Arya Marvazy: The Jews of Color Initiative

Rabbi Lizzi is joined by Arya Marvazy, the Senior Director of Programs for the Jews of Color Initiative.⁠ Arya (he/him) is a first-generation American born to Iranian-Jewish immigrants from Tehran. For nearly 15 years, Arya has cultivated his leadership in Jewish communal service at Hillel on campus, Hillel International, and JQ International. A proud queer Jew, Arya is passionate about empowering diverse Jewish identity, enriching equitable Jewish community, and ensuring inclusive pathways toward Jewish continuity.

Today's episode is sponsored by Broadway In Chicago. Tickets are available now to Fiddler on the Roof at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, from May 17th - 22nd. Use Mishkan's special offer code ROOF45 for $45 Middle Balcony tickets.

This conversation was originally streamed during the Virtual Friday Night Shabbat service on May 20th.  For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar, and see our Accessibility & Inclusion page for information about our venues. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook for more updates.

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

Transcript

Transcript

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   

All right. So I'm excited to introduce the person I'll be dialoguing with tonight Arya Marvazy. So Rabbi Stephen actually made this introduction. And but Aria and I actually have shared a lot of the same spaces over time, basically in different decades, which makes me feel awfully old. But nonetheless, Arya is the Senior Director of Programs for the Jews of Color Initiative. He is a first generation born to Iranian immigrants, Iranian Jewish immigrants. You'll hear a little bit more about that. For nearly 15 years, Arya has been a Jewish professional in many different Jewish contexts — Hillel on campus Hillel International, JQ International, and has also been involved as a lay leader in different Jewish organizations like the Joint Distribution Community Committee, (JDC) Entwine, JPro, American Jewish Committee, the Schusterman ROI community. He earned his BA in Psychology at the University of California in San Diego and has an MA in organizational behavior from NYU. So we recorded this a little bit earlier today, and I'm excited to share this conversation with you.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
Hello, Arya?

Arya Marvazy 
Hi there, Lizzi.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann 
How are you?

Arya Marvazy 
I am well I am I am thrilled. It's Friday.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
It's been a long week. And I'm happy. I'm happy to be here in this conversation with you. And so I think this is probably the first time most people in our community are meeting you. We have we have heard and talked about the Jews of Color Initiative. But I'm actually wondering if maybe, you know, I just gave your whole bio with, you know, all of the illustrious, that's the word I'm looking for organizations that you have worked with and you know, all over the country, including here in Chicago. But would you like just tell us about you, you know, sort of like where you come from Who are you and how did you get into the work that you are doing?

Arya Marvazy   
My pleasure and thank you again for   the opportunity. I got to give some love to Rabbi Steven Phillip in absentia who made this possible. So thanks, Steven. Hope you're having fun out there. Hi, everyone. My name is Arya Marvazy, my pronouns are he and him. And I am a first generation Iranian American I was born and raised here in Los Angeles, which my community affectionately calls to her Angeles, California, that's Teheran in LA. And, you know, I give this like sort of Spiel often so I was thinking about how to introduce myself in a way that's a little bit more like around the senses. And I was thinking around how I grew up in a home where Googoosh who is our Cher, like the Iranian Cher, if you will, who is like still currently in her 60 year long career and performing. Googoosh music was playing in the home. And there was like this delicious smells of saffron...like 90 different spices being made for Shabbat. And it was a home where I watched my parents attempt to preserve everything that in essence, they were forced to leave behind, culturally identity wise communally speaking into Iran when the Islamic Revolution happened, and it was a really rich, beautiful, often challenging upbringing to both have this like gorgeous cultural identity and racial and communal identity. But then also be an American child, if you will, and try and reconcile the value differences between these two cultures and, and what it meant to just be a child of immigrants that don't know the American system that's like, politically, economically, financially in every in every sense. So that really colors everything about me. Today, I'm a proud queer Jew. I'm like 15 years into my universe of Jewish communal service. Much love to Hillel for that. And I you know, whereas my journey of Jewish communal service started with more of like the, what we would call a traditional Jewish community ecosystem before in the past six years, it's been more around like inclusive and equitable Jewish life and was most recently a JQ International. That's Jewish queers, working on the healthy intersection of Jewish and queer life. And today I'm at the Jews of Color Initiative where everything that we do is about uplifting racial equity in the Jewish communal landscape nationally speaking, through grantmaking, through programming through educational programs and services. So that's the nutshell

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
I love that. And, you know, it's, there's a, the idea that the Torah wouldn't need to say all the things that it says, if these things were obvious and things that people were already doing, but because people don't instinctively love their neighbors as themselves, the Torah has to say it. So as you're saying, you know, the Jews of color initiative is, you know, exists to help the Jewish community be more equitable. So that says to me, there was a problem. Can you talk a little bit about the genesis of the Jews of color initiative, and kind of what problem it's here to solve?

Arya Marvazy   
Absolutely. So I'll do that by virtue of speaking to what the organization has done in just the past few years, and what the impact of that has been. One of the first major efforts of the initiative was the drafting of counting inconsistencies. Our first body of research, it was in 2019. And it was a meta analysis of, I believe, somewhere between 20 to 25, Jewish communal population studies, all of which in some magical way. And or afterthoughts. Either, did not count Jews of color whatsoever, meaning we weren't even collecting that information or cognizant enough to identify that there are black, brown, Asian, Latino, and Native American Pacific Island, like different Jews of different racial backgrounds. But But beyond that, where there was the numbers, and there was any sort of a reflection of like, what sort of percentage of Jews in Jewish life are we are we able to say are Jewish. Based on these data studies, it was somewhere between 12 to 15%, which means in the out of the 7.2 million Jews in America, we're looking at nearly a million of those. And we still consider that to be likely an undercount or Jews of color. And then there is this very real, universal reality of the entire world, a song globalization is going to go towards a greater multi ethnic, multicultural multifaith multiracial place. And the Jewish world has no sense for this or, and or is, I can't say that I would say rather, is maybe not focused on this, thinking about this as we think about Jewish continuity and Jewish education and Jewish representation and Jewish leadership. So counting inconsistencies was like the body of work that sort of woke everyone up to well, look at us, we're here, right? Just last year, in August, we released beyond the count, that was the second body of research, and that was perspectives and lived experiences of Jews of color, all understanding sort of what is your experience in Jewish communal life, this staggering and unfortunate reality was over 80% of respondents, there were over 1100, identify that they had experienced either racism or some challenge participating in Jewish life as it is, and there was there I mean, it's a beautiful read, I invite everyone to cozy up to it, it's on our website, the Jews of color initiative.org. It's called Beyond The Count. And so this this, this second research showed us that people are not connecting people are not welcome, our infrastructures, our systems, our communities are not aware that Jews of color exists. And then when they do come to participate, the experiences are extremely challenging in predominantly white Jewish spaces. And so then there's this question of how do we, you know, what do we do about this? How do we remediate this, and this is what the Jews of color initiative is attempting to respond to is this very real universe of a multiracial Jewish world, but an unfortunate universe where, you know, if you look at Jewish leadership across the entire national landscape, I mean, just about 1% might be Jaycees, and the rest of them are not when 12 to 15% of the population identify as such.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
What catalyzed this awakening, you know, like, I think what you're describing, of, you know, the Jews have been studying ourselves, right in America for a long time. You know, in every in the pew studies were always, you know, like, we're a piece of the bigger story of America and then we study ourselves and we tell stories about ourselves and Jewish continuity and how how did it even come to pass? First of all, you know, that there were these massive blind spots in those studies to begin with, and like, how did they get, like, who noticed how did that happen? That suddenly it was like, Wait a second. We're missing 12 to 15% of people. That is not a statistical rounding error, that is, that's maybe a million people.

Arya Marvazy 
Yeah. Well, I should open that answer by saying Ilana Kaufman, our executive director and founder is the right person to answer that question. I'll speak anecdotally to the stories that I understand about the bringing together of Jews of Color in leadership positions across the sector, I think it was the Leichtag Foundation wants at a roundtable discussion about, like, we're here, we care, we're invested, we are leading. And we're looking at the sector that is completely absent to our existence, to our sort of Ark of leadership to work, you know, capacity for greater impact. And it was, and I think, Leichtag was one of the larger foundations and first investors in this conversation, if you will, both by hosting that conversation. And then of course, investing fiscally afterwards. But it was the individuals that identify as Joc, and that were existing leaders that came to a roundtable. And that began this dialogue around, we have to do something about this. And to end for us to remain in the status quo is for us to look at a Jewish communal, landscape and sector that is irrelevant to the future of Jewish life. And that's where I know a lot of the seedlings were planted and where the momentum began. What's interesting now is, we are just on the heels of coming out of our fiscal sponsorship and establishing the organization as a 501c3, it'll be I think, the third Joc led nonprofit in our entire sector of over 1000s of organizations. And one could say that's almost irrelevant how incremental that is. And another might say, well, as a result of the work over the course of the past five years alone, the number of JOC organizations now empowered by, you know, the grant making by the focus, or the sort of uplifting and empowering of these leaders is, is wonderful, but we have an enormous path ahead of us to be doing this, there's a long way to go. There's a long way to go.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
Can I ask you like, what is it? What does it feel like to be doing this work to be kind of at the vanguard? You know, even as you're talking? I'm like, Ah, god, there's something so depressing that the Vanguard is happening now in 2022, this feels like this, you know, should have happened back in the 60s, you know, or the 70s, or the 80s, or the 90s. Or, you know, but Okay, great. Here we are, you know, as we say, like, we're here to do the work now, what does it feel like? For you?

Arya Marvazy   
Oh, appreciate that question. It's interesting that at dinner last night, naturally, abortion rights came up, and all of us are scoffing and huffing and just in disbelief that this is a national conversation. And it struck me that maybe the real issue is to think, can you believe that all of these countries are ahead of America and America is behind in this way? When the truth is like, well, if we're still working on this document from the 1700s, you know, like, it's just it's like, it's, it's infuriating. And it's, it's really unfortunate, the reality that these are the conversations that we're having, I will say from an angle, it is incredibly empowering and inspiring to see that individuals in positions of power. And I don't mean to say unfortunately, but just realistically, and most often those are funders in our space, have heard this call have turned, you know, not their backs, but their faces and hearts towards this movement. And not just with Joc, I but across the sector and are investing in ways that they know are long term. It's heavy work. You know, it was heavy work fighting homophobia in the Jewish community. It's heavy work fighting racism in the Jewish community. And from an angle there is you know, I've known as a self proclaimed nonprofit Jewish communal lifer. It's very hard to separate the personal and professional and I go to sleep thinking about my work. And I wake up thinking about my work, and I talk about my work over the weekends.  But I know that we were doing some...

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann 
I know that feeling! Man, do I know that feeling.

Arya Marvazy   
You would, Rabbi Lizzi! We know that we are doing the work that is essential to a vibrant, inclusive and truly sort of Jewish life and leadership that is reflective of Jewish peoplehood. And like, should we not be focused on that with every fiber of our being for the future of Jewish life?

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann
Amen, amen. So you brought up current events a minute ago, and in one context, and I was thinking about, like this horrific shooting that just happened in Buffalo over the weekend. And the 18 year old shooter was a self proclaimed white supremacist, and he believed in a theory that I feel like if if you didn't know about it a week and a half ago, you know about it now the Great Replacement Theory. As the as the theory goes, Jews are somehow masterminding the replacement of white Christian Americans, because it's, I'm not, I'm not replacing myself here. As I've said, in my smoke filled back room, I'm trying to replace the legacy Americans who of course, are white non Jews, with immigrants, like your family, Aria, and African Americans and other other non legacy Americans to, to, like displace the legacy Americans. And so this  theory is, it's sort of simultaneously racist and antisemitic — and stupid. And yet a lot of people believe this. So it also reveals the ways in which the Jewish community is actually seen as bound up, you know, sort of inextricably connected with other minority communities in America in a very screwed up way in this theory, but, but we are, in fact, connected to and inextricably bound up with other minorities in America. And I think that's actually a potential for growth for solidarity. So I wonder if you could maybe reflect on that. Talk about that a little bit from where you sit?

Arya Marvazy
I don't mean to make light of anything that you just mentioned. But it strikes me as you've articulated it, that if there were Jews that were to bring people of diverse backgrounds, into the center of the world until like, in essence, give them power, that would be a beautiful thing. If Jewish people were always focused on empowering diversity, right, not to replace anyone else, but because that's necessary and valuable. I would say, it is one of the greatest wins of white supremacy, for us as Jewish community members to believe that the fight against anti semitism has to be placed against the fight against racism, because they want us to believe that those two things cannot be fought together and as a, you know, as a community that cares about these two things as necessary and relevant. But you know, it is it is to their benefit that we are so busy fighting around. Well, we can't really care about gos C's right now, because it's so much more important to care about anti semitism right now look at what's happening around the world. And the truth is, yes, and both and, and recognize that the individuals in your community are reflecting also a portion of the individuals that are experiencing anti semitism as well. Right. One is not mutually exclusive of the other one should never be set in competition with the other. So this is the type of thing that arises for me, at least personally, as it relates to Buffalo. One is just that sort of misconception that one must be prioritized over the other, which I think is so wrong, and such a win for white supremacy, if we were to think in that mindset. The second is, as an Iranian American, a first generation Iranian American as an individual who proudly identifies as a Jew of color, I also am very much an ally to black and brown and Asian and Latino Jews that may not have in certain moments, white passing privilege that I do. In certain spaces. It's interesting, when I think about like, sort of in in all white spaces, I very much feel like a Jew of Color in all Black spaces, then in essence, I am an ally to a Black Jew, or a Black person of color, and that identity sways. And that's one of the reasons why we too as an organization don't have a set Express definition of Jews of Color. It is a moving identity and is an evolving one in some ways. raffia and Sephardi do identify with that, and some don't and that's fine. Some some people of color, some black individuals don't like the term Jews of Color, don't identify with that. All of that is okay. So long as we realize that there is a universe where individuals with racialized identities in America are experiencing a different Jewish world than you know, white Jews, which is real even though race is a social construct, and we need to address that and those things come up when I think about the horrific you know, moments of this past weekend and week and several years and decades for that matter.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann 
I'm so I'm so glad you said what you said about sort of identity, you know, and racial identity being sort of a moving target Did you say moving target or like sort of route right? Like because I think that's something as a as a white, you know, Ashkenazi descendant Jew there are times when I am in spaces and feel deeply Jewish, like and Jewish being my ethnicity and and basically my race you know, I mean, like, that's why my family is in America is because we were racialized as Jews over there. And now here I get to, you know, like I get the most part to be white and that comes With its own, you know, set of privileges, but also, we actually just last night, had a whole conversation with a group of people in the community members of Mishkan, who did, like a, you know, an anti bias training with members of the community, but one of the questions, we were talking through his like, what, what has that identity, you know, of privilege whiteness, you know, having that racialized identity put on top of me here in this country? What does that cost me? Like, what what relationships? Am I not deeply inside of? Or what people who which people do I not really understand, because I have been racialized this way, and sort of accepted in certain places, and welcomed in certain places that others are actually not welcomed into, and how can I become more sensitive? Who is hip to all of the ways that, that I've actually been part of the problem, too. And so I was actually so right, like, if 15% of if living, let's say, 20%, somewhere between 12 and 20%. of Jews in this country? are Jews of Color self identified, in what you know, in families that include a person of color? So that's the majority are still white, right? Is that sort of the applicant? So I guess my question is, like, what do you want? What do you want people who look like me now to know walking away from you know, this conversation? Like, what are you want us to think about?

Arya Marvazy   
I love I love the question. And with with, with humility, I'm gonna, I'm going to answer it with what I want you to do. But just like, from the angle of what I want, everyone to know, is what's in these studies. And please do check them out on our website. And they're so powerful, because it just colors everything we've talked about in a much more detailed way. But what I want people to do is to consider, you know how for them, they may support organizations led by and serving Jews of color, support leadership, of Jews of color, in the spaces that they belong to, in fact, caveat, Nate Looney, a dear friend, and a Jew of color who has been in this space for much longer than I have —

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
Who actually did a training with us a couple of months ago.

Arya Marvazy   
Wow! That makes a lot of sense. Nate said something that has always been in my head, but he said, it's so much better than I could. And it's as simple as this. I have heard, even in my I've been at the initiative for nearly five months. But you know, I've heard over time for so long, like, people from communities, even leaders from community say, Listen, we care about racism, we care about inclusion, we care about equity. And we've said that, and we've posted about it, and we made a statement. And you know, we even had a Shabbat about it. Why aren't people coming? Like, why aren't more people coming to our spaces? And one of the things that I heard Nate say, was like, it's not necessarily about like, you know, a new outfit on the same body, right? It's about potentially like a new, a new system, a new structure, a new project, a new output. So it's not like sometimes I think to myself, like, what do we do is, is have the conversation internally, if we would like to see our spaces evolve to be farther representative and inclusive, of Jews of color of queer, Jews of Jews of gender diverse identities of Jews of differing abilities, all all the ways that we care about justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, that we that we have conversations with members from those communities to say, What, What haven't we done? How have you felt? What might we do better? And, and that type of thinking, I think, moves us to a different place, because I do recognize that if there aren't Joc leaders in most Jewish communal spaces, which would mean then there are white leaders thinking about how to best serve Jews of color, then we're still missing the point, right? And certainly, by any means, anyone who's in this audience, like please feel free to tap me and we've got a wonderful list of dei consultants. Our work is not specifically D.E.I.(Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), it's actually empowering and uplifting Jews of color in the Jewish communal landscape. But we've got a whole wonderful list of individuals that can help. But I would I would say the last thing to close the thought is just remember that there is not a as with so many elements of our Jewish world, there isn't an end date. And there isn't a checkbox of we have done this and it is done and it is done. Well, right. It is we're going to continue having the conversations about how do we make Jewish life the most vibrant, inclusive and equitable until forever. So if we can maintain that moving mindset, I think we're also all better off for it.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
Kein yahi ratzon! May it be so. So from your mouth to God's ears thank you so much for being in this conversation and spending a little bit of Shabbat with us at Mishkan.

Arya Marvazy   
I hope to be there in person sometime if not this summer then soon thereafter, but I'm hoping for it.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann   
Great. Can't wait. All right, Shabbat Shalom.

Arya Marvazy
Shabbat Shalom, take good care.