I had an ah-ha moment this week. I had attended a community meeting on the subject of responding to the violence against black people. We met at a black church. The event was organized by PICO, an organization that teaches faith-based community organizing. There were people of different faiths and races present. Afterwards there was…
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In a conversation with a young person who is Asian and Jewish (yes, halachically Jewish, as in has a Jewish mother) I asked, “Are you comfortable in a synagogue?” The answer was, no, so I asked why. The answer: 1. I didn’t get much Jewish education so I don’t really know what’s going on…
Read More »A 2004 study of the bay area Jewish population found that 14% of families in our community include Jews of color. That means that at least every tenth Jew you see is a multiracial Jew or lives in a multiracial family. But that was nine years ago. That percentage can only have grown. You would…
Read More »We had such a wonderful series of panel discussions in the East Bay about our multiracial Jewish community. I asked Sherith Israel to host the next gathering and several of our panelists grew up at Sherith Israel! Come on over and hear from all of them. The Jewish community if the San Francisco bay area…
Read More »John Citron opened his presentation with, “My wife, Felicia, and I have been on a number of Dawn’s panels – interfaith and interracial and now both.” He went on to describe how they have raised their kids as Jews with an understanding of their Chinese heritage. Debbie, wife and mother in a Jewish Filipino home…
Read More »Gender Roles in our Homes I was running a program for women only (Women in Interfaith Relationships) and a young non-Jewish mother began to cry as she explained that she had agreed to raise her children as Jews before she got married but in fact she had no idea how to do that. The women…
Read More »Our weekly email goes out to hundreds of interfaith couples & families in the Bay Area. Topics cover the many questions and mysteries that interfaith couples want answered.