I hope the findings empower our community. We have to collectively commit to the path of anti-racism and racial justice. We have to accept that the Jewish community is not sustainable if racism exists among us, especially as our community becomes more and more diverse. I hope there is a chorus of “I’ve had enough” from every person in the Jewish community.
Ilana Kaufman
I knew that the Jewish community held much more diversity than I was seeing in offices, meetings, and board rooms. Instead of asking “where are other Jews of Color?” I instead asked, “what is keeping Jews of Color away, and how can we change that?” It was with this genuine desire for change that I mapped the early stages of what would become the Jews of Color Initiative.
Faced with the reckoning with racism across time and the call to action from the Black Lives Matter movement in our present moment, Kaufman tasked any white Jewish webinar attendants and viewers to ask themselves: “What am I willing to give up? What am I able to learn, and what am I willing to contribute to halt the perpetuation of racism and white supremacy in this country?”