A Message From Our Editor – February 2022
Written by Penina Taylor
February is Black History Month in the United States and Canada, so what better time to take the opportunity for us to address what is definitely among the top five issues that Orthodox Judaism as a whole needs to address? Bigotry/prejudice. You would think that Jews, as the most persecuted people group on the planet, would be more sensitive to the issue – but we’re not, and it’s a big problem. Let’s face it, isolating and insulating ourselves from the rest of the world has been a sharp tool in the arsenal of self-preservation. When you make “others” the enemy, it makes it easier to know who is “safe”. When you keep “others” at a distance, you create a sense of membership in the tribe, a cohesiveness, a team.
The problem, of course, is that Jews come in every skin color and literally from the four corners of the world. Just because someone appears to be Black, Latinx, Asian, or whatever doesn’t mean they aren’t a Jew – and in addition to those who have converted, there are certainly many Jews by birth who fit these descriptors. By trying to define who is “us” and who is “other” by external features we end up destroying the Jewish people from the inside out.
One of the great lessons of the 21st century is that we need to stop placing value on a person based on external features. The world is making great strides in this direction, both with awareness campaigns regarding color, and also the body positivity (not defining beauty by size) movement, although in the Jewish community this is still a huge problem. Just last month, another Jewish publication was the focus of social media outrage as it was made known that they had published an advertisement in their print edition for a gym in Jerusalem, implying that young women who are looking to get married need to lose weight. The publication did make a public apology and pulled the ad, but not before it went viral. But I digress…
The real question is how on earth do you create a society that honors the
different cultural backgrounds of people without drawing attention to the differences? How do we create a society where everyone is seen as completely equal with equal opportunities and still celebrate diversity? It’s not an easy question, and certainly one I am not qualified to answer. I once prided myself on being “color blind” until I was made aware that this concept, while perhaps something that might be good in a future utopian society, was not an ideal to be aimed for in the world we live in today. It’s nice to think that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew and we shouldn’t draw attention to the fact that a Jew of color looks different – and yet – we must be aware that their experience of Judaism, and perhaps even God, is different, purely because of the color of their skin. Or at least, because of how we as a whole respond to the color of their skin.
So this month’s feature story is about a Jewish woman of color. She was on the list of people to feature – not because she is a Jew of color, but because she’s a fascinating person who is very “out of the box.” She is in many ways the embodiment of “unorthboxed”. She also happens to be the newest member of our writing team and I look forward to bringing you her perspective on life in future issues.
