Alone Together: A Photo Essay from the 1st National Jews of Color Convening
Often, I’m the only Bukharian, Mirzahi, or Jew of Color in my work and organizing world. Everyone I got to know so well this week took planes and trains back home again to often be the only somethings in their worlds again. For three days we Jews of Color, Sephardi and Mizrahi were often the only ones again — but this time together.
There are really good pieces written through different lenses, like Jews of Color Get Personal and Political at First-Ever National Gathering by Sigal Samuel, an attendee I met in one of the unforgettable Mizrahi sessions. And some great glimpses at Jewschool by more attendees.
I wasn’t juggling between the extremes of explaining my background to everyone I met or being invisible. Like when stepping into white and white Ashkenazi spaces barely on the periphery of shared experiences and identity. And stepping always some degrees back to the periphery from spaces for people of color so to not contribute to appropriation, and to be aware of my privilege of being able to pass somewhat between worlds.
It takes so much energy to go from token to ghost and from ghost to token. I only realized how much only when I stopped having to do it.
And I feel like others around me there also had found that new energy, like,
“so this is how it feels to take up all the space I need? Wow.”
Instead, that discomfort was had by our amazing, almost entirely white and Ashkenazi volunteers that kept the event space flowing. One shared her moment with an attendee with me. She asked,
“I’m not sure if I should be helpful by staying out here or if I can participate in the sessions — or would it make folks uncomfortable?” to which a warm reply was, “That’s a question and feeling I wrestle with every single time I enter any space.”
My perspective as a photographer can easily fall into the superficial. In some cases it did, I won’t lie. Into the juxtapositions of afros and tzittzit, Iranian Jew and Iraqi Jew, and the bagel with chocolate chip cream cheese.
Fortunately, something else happened visually and I went from someone repeating the tokenizing photographers and their subjects are used to at mostly white conferences into a thoughtful documentarian during a historic moment.
I was to capture that new energy everyone was feeling.
Energy you can feel and see in these moments.
The energy freed up by shedding the burden of taking into account other people’s comfort.
Energy lost on the extremes of going from the center of attention with hundreds of questions and to a ghost,
imposing oneself to the outside where we grew up
and where it feels safe,
and on our terms.
The often onlys.
Together alone.
Rafael Shimunov is an independent creative producer at shmnv.com. He serves as the Creative Director for the National Working Families Party and as one of the many leaders with the IfNotNow movement.
Find more photos from this event here.
And be sure to follow the groups who made it happen Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, @JewishDiversity @Bend_theArc @jewschool_com and more.
