As Jewish women of color, we support the unity principles of the Women’s March and believe that this is the time for our communities to affirm together that women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.
As Jewish women of color, we value our multi-racial, multi-ethnic, cross-classed, multi-gendered, differently observant, differently abled, and intergenerational community of women as powerful. Our liberation is tied to the liberation of all our sisters and siblings and to our capacity to listen, learn, grow and take action together.
Jews of Color, and Jewish Women of Color in particular, have been organizing and taking action in US social justice movements since the beginning, and are not seen. National conversations and debates that have been sparked between organizers of color and White Jewish institutions have mostly silenced and made invisible the work of Jews of Color who have been putting their bodies and hearts on the line in this work for many years.
Among Jewish women of color, commitment to Black Jewish Women means addressing Anti-Black Racism, in Jewish communities and beyond. Commitment to all Jewish women means not making the voices and leadership of Jewish women of color additive but an integrated and valued part of what Jewish social justice leadership means.
Jewish women of color exist in our own power. We have no need to be re-translated, talked over, fetishized or “signed up for service” by the communities to which we belong. We have and will continue to navigate as leaders within communities that are willing to do the work of embracing the entire breadth of our identities, experiences, commitments and values. It is these commitments and values that link us together across a spectrum of diverse entry points to varying needs for justice. We are impacted by a multitude of social justice and human rights issues and fully embrace that our collective efforts for justice need not be monolithic or prescriptive to be effective.
Jewish Women of Color reject any assertion that there is more anti-Semitism in African-American communities than in others and any belief that African-American leaders, and women specifically, should be singled out for particular attention toward addressing the impacts of the growing presence of anti-Semitism in our world. Of the 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents identified by the Anti-Defamation League in 2017, less than a handful of these incidents were perpetrated by African Americans or other people of color. As White nationalists have historically and presently organized themselves against Jews, we have not experienced communities of color organizing themselves to target our Jewish community.
As Jewish women of color, we are committed to and united with our Jewish family and allies in fighting the growing threat of white supremacist and white nationalist violence in our country AND we are clear that this threat is not coming chiefly from our allies in the social justice movements we navigate. Anti-Semitism within our movement remains a family problem that must be addressed.
Anti-Semitism exists in all communities, as does racism, sexism, homophobia and a host of other oppressions that it must be our goal as a society to eradicate. One role of anti-Semitism has been to scapegoat Jews by centering us as the buffer between those with more privilege and those without. Consequently, in many communities, including in communities of color (that are our families and siblings) “Jews” are often seen as the face of power and a distorted sense of who the Jewish people are and who Jews of Color are has developed to our detriment. As Jewish women of color who live at the intersection of racism, sexism and anti-Semitism, and who are committed to standing against white supremacy, patriarchy and religious oppression in all its forms, we will play an integral role in the healing and unification of our communities and in the work of securing greater justice and freedom for us all.
Jewish women of Color embrace our wisdom, self-expression, loving intentionality, creativity, humor, and essential roles in organizing spaces and in movement leadership. We resist the role of “translators” and invite the depth and breadth of our families and allies to join us in “Beloved Community” where critical thinking, knowledge sharing and popular education live alongside commitments to regular check-ins, restorative justice principles and the practice of healing and accountability. We are committed to learning from our elders and our history of activism. We resist perfectionism as a leadership model and firmly reject disposability as an option. We are not here to throw any of our leaders away.
As members of pan-ethnic, multicultural, multiracial and multi-gendered communities and families across the US and beyond, we believe that all Jewish women, including the privileged segment of our Jewish family who are affluent, heterosexual, cisgendered and White, have an equal stake in ending the gender oppressions that the Women’s March protests. We call into solidarity with us all of our Jewish siblings to commit to ending the sexual harassment and assault, the pay inequities and glass ceilings that too many of us experience in Jewish camps, schools, synagogues and communal institutions. We call into solidarity with us all who are currently vested in ending the violence of women being routinely interrupted while they speak, of having their words and ideas appropriated, of having intrusive comments on their appearance and clothing or unwanted touching visited upon them in Jewish spaces. Although Jews of Color are currently not represented in large numbers across what is now a majority White, male institutional fabric and representation of Jewish leadership, as Jewish women of color, we too stand against these injustices and invite all Jews to get free alongside us.
As is currently stated, the world the Women’s March seeks to build is one “free from anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism and all forms of social violence. It is rooted in a vision of a world where all women- including Black women, Jewish women, lesbian, queer, bi and trans women, Muslim women, poor women, immigrant women, indigenous women and disabled women- are free and able to care for and nurture themselves and their families, however they are formed, in safe and healthy environments free from structural impediments.” We affirm this vision as iterative. We welcome Jewish women, and all groups who have experienced the pain of not being fully seen and held by our movement work, to actively participate in building liberatory structures and processes that include us and welcome us to ask for and get what we need to be free.
As the Women’s March continues to support policy changes that will mitigate suffering and positively shape our future, we stand with women who are involved in the criminal injustice system. We stand with women who are refugees and immigrants due to wars, who are subjugated by xenophobic laws and economic exploitation. We stand with Indigenous women who refuse to be ignored and lift up #MMIW. We stand for environmental justice, which disproportionately impacts poor women of color. We stand for reproductive justice as well as gender justice.
We stand and will be marching with the Women’s March on January 19, 2019. We hope you will join us!
Yavilah McCoy
Shahanna McKinney Baldon
Rachel Faulkner
Rakel Joseph
Graie Hagans
Oraneet Shikmah Orevi
Shoshana A Brown
Tonda Case
Kai Gardner Mishlove
Anike
Rachel Sumekh
Aaron Chandler
Enzi Tanner
Nate Looney
Tova Ztaoui
Molly rae bok
Hirut
Sharon Gibson Morgan
Jared Jackson
Ginna Green
Dena Robinson
Natalie Bauman
Dr. Tarece L Johnson
Yehudah Webster
Sasha King
Gab Sussman
Rebekkah Scharf
Sarah Waisvisz
Maxine McKinney de Royston
Wynette
Allison Wagreich
Ruby Velez
Mollie Feldman-Adams
Keyanna Silverman-Maddox
Tabitha St. Bernard-Jacobs
Liz Kleinrock
Nolwazi Monique LaRue Powell
Candice Markowitz
Sheba McCants
Iden Campbell
Adrienne Timmons
Dora Chen
Kat Macias
Jessica Kingston
Atarah McCoy
Marisa Schwartz
Leili Herlinda Davari
Amani Hayes-Messinger
Courtney Parker West
Robin Altman
Helena Cohen
Sabrina Sojourner
Yelitza Leon
Tikvah Womack
Sara Bobkoff
Lena Sclove
Rachel Nilson Ralston
Michal David
Lauren Fine
Tamara Gardner
Barbara Stern
Denise Wolferman
Heidi E Senior
Sukanya Rai-Sharma
S I Atias
Alexis Ortiz
Sarah Greenhalgh
YM Carrington
Tali David
Orchideh Raisdanai
Cole Parke
Erica Walker
Chase Carter
Evan Traylor
Valeria Epshteyn
Tiferet Berenbaum
Debbie Rabinovitz
Samara Kaufman
Samiah Fulcher
Josh Bloom
Madison Slobin
Kavitha Kasargod-Staub
Vanessa Levine
Chavon Watt
Letitia Gomez
Leon Potik
Kelly Whitehead
Dr. Tamu Nolfo
Ilana Kaufman
Rachel Luce-Hitt
Meytal Russo
Ellen RIfkin
Jessica Valoris
Lesley wolf
Miriam Messinger
Tori Burstein
Sonia Rosen
tallie ben daniel
Tiffany Harris
Rafael Shimunov
Donelle Johnson
Ro Johnson
Noemi Giszpenc
Danielle Diuguid
Rachel W.
Gabriella Sanchez Stern
Tae Phoenix
Shifra Bronznick
Rae Axner
Genevieve Carr
Aya Yamamoto
Joha Mateo VanOsten
Idit Klein
Sarit Cantor
Claire Diamond
Emma Alabaster
Liddie Collins-Siegrist
Rebecca Subar
Rachel Scott
Leo Ferguson
Rachel Lerman
Sara Goldberg
Tamar Shirabi
Danit Osborn
Dahlia Goldenberg
Ama Maria Guerrero
Beth Sandweiss
Martha Gray
Sarah Barasch
Cheryl Cook
Jody Rabhan
Tamara Cohen
Marya Axner
Jeff Treistman
Mikki Pugh
Amanda Lindner
Pippi Kessler
Megan Pamela Ruth Madison
Aaren Alpert
Kendra Watkins
Merissa Nathan Gerson
Rebecca Katz
Haftm
Anjelica N Ruiz
Ellen Menhauser
Amy Mandel
Micah
Tayler Sales
Dev Nolly
Aiden Orly
Lauren Berry-Kagan
Rebecca Lesses
Laura Horwitz
Judith Rosenbaum
Rachel Gildiner
Andria Danine Simckes
Debra Taube
Rachel Weinstein
Lila Berman
Laura Levitt
Caryn Aviv
Mollie Feldman
Sheila Katz
Barbara Colton
Rosa Blumenfeld
Marni Rothman
Brandon
Anne Greenwald
Jon Marker
CLERGY
Rabbi Mira Rivera
Rabbi Michael Adam Latz
Rav Kohenet Taya Shere
Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman
Rabbi Salem Pearce
Kohenet Rebekah Erev
Chaplain Orev Reena Katz haKohenet
Yocheved Angelique Arroyo
Koach Baruch Frazier
Katheryn Silverstein
Ella Gluckman
Bekah Starr
Batya Diamond
Dori Midnight
ORGANIZATIONS
Black Yids Matter (BYM)
And 17 other Jews of Color and Allies
