“Diverse” Continued

I don’t mean to undermine the efforts to spread the awareness that Jews exist in all colors.

But, the way that that is being propagated lately makes me a little uncomfortable.

When you look at the posters of “diverse” Jews in America, you always see a “black” face, an “Asian” face, and a “Middle-Eastern” face. To the trained eye,  it looks like this: There is an African-American, who either is born Jewish or converted (there is no way of telling, really. From my experience, both are equally likely with African-American looking people). There is usually also that Ethiopian face (which, needless to say, is usually someone born Jewish). The “Asian” face is usually an Asian girl, who was probably adopted by “white” Jewish parents. (Sorry for the stereo-typing, but I haven’t met an exception to this one yet.) The Middle-Eastern looking person could be a Yeminite Jew, or a Arabic-Jew with slightly tan skin. Occasionally, you also see a mixed-race child (although if there is, that tends to be an Asian-White child, like me).

I look at this and think…. Well, it’s great that there are advertising this…. But, we are not all the same. In fact, we have such a different history from one another. To lump us all together like this seems a little problematic because that shows me more than anything else that we are “the Other” Jewish population. I almost hear a voice saying, The Black ones, Asian ones, Middle Eastern ones (to a lesser extent) are all “weird” but we are going to bite our tongues and say, “we must embrace all the diverse Jews among us.”

Let’s get real for a second:

The existence of biracial and multiracial Jews (born Jewish or with a Jewish parent) is a pretty new (by which I mean about a half-century old) phenomenon which has a lot to do with the increased ease of movement between varying regions and countries, banning of anti-miscegenation (interracial marriage) laws (for more on this, look here), and the increased acceptance of such children in the general Jewish community. At least in the US. The Caribbean islands is one of the most interesting and earliest sites (to the best of my knowledge) that gave rise to this phenomenon that still continues till today.

The existence of black American Jews has its own rich history (details of which I don’t know yet) which goes back to as far as the mid-nineteenth-century in the US and also has links to the Black Pride Movement.

The Ethiopians Jews and Middle Eastern Jews, as a collective, have been Jews for ever. That they get lumped together with “us” newer-phenomenon Jews seems to point to the real reason all of this bothers me.

So many of those visuals that try to tout “diversity” in the Jewish communities seem to focus on the “Wow! You are a Jew?” factor that comes from the “general” (which is the “white”) Jewish population and does not seem to take into account “our” perspectives or even basic histories–the perspective of the ones who are being lumped together to compose the “mosaic” or “diverse face of Judaism today.” Honestly, when I see those visual images (and may I add that anything advertising something Jewish still uses the dark curly-haired white-skinned 20-something girl most often), I feel like I am being used to show to the rest of the (non-Jewish) American world, that “yes! We too, are ‘diverse’ like the rest of America!” (Assimilation complete!) Cynical? Perhaps.

This is a post I hesitated to post because I don’t want to shoot the positive movement of trying to diversify people’s ideas of who a Jew is. At the same time, I felt compelled to upload this because, really, it’s quite irritating that “diverse” is being used to only mean “non-white” and I think that use really needs to stop. Otherwise, real normalization can’t happen and we “diverse” Jews will always remain on the margin.

What alternatives remain then? I have ideas, but not now. To be continued…. Maybe….

 

Fired Up

There is an organization that I love.

It is a community that has nurtured me as a person in yesteryears.

It has been and remains a place of kindness and seriousness.

I have heard about its dwindling and have been sick-worried. I have been wondering what was going on and wondering if there was anything that I could do. I have been wondering about this for years. Now that I am back on their turf, I have been given the opportunity. I hope that all the information-gathering I have been doing over the past couple of years with this organizaion in mind and my past experience can contribute to helping out the organization that is so close to my heart.

 

“Diverse” as a Euphemism

The other day I was standing in line in a post office in Harlem.

I turned to a woman behind me, who was the only other “white”(-ish) face in the post office and asked, “how do you like living here?” She said, “oh, you are thinking of moving here?” I said, yes, and she started off by saying, “Well, it’s…”diverse” around here, so you know, you have to like that.”

I thought to myself, “diverse”?
We are in the middle of Harlem.

Or, maybe, she means that there is also a Latino population?? Was she referring to the large African immigrant population? Somehow I wasn’t sure that she was even aware of the difference between African-Americans and the recent African immigrants. What does she mean?

It kind of bugged me, made me self-conscious, and also made me regret having asked her that question in the first place.

She also told me that she had heard that it got “noisy” in the summers–but perhaps, she quickly added, that was true about anywhere in Manhattan.

“Noisy?” You mean, people hanging out in the streets? I don’t understand. What’s wrong with that? If you don’t want that, shouldn’t you be living in a place where you can buy an acre of land for the same price you pay for a tiny apartment in Manhattan?

My head was full of question marks.

I didn’t understand why someone would want to move to Harlem if they were so uncomfortable around the African-American community. Harlem has been a black neighborhood for over a century and bears the richness of it.

Having had more time afterwards to put things together I came to the conclusion that she in fact was using the word “diverse” to mean that “it wasn’t white.” Wow….I thought.

Another woman walked in who looked closer to my age and friendly-looking after I had already engaged in discussion with this other one, and I really wished that I had asked the same question to her instead. She was black (like everyone else in the post office ), but didn’t look like she was a long-time resident there and that was my point: Asking someone who was new to the neighborhood what it was like coming in as a new-comer to the area.

This incident reminded me of how the word “diverse” is often used in the Jewish community as well. Isn’t “diverse” also used to mean “not white,”  including the Sephardic community, in many American Jewish communities?

Te be continued…. maybe

 

Discontinued!? No!!!!

I grew up on this stuff. Even though now I can drink coffee, I definitely prefer…well, I guess now, “prefered” would be correct…this stuff to coffee: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postum. But this entry brings the news, it has been discontinued. Now I must make it myself if I want to replicate this delicious and better-than-coffee taste by following these instructions: http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1630,149185-250198,00.html

In case you haven’t noticed, I love food and have great attachments to certain foods… Unfortunately, I would make a very bad Buddhist…

 

Very Sad

http://ayecha.org/

This is one of the most inspiring organizations I have been involved with. Very sad to hear that they have closed their doors.

 

“Dirty” Mumbai

I am one of those deeply saddened by what has happened in Mumbai recently, and particularly to the Chabad shluchim.

I am particularly saddened because I have met and have been helped by many shluchim in my travels.

I have seen and heard of Chabad shluchim breaking up old native communities in “far-flung” places, but I have also been helped by them in others.

What it comes down to though, is that while Chabad launches a huge outreach program, and many of the shluchim share deep-held ideologies and religious convictions (obviously), they are all individual families. As in, I do not feel the same towards all the shluchim. They are those I like and deeply respect and those that I do not.

The shluchim in Mumbai, I never got a chance to know directly. They seemed to have been very nice and special people. I am really glad that their son, Moshe, was saved and is being taken care of by his maternal grandparents. There were many episodes I heard of both of them which I found heart-warming and repsectable. I think it is a shame that I never got a chance to get to know them. However, in the speeches about them, there was a recurring trope that I could not miss and found disturbing.

A note: What is about to follow has nothing to do with the shulchim that passed away. I will repeat, the following, which means, this post itself, has nothing to do with them, but is only prompted by what has happened in the aftermath: In speeches that I have heard (or read), I noticed a trend that betrays just how exactly the “Jewish” community (of the US at least, if not the majority of the English-speaking traditional world of it) feels about “India” and “those backward countries.”

The first came on a Friday night in my regular shul where someone got up and talked about just how special, welcoming, and nice those shluchim were. In the speech, I noticed, the person made a comment about how difficult it must have been for the shulchim to build the terrific center that they did. The wording used was that, “Imagine the difficulty to build a modern building in India, where they are 200-years behind.” …Excuse me, “200-years behind”? Why not simply say “uncivilized”? Isn’t that what you meant?

I heard another speech made about them which used a phrase–turning into something of a set one–to describe what going to India meant to them: They left their “comfortable Western home” to arrive at “dirty,” “crowded,” and “difficult” India. Oh, “dirty”? Right, the street corner that this speech was being made, in the middle of what some people would call “filthy” and “dangerous” New York, doesn’t measure up to it, I am sure. My stomach turned.

Another thing that bothered me was that, in all of these speeches, save for one, India kept being described as “such a difficult place to be a Jew.” The shulchim kept being described as providing “a home away from home” for all the traveling and “wandering” Jews.  Well, aren’t you forgetting about the Indian-Jews? The native Jewish population: Bnai Israel? From what I hear, one of the important services the shliach provided was the service to the local Jewish population, whose existence most (though not all) of the speech-makers seemed to totally forget about. I mean, Jews are not only Ashkenazi. They don’t only exist in Western Europe, North America, and Israel. Jews do not only live in “comfortable” “civilized” “western” homes. They also come from India too.

In fact, this reminds me how when I went to Israel for the first time to Israel on Birthright, how so many of the college kids I went with (I was also a college kid then) thought that majority of the places we stayed in were too dirty. I thought that they were spoiled brats. They only seemed to think that things were up to their standards when we were staying in a five-star business hotel being served by Israeli-Arabs who were being managed by Israeli-Jews and knew how to smile at us pleasantly and serve us nicely. I felt like there was no point staying in a place like that if I was visiting Israel for the sake of visiting Israel–not to have some business dealings. I also hated the fact that I was on the bus with hundreds of American Jews who could only marvel at how “inconvenient” and “dirty” (read, “backwards” and “uncivilized”) Israel was.

Majority of the people making speeches had traveled through India and that’s how they had made their acquaintance with the Chabad shluchim, whom, sadly, they will never see again in this world. If what they took back from their trip was just how “hot, muggy, dirty, and noisy” Mumbai (or are they saying India as a whole?) was, except for the oh, occasionally “beautiful” and “historically significant” sights, they seriously need to rethink their frame of mind. India is not simply a tourist spot (or some exotic Disneyland) existing to serve your needs as a traveller. It is another region where people live in. They perhaps have totally different ways of seeing things and coping with things than the casual (and unobservant) traveler/observer could ever imagine. To not know what that way of life and perspective on life is, to be completely ignorant of it and instead, to come down on them as being “uncivilized,” how self-centered, what an embarrassment. What a shame.

 

Talking Politics

I believe that in the blogosphere, for many reasons, I should keep my political opinions to myself. But, I was compelled to write something. But then again, I decided that no–my opinion is not going to change any political outcome anyway (the states that I vote in always vote the same) and it just jeopardizes me, so why should I bother. But really, I have been compelled to say something so many times…

Having said that, I will state this much: I will vote this election because I have to for external reasons. Not because I want to. The candidate that I will vote for I don’t particularly like–many critics have pointed out the reasons why I don’t like him. In fact, personality-wise, I think I like his opponent better. If I were voting based on character and personal like and dislike, my choice would be the opposite of what I will do. But I will vote for the candidate that I will because I perfer this particular candidate’s policy a whole lot better than his opponents’. (Well at least I am revealing that I am not voting for any of the smaller parties, but sticking to the major ones…)

And I am sad that again this election season, I can use the pronoun “he” to describe both Republican and Democratic presentential candidates. I wish that I had to come up with a creative way to refer to the presedential candidates without the feminine or masculine pronouns. Or better yet, if I could use “she” for both presidential candidates! ;)

 

The Recent Controversy Over the Kotel and Obama

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1006186.html

What made my jaw drop in Maariv’s response to the outrage expressed by a Jerusalem lawyer: “since he [Sen. Obama] is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the wall“

Obnoxious…. That’s all I’ve got to say.

 

The Pressure to be “Liberal”

As a multi-racial individual, I often encounter the expectation that I should be or must be “liberal.” This, at times, has made me want to run the other way, and just to prove people wrong, be “conservative.”

Luckily, though, I have worked very hard not to let social pressures like that decide my very personal opinions on several issues. As a result, I like to think that I have managed to remain “liberal,” “conservative,” and “middle,” depending on the issue (as I think it should be).

Now, I am a religiously observant Jew, but also strongly identify as being multi-racial and multi-cultural. I am not in to denying my Japanese self, nor depriving myself of Japanese food, or other yummy “ethnic” foods. I am very in to being Japanese, Jewish, and a citizen of the terristial beings.

In the American Jewish community, there has been some movement to try to diversify people’s idea of who is a Jew. As in, you could look many ways–not just white, but also Arab, Asian, African, black, mixed of course, etc. There are organizations devoted to doing this through outreach, education, meetings, and retreats. Great.

Many of the organizations that work the hardest at this claim to be religiously pluralistic as well. After all, they are claiming that the American Jewish community should be strengthening themselves through inclusiveness, not exclusiveness. So, what point is there in them being exclusivist. Right?

Well, in fact, often they schedule events on Shabbat that no traditionally religious Jew could attend. They in fact, trample on the basics of traditional halakha in their events, I believe, out of ignorance. But, when all the activities are inherently optional, but only the so-called “religious activities” on the program are labeled as “OPTIONAL,” you got to start thinking, what is it that they are trying to do? Are they are trying to pass on their nebulous “cultural Judaism” to their ethnically and culturally “diverse” children, with no knowledge or sense of connection to Judaism? What “culture” are the children going to carry with them then? I thought Israeli society showed us plain and simple that there is no “Jewish culture” where there is no connection or observance of some religious Jewish practice?

I am not saying that they should all be religiously observant. What I am saying though is that I think that they assume that because we are “ethnically diverse” we will be “liberal” in other ways, such as in religious observances as well. To try to claim and pass down “cultural” Judaism in a ethnically as well as culturally “diverse” Jewish context has its own very serious problems, although I won’t get into it in depth here.

To say the least, it is disappointing to see such religious disregard coming from organizations specifically aimed at bringing “diverse” Jews together, and to telling the world that we exist, in numbers much larger than some might assume.

There was one organization that is for “Jews of Colors” and did manage to bring religious pluralism in practice as well. Unfortunately, I am unsure of what has happened to it….

 

The Media’s Presedential Race

The media (the ones that I have kept up with and I think wield the most influence, are Time magazine and New York Times) wanted Obama to be the Democratic nominee so it ran a free campaign for him–consistently portraying Rodham Clinton in an unfavorable light.

New York Times was a little more subtle about the whole thing, but Time magazine was so blatant (and continues to be so) that it was ridiculous. When the Democratic presidential primaries were close to ending, it even started launching the anti-John McCain campaign…..

So, the media has now decided that they want Hillary Rodham Clinton to be on the ticket with Obama. In fact, that’s what they have wanted all along. So, now they are launching a fierce campaign towards that end. I guess that’s what’s going to happen.

You don’t really need to vote. You just have to sit back and watch who the media wants the nation to vote for and that person will be sworn in. How boring and ridiculous.