verbal, and
environmental slights, snubs and insults.
Jewish Community Relations Council Director Ilana Kaufman, herself a Jew of Color, shares a
story about her intern, Tovah, also a Jew of Color, who experienced one of these incidents at her
high school when a boy approached her in disbelief, “You’re Jewish Tovah? What? No way
dude!”
She recounted the story in tears to Ilana. Why did it hurt so much? Because she said, “My name
is Tovah, I wear a Jewish star around my neck, I go to synagogue, my mom is Jewish, what more
can I do to be seen as Jewish?”
Tovah was invisibilized within the Jewish community. She was not counted. The great medieval
Rabbi known as Nachmanides tells us that, ‘we take a census not so the census takers can count,
but rather for the benefit of those who are counted: to be counted and feel they belong, and to
impress upon each one of us the value and sterling worth of our soul.’ It is for those being
counted so they know they matter to someone.”
[...] How are we, this Rosh HaShanah, considering how we honor all human creation and
especially those who are devalued in society?
During this season where we take a cheshbon of our nefesh– where we take an accounting of our
souls– let us begin wide with the accounting of how we contribute to societal inequalities, and let
us begin to turn it around tonight.
After creating humans on the 6th day, “God saw every thing that God had made, and, behold, it
was very good…” On this 5,776th anniversary of that day, may we renew our commitment to
partner with God to make it so. Ken Yehi Ratzon. Amen.
Framing Question: How does this challenge or reaffirm your understanding of the Jewish
community?
Jews in America struggled for decades to become white. Now we must give up
whiteness to fight racism.
Let's teach our children that we are, in fact, not white, but simply Jewish.
Rosh Hashanah Sermon2
Gil Steinlauf at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C.
Framing questions: How and why do we read and conceptualize Jews as white? What is
useful and what is problematic about this article? In what ways can we separate Judaism
from whiteness?
Well into the 20th century, we Jews were barred from the whitest country clubs. We couldn’t
buy houses in the whitest neighborhoods. Even today, some of us remember being called antiSemitic names, having pennies thrown at us or being beaten up because we are Jewish. But that
young woman I spoke with this summer, and most of her young adult Jewish peers today, can
hardly fathom being singled out, being treated as “other,” because of their Jewishness. And the
main reason why anti-Semitism is no longer mainstream in our society is because sometime in
the last half century, we convinced America that we, too, are white.
[...] America is unique in Jewish history because the social construct of power and oppression in
this society came to be based more on skin color than on religion or ethnic identity. Because of
that, along with the best of American values and our own hard work, we now find ourselves as
another privileged white ethnicity. Despite our only good intentions, we are — all of us — full
participants and beneficiaries of the American evil known as racism.
2
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/09/22/jews-in-america-struggled-for-generations-tobecome-white-now-we-must-give-up-that-privilege-to-fight-racism/
The brilliance of being Jewish, though, is that we stubbornly refuse to fit into any social
construct of power or oppression. We are simply Ivri’im, people from “somewhere else,” people
who struggle with God and justice, who demand that the rest of the world does, too, and see
every human life as sacred because we are all in the image of God. And the truth is, we have
never belonged to one race alone. The Torah tells us that we left Egypt with the “erev rav,” with
a mixed multitude of peoples. Around the world there are Jews of color, Asian Jews, Jews of all
kinds. The idea that Jews are white is not only ridiculous, it’s offensive to who we really are!
Yes, societies like America come along sometimes and give us privileges and powerful labels
like “white.” In America’s racist social construct, Jews are very much white people, but we must
never again think of ourselves that way — it’s time for us to opt out of that racist paradigm,
because we are Jews.
Imagine what we and our children could be like if we associate our Jewishness with an essential
statement against racism and discrimination. Even though we and our children have benefited
from the best schools and jobs and housing that whiteness affords, we can be the ones to
challenge the system from within. We can be the ones who change business practices, housing
codes, policing, correctional facilities, social policies, unequal schools — motivated by our
values and our Jewish historical experience. Indeed, so many progressive leaders in this country
have been Jews (including some Jewish founders of the NAACP), motivated exactly by this
vision. But so many more of us need to own our real power, which is not our whiteness, but our
Jewishness, our Torah and our tradition that motivates us to remember the stranger, for we were
strangers in Egypt; that calls on us to lift up the cause of all those who are oppressed.
Of course, the racist power structures that we need to fight against are not so easily cast aside.
No matter whether we call ourselves white or not, Jews will still be less likely than people of
color to be stopped — or shot — by police, will still be unlikely to face discrimination in school,
at work, in real estate, from banks. But we can still reckon more fully with those advantages, and
refuse to accept them unthinkingly. And we must use the clout that accrues from them to work to
erase those inequalities for future generations.
Our great sage Hillel taught that Torah boiled down to this: “What is hateful to you, do not do to
others. All the rest is commentary.” If we let Hillel’s wisdom guide the way, then Jews in
America today can go live proudly as Jews, as a light to the nations. May we all be that light in
this world that so badly needs repair
Framing questions: How and why do we read and conceptualize Jews as white? What is
useful and what is problematic about this article? In what ways can we separate Judaism
from whiteness?
Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack3
Framing question: What are the privileges of thinking on the personal level as opposed to
the structural?
___ I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or
harassed
___ I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race
widely represented.
___ When I am told about our national (American) history or about “civilization,” I am shown
that people of my color made it what it is.
___ I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence
of their race.
___ I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which
s/he is the only member of his/her race.
___ I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented or into a
hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
___ Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against
the appearance of financial reliability.
___ I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily
physical protection.
___ I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
___ I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of
my race
___ I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s
magazines featuring people of my race.
___ I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat included,
rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
___ If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will
lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
___ I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or
disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less
protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
___ I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
___ I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the
job suspect that I got it because of my race
___ If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation
whether it had racial overtones.
___ If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
___ I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match
my skin.
___ I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
___ I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
3
http://www.deanza.edu/faculty/lewisjulie/White%20Priviledge%20Unpacking%20the%20Invisible%20Knapsack.p
df
Jewish Multiracial Network Privilege Checklist4
___ I can walk into my Hillel and feel that others do not see me as outsider.
___ I can walk into my Hillel and feel that others do not see me as exotic.
___ I can enjoy music at my Hillel that reflects the tunes, prayers, and cultural roots of my
specific Jewish heritage.
___ No one at my Hillel or synagogue will attempt to assign me to a ethnicity to which I do not
belong (e.g., assuming all Jews of African descent are Igbo or Ethiopian).
___ I am not singled out to speak about and as a representative of an “exotic” Jewish subgroup.
___ When I go to Jewish bookstores or restaurants, I am not seen as an outsider.
___ I find my experiences and images like mine in Jewish newspapers and magazines.
___ My rabbi never questions that I am Jewish.
___ When I tell other members of my synagogue that I feel marginalized, they are immediately
and appropriately responsive.
___ My authenticity as a Jew is never questioned based on my skin color.
___ I am never asked “how” I am Jewish at dating events or on Jewish dating websites.
___ I can arrange to be in the company of Jews of my heritage most of the time.
___ I do not worry about being seen or treated as a member of the janitorial staff at a Hillel or
synagogue or when attending a Jewish event.
___ I know my racial or ethnic background will not be held against me if I attempt to join a
minyan in prayer.
___ I know my ethnic background will not be held against me in being called to read the Torah.
___ I have not been asked to leave a shul or a class or have been barred from entering a shul or
a class due to my skin color.
Final Question: To what extents (if at all) do we, as Jews, see ourselves as:





4
White
Privileged
Powerful
Oppressed
Able/obligated to be in solidarity/allyship with People of Color
http://www.jewishmultiracialnetwork.org/advocacy/privilege-checklist/