The Jews of Color Initiative’s grantmaking supports field-building. Our newest grants amplify the incredible ongoing efforts of JoC leaders and allies who build the field for Jews of Color by expanding their efforts nationally, developing new resources, telling JoC stories, activating pipelines to spiritual leadership, and more. Read below for summaries of our seven newest grantees.
LUNAR Collective
The LUNAR Collective cultivates connection, belonging, and visibility for Asian American Jews through intersectional community programming and authentic digital storytelling.
Over the course of the next year, LUNAR Collective will strengthen their current leadership, and expand their team to advance communications and grants. They will also onboard and support new Asian Jewish community leaders passionate about creating community events and broadening the LUNAR network in their hometowns. The LUNAR Collective is eager to support community leaders to engage in JoC community-building, event planning, or leadership training, and foster the expansion of Asian Jewish leadership across the U.S.
Mitsui Collective
The Mitsui Collective designs and facilitates holistic, whole-body Jewish learning and practice. With support from JoCI, the Mitsui Collective aims to increase collective knowledge at the intersection of racism and antisemitism, and the impact they force on individual and collective Jewish bodies, particularly those of Jews of Color.
This grant supports Mitsui Collective’s Jewish Somatic Antiracism Collaborative research project, which will develop resources, tools, and communities of practice that can support JoC in navigating and healing the traumatizing impacts of racism, both within and beyond Jewish spaces. These expansive somatic frameworks will increase capacity for care and support within programs and organizations for Jews of Color, and other communities with intersectional experiences of identity and oppression. The research and tools of the Mitsui Collective will have lasting impacts in building truly diverse, equitable, and caring organizations and communities.
The Workshop
The Workshop is a premier arts and culture organization providing fellowship experiences for professional JoCISM (Jews of Color, Jewish-Indigenous, Sephardi, Mizrahi) artists. As a JoC-led organization, their dual mission is to provide unparalleled career support for talented JoCISM artists and create art-forward, learning and community-building experiences that reinforce Jewish identity.
Last year, with support from the JoCI, the Workshop Fellowship consisted of nine cohort meetings, a weekend-long artist retreat, and two well-attended public works-in-progress showings at Jewish Theological Seminary and JCC Manhattan. Each fellow received funding, creative pastoral support from artistic director Rabbi Kendell Pinkney, career mentorship from senior creatives, and access to national grant opportunities. In coming years, with continued support from JoCI, The Workshop will continue to foster a robust JoC artistic community, and to expand beyond New York as the organization grows.
Jewtina y Co.
Jewtina y. Co is venturing into its fourth fiscal year as an organization dedicated to nurturing Latin-Jewish community, identity, and leadership. Jewtina’s efforts include a podcast highlighting the experiences of Latinx Jews, running the PUENTES Fellowship, and designing multilingual resources for the Latin-Jewish community in the United States.
Jewtina y. Co’s primary goal for this coming year is to invest in their leadership so that they can continue to make Jewtina y Co. accessible to those who need it for many years to come. During the grant period, they are advancing their dynamic programmatic offerings; Jewtina will bring to life the third and fourth cohorts of the PUENTES Fellowship, strategically recruiting diverse participant and engage with consultants, new community members, part-time local staff, and a rabbinic council to inform their programs. Jewtina y. Co is also preparing to undertake a community portrait study to provide the organization with important impact feedback.
Ammud
Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy provides Jewish education, community, and personalized support for Jews of Color by Jews of Color. Through their efforts, Ammud is creating a space for JoC to engage deeply in their Jewishness as empowered members and leaders of the broader Jewish community.
Having established a thriving entry-point for Jewish education, Ammud is now focused on standardizing their educational materials, and formalizing impact for JoCs who are interested in rabbinical or other clergy pathways. Through the grant period, Ammud is expanding both in-person and online educational offerings, engaging with or hiring programming consultants, and sharpening communications capacities to build stronger connections with allies.
Mayyim Hayyim
Mayyim Hayyim is piloting a BIJOCSM (Black, Indigenous, Jews of Color, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews) cohort for an online mikveh guide training course launched by the Rising Tide Open Waters Network. The course, Seven Steps, led by BIJOCSM, is creating space for non-white Jews to immerse themselves in the deep knowledge and tradition of the mikveh ritual. The cohort is led by Erica Riddick and other JOCSM guest educators, and the training involves eight weeks of online learning for the cohort, as well as three live training sessions via Zoom, and two workshops with Rising Tides.
The BIJOCSM mikveh guides will ensure that Black, Indigenous, Jews of Color, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Jews are elevated, centered, and invested in as wisdom-holders, educators, and ritual facilitators in the open mikveh environment. Their efforts are instrumental in creating mikveh experiences that are truly welcoming, affirming, safe, accessible, inclusive, and meaningful for BIJCOSM in Jewish communities everywhere.
The Braid
The Braid, in partnership with LUNAR Collective, is developing a new original show that places the voices and experiences of Asian Jews on center stage. The Braid creative team, which consists of Asian Jews, invites Asian Jewish writers and community members to submit stories about their experiences at the crossroads of cultures, and to explore what it means to be Asian and Jewish in our contemporary world.
The Braid is holding three writers’ workshops (in person in Los Angeles, in person in New York City, and live on Zoom) to support the writing process and encourage community members to submit their stories. This grant is creating opportunities for Asian Jews to tell their stories, to find a strong Asian Jewish community, and to see the arts as a positive tool for reflecting their identities.