“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.

 

“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.

 

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.

 

Having Something Directed at You and Not 当事者であること

This has been one of the wars I have been waging in my Japanese blog (you can look at this post (in Japanese) if you want to hear it most directly): That is, it’s very difficult to hear or even notice prejudiced remarks that are not directed at you.

This is one of the most infuriating things about people telling me that I am mistaken about something that I heard or saw directed at me. Granted, there is a fine line between being overly self-conscious and thinking that the whole world revolves around you (and so thinking that any comment made to a “stranger” is directed towards you) versus just noticing things when people are being slyly (or not so subtly) prejudiced.

Growing up a minority where that reality is allowed to escape so rarely though, I must say that it is slightly difficult (I am being sarcastic by saying “slightly”) not to be a little self-conscious and nervous about people looking at you weird. The “well-adjusted” person who has been so scarcely in a position where they really are minorities (I’m not talking about people who have “minority conscience” but have really not experienced living as a minority), often tells me and other minorities, “Stop being so self-conscious. People are not talking about you.”

I have heard comments like this coming from many mono-racial/ethnic parents of multiracial individuals. I have also heard this coming from Ashkenazi Jews (particularly of an older generation though not always) who hear the experience of non-Ashkenazi Jews as being made to feel uncomfortable by their Ashkenazi counterparts.

For the parents, it’s hurtful and sometimes unbelievable to them that their kids’ lived experience as a Jew or a person might be different from theirs. They also have never been in their kids’ shoes and just can’t see those stares coming from across the crosswalk, the questioning gaze of the stranger in shul, the quick back and forth of the eyes between them and their parents.

For the Ashkenazi Jews, they don’t notice the strange stares and pregnant silences directed at the “Jew of Color.” What they see is their self-image of the smiling and inviting faces that say nothing wrong and accepts with open arms, the (“honestly strange, but I’m not going to say that!!”) “stranger” amidst them. What this “do-good” “non-prejudiced” person doesn’t see is the many others who are shying away and even giving strange looks to the person who is “being welcomed with open arms.” You might be doing your best, but if you can’t tell other people to the same, if you can’t advocate for the minority that is still feeling uncomfortable, the only thing you’ve done is to raise your own status for being the courageous cool person that is able to “reach out” to the (obvious) “stranger.” Very annoying indeed to be used that way.

From my perspective, the “racist” who knows that she is a “racist” is a lot easier to deal with. And I will make full disclosure that I am “racist” too. Not in that I discriminate against people, but in that I am also prone to making certain assumptions about people based on their appearence. I also don’t know about everyone’s experience so I make mistakes in my assumptions. My ignorance can sometimes hurt someone. I know that and so I try to rain it in, but I am not always sucessful.

I am closing with a story that I hope illustrates my point better:

In a part of the country that is known as being “very liberal,” I once stood in line at a drug store behind an old black American woman. A white employee, when trying to pass by her, mistakenly brushed against her. She was angry, thinking that he had done that in purpose because she was black. As I listened to her rant, I thought, “Well, I do think that she is a little crazy, but I also know where that is coming from. She is obviously from a generation where racism against blacks were rampent and the norm. 20years ago, that might actually been a racist act. How is she to know that today in this area, that is unlikely. (Also I saw the young employee’s genuinely surprised face, which told me that he had hardly noticed that he had even touched her.) Most of life experience tells her that that was a racist act.”

Note: By the way, at my “home shul,” I haven’t really had any of these problems at all. That’s one of the reasons I feel so very comfortable there all the time.

 

Conversion

Conversion in any form is a rather foreign concept to me.

My motto in life has been largely to perserve and further my legacies and heritages–I am a rather conservative person.

My two heritages are being Jewish and Japanese. I am lucky in that these two leagacies have few conflicting values; in fact, they compliment each other extremely well.

I am also lucky in that I get the two heritages from the “right” parent: My Japaneseness–traditionally a patrlinial heritage–is passed down by my father and my Jewishness–traditionally a matrilinial heritage–is passed down by my mother.

Hence, I can claim that I am both, while there are always those who challenge that: Many hold that, to be an authentic member of the tribe, you have to be “pure.” Actually, I find this attitude to be that of the majority in both Jewish and Japanese communities. Hence, we halfsies turn into human “bridges” or tragically “mixed up” and confused existences forever…But I digress. Let me get back to my main point.
The first point is that I have never converted into or out of anything as far as I know. To the contrary, I have tried to maintain and build my originally flimsy and conditional ties with the communities of my heritage.

Yet, as a “halfsie” (a term I hate, but will use here intentionally), my membership in my respective communities has always felt conditional.

Conditional upon the fact that I know enough about the history of the people, the language, the culture, etc. That is because I lack the physical traits and inevitable mannerisms that I might get if I was steeped in the “pure” culture passed down from both of my parents coming from the same tribe. As a result, ironically, I have become much more educated in both of my heritages a lot more than the average tribal member.

I must say though, being a conditional member is a lonely existence. Constantly feeling like your membership is conditional upon your proper display of knowledge of your people, feeling like you might be under constant scrutiny… I hate it. And I see no reason why anyone else should be made to feel like this–especially on an institutional level.

This is why I am troubled by the developping discussion in Orthodoxy towards converts, Jews by Choice, or those who become Jewish after being born into this world. (see http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a4809/News/New_York.html) Even disregarding the shocking decision made by a certain institution barring not only women from becoming synagogue presidents, but converts as well (!!), the general attitude towards those who want to “become” Jewish, or in many cases, who never questioned their Jewishness (like “Sharon” in the New York Times Magazine article) as guilty until proven innocent, is problematic.

I have been told to my face that I couldn’t be Jewish. Most of them were ignorant Jews who knew very little or cared very little about Judaism and largely regarded Jewishness as a (pure) racial heritage, represented by chicken soup and matzo balls. (Let me not get into the ridiculousness of that right now.) While I found those incidents hurtful, it is also true that I felt more sorry for my friends who were sitting right there next to me not knowing what to do with such a tactless and ignorant comment being directed at me by their family or friends.

But, there was an instance where it wasn’t that. There was a time where the comment, “You can’t be Jewish” was coming from someone for a different reason. I never tracked down that reason, but I sensed that this guy was trying to be more halachically stringent and that’s why he was telling me that I wasn’t Jewish. This actually shocked me. It was the first time that someone who was religious would deny my Jewishness. There was some other prejudice at work here that was “based on halacha“. This is the kind of stringency I smell coming from the Israeli Chief Rabbi: “If you want to claim that you are Jewish, first, prove it.”

I knew of someone who grew up Jewish in the US her entire life, and far as her family knew, she was Jewish from both sides for generations.

She went to Israel, got a little (too) religious. She had a boyfriend and they decided to get married.

The community that her boyfriend and she were now a part of looked into their backgrounds and found out that, “oh no, the girl’s maternal grandmother was adopted!!” Although they knew that she was converted upon adoption, they were not 100% sure if this conversion was in fact Kosher, so they decided that “just to be on the safe side,” this girl had to convert before getting married.

Another really common thing is converts going through many many conversions because they keep having to convert under the “new” standards of the new community they want to belong to. Essentially, their conversion is conditional upon their community accepting that particular brand of conversion. I have heard of and met many converts who converted twice, thrice, sometimes even four times.

The madness has to end somewhere.

 

Shifting Paradigms–Being a Real Ba’al Teshuvah

I was brought up with humanistic values and Jewish practice.

While I had become Ortho-practice in my life after moving to North American, where it was possible to be Ortho-practice without sacrificing all aspects of life, my mind-set had never changed. That is why I was always perplexed with the question,

“so, what’s it like being a ba’al teshuvah?”

me: “hmmm, I don’t think that I can really answer that question because I don’t really consider myself a baal teshuvah.”

“what do you mean? you were raised religious?”

me: “sort of yes and no. Because you see, I wasn’t raised in a place where the default was to be Jewish and not doing something was an active choice. I grew up in a place where the default was to do nothing and to do anything Jewish at all took great effort starting with keeping track of the Jewish holidays. I was raised with a lot considering that. We kept kosher in the home and while we ate at non-kosher restaurants, we made our best effort to have as kosher food as possible. Considering there was no kosher establishment (aside from the JCC kitchen) and no vegan restaurants at the time, that already was a lot.”

“so, you grew up Jewish?”

me: “Of course! (what else would I be raised as?) We celebrated Passover and Chanukah.”

“how about Shabbat?”

me: “I had heard about it, but I had to go to school on Saturdays and decided that I would start observing it when I was in a place in my life when I could (that chance came when I was seventeen and in a certain international school)”

When I came to New York, where keeping kosher is as easy as breathing, and in some neighborhoods there are more synagogues than Starbucks, I had a wider range of choice for my religious observance . So, I followed my line of “do as much as I can to honor my Jewish heritage.” I didn’t neglect my Japanese heritage, but it did not take form of observing any religious ritual so they didn’t particularly conflict. I became more Ortho-practice because that was consistant with my motto: “do as much as you can to honor your heritage”–but my mentality did not shift at all. I was just was as much of a secular humanist as I was raised to be.

Lately though, I have been feeling my basic paradigm shifting.

I am starting to actually believe. My basic paradigm of how I see the world is to starting to shift. It does not mean that my critical mind has turned off, but when your basic assumptions about life start to change, your perspective shifts ALOT. It is a scary feeling and I wonder where this is going to take me.

 

Humans as Social Animals

The other day I heard someone who ended up in a really bad situation say, “I just wanted to fit in…”

This provoked some memories in me.

The memory of my wanting to be just considered a plain old vanilla Japanese person. Making sure that I knew my Japanese well so that no one could say that, “Oh, yeah, she’s ‘half’ so of course her Japanese is only going to be half as good.”

The memory of being shattered with the knowledge that even non-Japanese questioned my Japanese-ness (because I didn’t look Japanese, especially to other Asians).

The memory of noticing the girls in college who so desperately wanted to blend in to the ‘religious’ crowd that they would wear the trademark denim jean skirts–even though her non-FFB (Frum From Birth) status was evident in other ways.

Why is that we want to ‘fit in’ so badly?

The people who I hear say, ‘I envy you because you are inherently original and special’ are the people who have a community that they automatically fit in to. It’s a pretty lonely existence to not have anyone (even your parents) who automatically fit in with.

It’s true that if you can come out of it strong, than you are that much stronger. But, then, why should we have to go through this trial? Why is it that it is so important to us that we have other people ‘like us’ around? This is probably a question that is going to keep concerning me for the rest of my life….

 

Coming Out

It is always very strange when I am in company of others who don’t know that I didn’t convert.  Especially when the conversation revolves around the Jewish community and people who look different.

Yes, I have experienced a lot of unpleasentness, exoticism, favors, etc. because of my “different” looks (than the average Ashkenazi Jew), but I don’t share the experience of having had to shed an identity or a part of myself or having to go through any Judaism classes because of my choice to “become a Jew.”

I always feel ill at ease when this is not clear. I feel that I am deceiving the conversation partner, especially when this person had “chosen” Judaism. When it is someone who is “born” Jewish and looks stereo-typically Ashkenazi and wrongly assumes that I chose to be Jewish, I am insulted and indignent that the presence of people like me–those of us who are “born” Jewish, but don’t have stereo-typical appearences–are not known more widely.

So when the conversation revolves around being a “different” kind of Jew with someone who converted, I end up fishing for an opportunity to come out as non-convert. Because we often share many experiences in common, it’s quite a strange thing. I also feel like it can be somewhat obnoxious–although, this comes from having been in strange situations where the conversation was being led astray because I didn’t come out clear from the beginning.  Weird.