When Marc Dollinger, a Jewish scholar and author, was preparing to write the second book in his career, he intended to write about the Jewish ethnic revival of the 1970s and the Soviet Jewry movement of his childhood.
But as he began his research, Dollinger discovered the words “Black Power” repeatedly springing up.
“I realized I was not writing a book about the ethnic revival in the 1970s. I was writing a book about the Black Power movement in the 1960s and the ways in which American Jews grafted, copied, emulated, stole, appreciated tactics of Black power to form those movements of the ’70s that I was raised in,” Dollinger said.
That realization led to the creation of “Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s,” which was published by Brandies University Press in 2018.
But the biggest twist for Dollinger came from a lunch meeting with Ilana Kaufman, CEO of the Jews of Color Initiative, after he shared the finished text with her to look at before he wrote the epilogue.
Dollinger and Kaufman spoke about the book, the Jewish history tied to the Civil Rights movement and racism, and that lunchtime conversation during a panel discussion moderated by Rabbi Jessy Dressin at Third Space at Shaarei Tfiloh on April 9 in honor of the 10-year anniversary of Freddie Gray’s death in police custody.
Kaufman said that, as she read through the 257 pages that Dollinger sent her, she was shocked that Dollinger had written about Black and Jewish experiences and relationships as separate and realized he was speaking only about white Jewish people.
“Ilana said to me, ‘You’ve written 250 pages on Blacks and Jews and not a single page on a Black Jew. How could you?’” Dollinger said.
Kaufman told Dollinger to go back through the book and reread every chapter while asking the question, “How much are you writing about whiteness instead of or in addition to what you were really talking about?”
Dollinger couldn’t fully redo the book as he had spent 20 years writing it already, but he reflected on the perspective he gained from his talk with Kaufman in the book’s epilogue and had Kaufman write the afterword.
But the book and its research had another impact on Kaufman as she learned several facts that had not been included in her religious school upbringing, leaving her feeling betrayed.
What stuck out to Kaufman were the explanations of the ways that Jewish people took elements from the Black Power movement for future protests and the lack of mention that had ever been given to them as she went to Hebrew school.
“As an educator, I’m shocked at the pedagogical failure of my educators to not teach me and the rest of my classmates this rich history from the different vantage points,” Kaufman said. “As a Black Jewish kid, I’m reflecting back on my experience and I’m thinking to myself, what could have happened to me and so many other people if we had been taught the truth about our Jewish Black history inside of our Jewish context, and how would that have made me feel more deeply connected, more deeply seen, and that this was a community that I was actually part of, versus being adjacent to or marginal because of my racial background.”
That experience spoke to a point Dollinger made about the contributions of Black people and Jews of color being erased from the general memory of the Jewish people, making it hard to find if one is looking and hard to notice that it’s missing.
Kaufman recounted a story where she asked the executive director of the American Jewish Historical Society if there were any Jews of color in their archives. The person didn’t immediately know as Kaufman was the first person to ask that question.
Kaufman said that, with the United States and the Jewish community within it becoming more racially diverse over the years, it’s important to start the work of making Jews of color more welcome at synagogues and participating in Jewish tradition.
She added that it’s time for people with the knowledge of the limited history within faith communities to ask questions and make people realize the full story of Jewish people and not leave out Jews of color.
“Each time a Jewish person doesn’t see themselves in the Jewish story, we are losing an essential part of the gifts necessary for [becoming a unified Jewish people]. And I think about that,” Kaufman said. “Because what does everybody want, from our rabbis to our bubbes, Moses and the ancestors? They want us to continue this tradition, and the takeaway that I have tonight is let’s not limit the way that we bring people in to see themselves in that story.”
