{"id":362931,"date":"2010-02-25T12:54:16","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T17:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.rj.org,2010:\/rac\/\/2.2508"},"modified":"2010-02-25T13:31:26","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T18:31:26","slug":"breaking-the-color-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/362931","title":{"rendered":"Breaking the Color Barrier"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this month’s Reform Judaism<\/i> magazine<\/a>, Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis writes about her congregation’s efforts to include, embrace, and celebrate Jews of all <\/i>colors. Rabbi Talve writes that, as with welcoming gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgenders Jews, “We soon learned that welcoming wasn’t enough; we had to listen and respond.”<\/p>\n

Here’s my favorite excerpt:<\/p>\n

\n

1997 was a transformative year in our congregation: The beautiful
\nJosephine was born to a white Jewish mother and a non-Jewish African
\nAmerican father. There was no question that her parents would raise her
\nto be a Jew. And when I held her at her naming ceremony, I promised
\nher: By the time you begin to notice how you fit into your
\nsurroundings, we will have a community that includes others who look
\nlike you. You will see yourself reflected in the diversity of our
\ntemple. Your parents’ good intentions [to stay active in the synagogue]
\nand our own [to treat you with respect] are not enough. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

As a first step in fulfilling my promise, we invited as a speaker
\nand teacher Julius Lester, a black Jew, professor of Judaic Studies and
\nhistory at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is also author
\nof Love Song<\/em>, an autobiography reflecting on his Jewish
\njourney, from learning that his maternal great-grandfather was a German
\nJew to converting to Judaism as an adult. Julius taught us that for him
\nbecoming Jewish was less a choice and more a naming of who he really
\nwas. While he had found a niche in the Jewish community, I sensed he
\ndidn’t hold out much hope that CRC would ever become an integrated,
\nsafe, and welcoming place for Jews of color. As an African American, he
\nresonated with the sounds, rhythms, and stories of black America. That
\nwasn’t our culture at CRC, not then. <\/i><\/p>\n

I began to understand that to authentically embrace black
\nculture, I’d need the help of black Jews, but this would not be easy in
\nSt. Louis, where separation and segregation run deep. I worried about
\nmy promise to Josephine.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So was Rabbi Talve able to fulfill her promise to Josephine, who will become a bat mitzvah<\/i> this year? Click through for the full story.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this month’s Reform Judaism magazine, Rabbi Susan Talve of Central Reform Congregation in St. Louis writes about her congregation’s efforts to include, embrace, and celebrate Jews of all colors. Rabbi Talve writes that, as with welcoming gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgenders Jews, “We soon learned that welcoming wasn’t enough; we had to listen and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4316,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4316"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362931\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}