Jews in ALL Hues: An Interview With Jared Jackson

"I had a big gap from age 7 until 21 doing anything Jewish — except for coming home and watching Sanford And Son for Yom Kippur."

Jared Jackson shares how his multi-heritage African American and Ashkenazi upbringing led him to found Jews in ALL Hues over a decade ago.

This episode is abbreviated from a conversation during Mishkan's Friday night  service on February 18th. For full recordings of Friday services, click here. For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Learn more about Mishkan Chicago. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook.

Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript

Transcript

[00:27] Producer
Welcome to Shabbat Replay, a highlight of Mishkan services. This episode is taken from the Friday night service on February 18th when we were joined by Jared Jackson, the Founder and Executive Director of Jews in ALL Hues. Jared is an internationally renowned Jewish diversity leader, and for over a decade, he has led Jews in ALL Hues in its mission to support Jews of Color. We present an abbreviated form of his discussion with Rabbi Lizzi.

[01:23] Rabbi Lizzi
Welcome back, I guess I'll sit down now, I don't need to strum underneath strong artfully underneath our conversation.

[01:30] Jared Jackson
Yeah, that would be so guitarist of you.

[01:36] Lizzi
That totally would be super guitarist of me. So Jared, you and I met in, as you said, 2009 which was my last year of being a counselor at Ziering Brandeis Collegiate Institute. But let's just go back for a second for people who don't know who you are. Maybe they're just tuned into Chabad, they didn't see the ad, they didn't see your posts, or they didn't see, you know, maybe like their who is this person I'm talking to you. Okay. Jared Jackson is the founder and executive director of Jews in all Hughes, which is an education and advocacy organization that supports Jews of color, and multi heritage Jews. And the organization's goal is to build a future for the Jewish people, where intersectional diversity and dignity are normative. When I read over your mission statement, I thought, it's very depressing that there needs to be an organization to do that. That diversity and dignity need to be an aspiration. And that there needs to be an organization and not just one, but many now, dedicated to this purpose. When I met you, lo these many years ago, over a decade now, you had already started Jews in ALL Hues. And so this, I mean, for a little bit of reference, I guess, like the BCI is a birthright-like experience in that it is a free experience for young adults, not in Israel but in Southern California, for the same age group of people. And the idea is like building a stronger sense of Jewish identity, knowledge, community. As I said before, Rabbi Lauren, who later became a rabbi, got turned on at BCI. And so that's where you and I met as well. I did not realize what a nascent field this was, organizations doing Judaism and diversity. The words “Jews of Color” had not entered my consciousness yet, I did not realize how nascent the field was, and how much the field has grown.

[03:44] Jared
Yeah. Jews in ALL Hues, obviously, you know, I wasn't born into that. But I kind of was. [Laughs] So I have an Ashkenazi mom who is also a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov. My father is African American and grew up Catholic and Baptist. He was born in Philadelphia. My mom was born on Long Island. They met in Brooklyn, but Coney Island to be specific. So yeah, I have a bunch of siblings, I’m the middle of five. My sisters’ names are Sarah. Rachel, Rebecca, and Shana. Mom threw a curveball at the end. I was born in Philly, but I grew up in New Jersey, and it was a long arduous road to getting involved in anything Jewish. I had a big gap from age 7 until 21 doing anything Jewish except for coming home and watching Sanford and Son for Yom Kippur. But it happens. Fast forwarding through college and more college and more college. And I ended up leaving birthright trips going on my birthright trip, first of all, but even before that I was leading Hillel. And I was noticing the same racism that I had as a kid in a conservative synagogue. And seeing that my nieces and nephews were facing similar struggles. My sisters were trying to get involved in Jewish community for the sake of the kids…It led me to an [Israel Travel Award] trip, of course, the Jewish award trip always goes to Israel, right? Unless it's to like the Tenement Museum or something. And then it kind of steamrolled where like, I thought of the idea of “Jews, oh, Hues!” Then I got a job with Birthright Israel itself…and really wanted to make something happen. So just like I can't cook a small meal, I actually can't do small initiatives. So we did a conference at first, and then another conference, then another conference, another conference, then pause. And those conferences were to gather in those of us who are marginalized. And it’s not just Jews of Color who are marginalized. Those who are Jewish through adoption, or conversion, or association, sometimes are those who have only one Jewish parent — doesn't matter which one — or some Jewish heritage and wanting to connect but being marginalized at the same time. It was a gathering of the fringes, if you want to put it that way. So after 2011, we became a an actual entity, because before it was just like, completely, like using my own bank account.

[07:31] Lizzi
We've met and connected about that founder, early stage organization building. I'm familiar too. There’s a lot of doing everything you were talking about — conference creating and everything as a volunteer.

[07:46] Jared
Yeah, yeah. Volunteer for a decade or more. The organization itself actually sprung up in 2012, as just a local state entity — not even 501c3. It was in 2013, while I was doing some type of entrepreneurial seminar in Israel when we got our 501 C three. Since then, we've been doing consulting, mostly in the Jewish communal space around anti-oppression, anti-bias, anti-racism, basically trying to combat white supremacy in all its forms inside of Jewish space. I’ll talk about this Torah portion for just one second. I usually don't do this. But just to talk about building a Mishkan, I think there has been an alternate Mishkan that has been built. It may look like it's very safe, very secure. But the material used has been white supremacy. It is not the Mishkan of the children of Avraham V’Sara. Doing this work has come at a personal cost, but every second has been worth it.

[09:12] Lizzi
That’s very powerful. So the career costs being 10 years of blood, sweat, tears, building and teaching out of your own experience and pain. But here you are, as you said, the executive director of the organization. What are your dreams now?

[09:35] Jared
Obviously, there needs to be more of this. You know, one of the major headwinds about doing this work is people have to be open to doing it. They also have to be in a financial position to do it. I'm just speaking more as a private contractor or consultant. Institutions themselves don't make diversity a priority, you can look at a lot of budgets, and you'll see tons of money allocated toward certain things. I'm not going to knock any specific line item, but when you look at diversity programming or any type of consulting, you get like, a day's worth. There are 364 other days to consider in a year!

[10:25] Lizzi
Is that a loving, but nonetheless, direct critique from your work so far in the Jewish community?

[10:34] Jared
Yeah, I mean, we can call it critique or I’d just call it reality. Our philanthropic complex has not caught up to the reality of the Jewish people. It's one of those things where you see bottlenecks being created, where they have certain gatekeepers. They will put a lot of money in there, into like, one specific person or organization, and not consider the whole field. I mean, if Jews of Color really make up 15 to 20%, of the Jewish people, then you're looking at well over a million people, well over a million Jews who are not being served, not being appreciated, being thrown away. We're kind of the opposite of, like, coming out of Egypt, where we left 80% of our people there. But in this country, you know, if we're, if we're gonna fight antisemitism, if we're gonna fight racism, we have to first clean house. It's not just about credibility. It's not about politics, it's about being honest with ourselves, you know, and really naming that. But that also means that not everyone who represents a Jewish community is going to be white, or passing for white. Not everyone is going to speak the same way, not everyone is going to be the same way. We have to get out of this supremacist cookie cutter image of what Jewish looks like, what your professionals look like, who the people who fight for the good of humanity look like.

[12:19] Lizzi
I agree with what you said, it is so powerful, the Ashkenazi experience does not cover everybody's experience. Even like the Chicago experience is different from the LA or New York or New Jersey experience, you know, that there really is diversity, it cuts across so many different vectors. The wealthy experience is very different from the experience of somebody who comes to the Jewish community who can't afford dues, or holiday tickets, or, you know, a parking space. Your website is this beautiful representation of many different kinds of Jewish people. And I'm wondering, actually, with all of those differences in background that in some way that you are a spokesperson on behalf of, do you find that it's actually hard to speak on behalf of all marginalized Jews when your experience is actually quite different from somebody who is, let's say, of Latinx origin or any number of different kinds of backgrounds.

[13:27] Jared
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll say that the name of the organization actually is more of a call to action than anything else. Even for us internally, there have been many discussions with our board where it just came right down to: “Well, we have to honor our name, don't we?” There are Latinx Jewish organizations out there. But there are definitely times when I am put in the position to speak for all Jews of Color. And I usually push back on that, I speak from my own experience. I happen to have this position. I happen to be very trusted with people's experiences and the lenses that I use, and a lot of that comes out of relationships with people who are not like me. I have friends who hate each other. But we have really deep conversations one on one. I'll say that one big thread in this work is that we don't throw people away when we have a disagreement. That’s supremacist thinking — “I don't like what you said, you're not even human anymore.” Everybody comes to this work just as human as the next. Everybody has different learning points and different ways that they can absorb the information. That's also why we have a multifaceted theme. People who are like multi-generational, multi-gender, disabled, just so many intersections of people. And everybody that works for Jews in ALL Hues also goes through an anti-bias process. It's a little bit different than the leaders I know who say that they have always had their stuff together. Where's the humanity in that? Nobody knows it all. I mean, that's ridiculous.

[15:41] Lizzi
Something that we've talked about a lot at Mishkan is aspiring. It would be silly for any of us to talk about having done this work, or to put on our website that we are, like, “proudly anti-racist.” We are aspiring to be so all the time. But, but we blow it sometimes.

[16:08] Jared
Also, yeah, speaking as somebody who blows it sometimes, you know, it's, it's part of it, right? Like, we fall down.

[16:19] Lizzi
Let me ask you something. When somebody you know has one of those moments…when somebody says to you, like, “So tell me about when you converted?” Or just like one of those moments where they're asking a sincere question and it is assuming a whole story that is inaccurate and wrong, how do you handle that moment?

[16:50] Jared
It really depends on the actual moment. Like, I have a whole list of comebacks in my head. When you said, like, “When did you convert,” my first response nowadays is usually like: “If I converted, I would be really proud to be Jewish right now. If I went through the mikveh, I would be so proud of myself and just as connected as I am right now.” But, but then in other situations, when people ask me, “Oh, when did you convert,” I’m like, “Oh, I think it was like, 2008 when I went from PC to Mac.” It really depends on the moment, right? The assumption that I must have converted, it means that all Jews are white. People also ask me, “When did you become Jewish?” My usual answer is like, “Sperm and egg!”

[17:51] Lizzi
Right, at conception. Yeah, it’s something we talk a lot about, you know, these like moments that can be really uncomfortable, and even offensive, and how, you know, we as a community, try to create a context in which learning is possible in those moments. But like a lot of that responsibility, I feel like, is on like us as leaders to remind people, Jews come in all hues, you know, and the second, you know, that there's that sense of like, Oh, here's a person who seems different from me, I wonder what their story is? That there's probably a moment of pause that's like, have you told them your name? Like, have I introduce myself to you and told you anything about myself? Like, have I disclosed anything interesting or personal? Or like, what right have i to begin entering into those kinds of questions, but actually, like, Hi, how are you? My name is Lizzie. You know, and to actually formed connection that's just like, hello, human to human. Nice to meet you in this Jewish space.

[18:54] Jared
Yeah. And I will say that there have been more times in the recent past where somebody has actually assumed that I was Jewish and just asked me, like, “What time is mincha?” And that felt really nice and affirming. I remember when I was in my early 20s, I was a member of a synagogue. And it all came down to that first person I ran into at the door who welcomed me in having never met me before. It was a really diverse congregation that was really small. It was somewhere I felt I could explore more about Judaism. But like, they didn't know me from Adam.

[19:43]  Lizzi
And just simply assuming you belong here. Sso affirming.

[19:48] Jared
Yeah, like, “We have services right now, you must be a person, come in.” It’s very basic things like that. But also I mean, at that time, there were other Black Jews, they're a bunch of people in this tiny congregation, so in part it was already normalized in a pretty fast time frame, faster than it would happen at maybe a very large place. Also, there are more people involved in the Jewish community than just Jews, right? I'm thinking about parents who are from other wonderful religious traditions, or partners, you know, or single people who will never have kids or don't have kids currently, don't have partners, or have friends who are Jewish. And, you know, there's so many different ways to connect.

[21:00] Lizzi
Alright, so I told you I'd ask you this question. What's the question that nobody ever asks you, but that you want to answer? We can begin to draw our conversation to a close. But what's like, the thing that you want to talk about that nobody ever asked you about?

[21:19] Jared
You know, nobody is ever really asked me about being an abba [father]...I just love being someone's Abba. I love having the opportunity to see this big personality in a little person. And I love having a life partner who is amazing and loving and warm and knowledgeable. So knowledgeable about Judaism — she even leads our High Holy Day services.

[21:53] Lizzi
She leads the Jews in ALL Hues High Holy Day services?

[21:56] Jared
Mhm. That's her brain child. I resisted that for years.

[22:03] Lizzi
And why do you do it?

[22:05] Jared
Connection, emotional safety.

[22:08] Lizzi
Say more?

[22:10] Jared
Well, every year, I have to leave my phone on for the High Holy Days because I have to talk to a lawyer or somebody because a Jew of Color has been dragged out of a synagogue, or arrested in front of a synagogue, just because they walked up wearing a kippah and holding their prayer book or what have you, just because somebody said “You're Brown, you're dangerous.” …When the pandemic hit, it became a perfect storm and a perfect opportunity to connect not just in Philadelphia, but like across many different borders, and make sure that if there was going to be a high holiday service, that people could do it from their home where there's some semblance of safety. Not total safety, because as a person of color in this country, I'll speak for myself, that I don't feel a sense of physical safety ever. I can't even walk past a window in my apartment. But there are ways of being emotionally safe. And that also comes with being around people who are like you, right? And people who want to be around people like us. And to show the Jewish community that yes, Jews of color can lead holiday services — there are rabbis, cantors, cantor students, people who are just knowledgeable, who grew up Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, etc, who are Jews. I didn't know this at the time, but there were a number of people who had left Jewish communities and saw this as an opportunity to reconnect because they love being Jewish but they just have no tolerance for white supremacist actions inside of Jewish space. And I don't blame them.

[24:12] Lizzi
I mean, the trajectory of the answer to that question, being a father, being an abba, and sort of like thinking about what being an example for your little one also means as you create an example of space in the world that other people can bring their whole selves to. You’re kind of like an Abba or a founder, not just for your own family, but for a whole family of people like your family among the diverse Jewish people. It's very Abrahamic.

[24:50] Jared
[Laughs] Maybe, maybe but you know, I don't know if I could ever say it's Abrahamic honestly, because I stand on the shoulders of a lot of people, people who go completely nameless throughout time in this country and other countries. My ancestors from the shtetl and all that I don't know, all my relatives who died in the Shoah, or even the African diasporic experience. People who go nameless, unfortunately, but have left something inside of me and inside of so many people to keep going and keep striving for justice to really see an end to [injustice].

[25:43] Lizzi
Like your goal would be that Jews in ALL Hues does not need to exist anymore.

[25:48] Jared
Yeah, that would be the goal. That's a high aspiration. Right now, it's more like, we need to ramp up and have more staff, more funding to connect people and provide more financial assistance to Jews of Color, and multi-heritage Jews who like are really struggling during this pandemic. There's a need for quality people to do this work day in and day out. And not just when somebody who's benefiting from white supremacy thinks, “Oh, it's a good idea to start this work.” This needs to be continuous. It's what I wake up to. It's what I go to bed to. It’s what I dream about. Doing this work to the point where it doesn't need to be done.

[26:40] Lizzi
I want to thank you so much for coming and sharing about your story. Thank you for this vulnerable and honest conversation. I’m looking at the [chat]. Felicia is crying tears of joy and pain at the same time. I appreciate you coming and sharing here and I look forward to continuing our friendship and this conversation, both in ways that are completely not productive and in ways that are very goal-oriented toward ending white supremacy in Jewish spaces, et al.

[27:16] Jared
Ken yehi ratzon.

[27:18] Lizzi
Ken yehi ratzon! May it be so.