The Jews of Color Initiative works to build a truly multiracial, anti-racist Jewish community in which Jews of Color can experience joy and reach their full potential and belonging as leaders and community members. To do so requires creating structural and communal support for Jews of Color and expanding the field of knowledge about our community.
We work to bring about these systemic changes through three key areas:
Our grantmaking directs Jewish communal resources to organizations and initiatives serving Jews of Color (JoC). Through grantmaking, we serve and support diverse Jewish leadership, including emerging leaders, who develop innovative ways to provide support, community, resources, opportunities, and Jewish engagement to the Jews of Color community.
Our research builds datasets and knowledge bases about Jews of Color, filling gaps in communal knowledge and scholarship surrounding the JoC community. The Jews of Color Initiative commissions multiracial research teams to produce studies with real-world implications that can shape policies and practices within the Jewish ecosystem.
Through community education, we circulate knowledge, data, stories, best practices, and current issues relating to Jews of Color, racism and anti-racism, and equity and inclusion across U.S. Jewish communities. Our sessions with institutional stakeholders motivate leaders to take action to make the Jewish community equitable, inclusive, and guided by racial justice.
See the resources below and visit our resource library to see how we’re putting our work into action
Use this guide to assess your project’s fit with JoCI grantmaking and to learn how to begin a conversation with our Grants Team.
The five most essential teachings from Beyond the Count, our unprecedented research study on the perspectives and experiences of Jews of Color in the U.S.
Over the past year, JoCI and our partners created meaningful opportunities for leadership and belonging for Jews of Color through dynamic fellowships and programs, forward-thinking dialogue and research, and grants for innovative projects. Take a look at the impact we made together in 2023-2024.
Today, Americans tend to think of Jewish people as white folks, but it wasn’t always that way. On this episode of NPR’s Code Switch, we dig into the complex role Jewish identity has played in America’s racial story — especially now, when anti-Semitism is on the rise.
With the newly released study “Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Color,” our community and our leaders have new tools to inform, shape and move our community toward one that authentically and powerfully engages the diversity of all Jews. Just as important, “Beyond the Count” includes self-reflections by Jews of color — 1,118 to be exact — that offer insights about their experiences, both positive and negative, in Jewish spaces.
In recent years, Jewish communal leaders and philanthropists have come to recognize that the American Jewish community—widely presumed to be white-skinned and Ashkenazi (from Central and Eastern Europe)—is far more diverse than they imagined. With the help of philanthropic partners, the Jews of Color Initiative, a Berkeley, California-based fund led by Executive Director Ilana Kaufman, is raising consciousness about underserved Jews of color and working to create a more inclusive and welcoming ecosystem in the organized American Jewish community.
