- Just ahead on Black Issues Forum, Dr.

Henry Louis Gates' new PBS documentary series, Black and Jewish America, takes on questions about the long and interwoven history of these two communities.

It's a conversation that is often framed as either/or, but this week we meet two Jewish Black Americans to explore their stories.

We're unpacking the Black Jewish American experience.

Coming up next, stay with us.

- Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBSNC.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Welcome to Black Issues Forum.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

For generations, conversations about Black and Jewish communities in America have typically been framed as a relationship between the two groups, but what happens when one lives within both?

Not all Jews are white and not all Blacks are Christian.

You may be watching Dr.

Henry Louis Gates' new PBS documentary, Black and Jewish America, that depicts a far more complex story of Black and Jewish America than history books tell us.

Here's a clip from that documentary.

- When I was growing up, I only thought of race in terms of Black and white.

It wasn't until much later, when I learned about anti-Semitism, that I realized Blacks and Jews face common enemies.

But when we stand together, we are a formidable force.

- The relationship between African Americans and Jews in the United States, it's not a simple story, and it cannot be a simple story.

- It's got a really long history.

- When these two communities get together and they synergize creatively or politically, they're a juggernaut and they can't be stopped.

- Jewish people have always been some of the first outside of the culture itself to embrace Black music.

- A white Jewish producer and the greatest Black jazz singer of all time.

Why can't the world be like this?

- Rabbi Heschel was told he might not live because they're killing folk in Selma.

- I think the Civil Rights Movement healed our souls after Nazi Germany.

- There was a very visible Black Jewish alliance during the Civil Rights Movement.

- That relationship accomplished incredible things.

- But I don't want to romanticize the alliance because it wasn't an untroubled relationship.

- We want Black power!

- There is a profound sense of the Jews are the haves, the Blacks are the have-nots.

- Nothing has separated the Jewish and the Black community more than this issue of affirmative action.

- It's dangerous to make it all the same.

We're not the same.

We come from different histories.

- I don't consider myself white.

And when I once told our class that, they laughed in my face.

You laughed in my face.

- I did.

- Blacks and Jews in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn clashed, inflamed by the death of a young boy.

- The old alliance between Blacks and Jews, is that in jeopardy now?

- Very much so.

- We must not allow the relationship between Jews and African Americans to suffer.

- The whole purpose of this meal is to let you know we are Jews too.

- In Charlottesville, violent protests broke out at what was supposed to be a white nationalist rally.

- When you see Charlottesville, you see that most people that are anti-Semites are also racist.

- When everything blew up on campus, I wasn't sure about how I would navigate the conversation.

- We have to find a way to listen to all the rancor, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

- It's dangerous because it's a really hard time to talk about either Black people or Jewish people.

It's just become fraught in so many ways.

But anything that's dangerous is worthwhile.

- Well it certainly is worthwhile.

And today we're sitting at the intersection where race, religion, and history merge to share their experiences and help understand that intersection, are Rabbi Sandra Lawson, who is the executive director at Carolina Jews for Justice.

Alongside her is Dr.

Buffie Longmire-Avital, the associate dean of academics and professor of psychology at the Honors College at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Welcome to you both.

- Thank you.

- Thanks for having us.

- I'm excited for this conversation.

It's a space that I don't think we explore often as we've seen in the Gates documentary.

Rabbi, I'd love to start with you.

Many people might not connect to you or be aware or familiar with the idea that there are Black Jewish Americans.

I'd love for you to start by sharing your story.

- Yeah, I'm not even sure where to begin.

A typical American story, I grew up mostly in the Midwest.

I was in the military.

My dad was in the military, moved around a lot.

I got used to being always the new kid in school.

I went to college, dropped out of college because I wasn't ready for whatever.

I joined the military myself.

I got out of the military, had a personal training business for a little while.

I was en route to get a PhD in sociology.

I went to graduate school for sociology, and then I pivoted.

I felt the need to, or the want or desire to be a rabbi, which I thought was a little nuts at the time.

- Did you have any experience with the community?

- Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I was a long time leader in my synagogue in Atlanta, Georgia.

I was executive vice president of that synagogue.

I had a really amazing rabbi who embodied the legacy of Heschel and King and the rabbis of the Civil Rights era, and was always on the front lines.

I was at the time probably one of the few or only white clergy members on what was called 100 Black Clergy, which was actually more than 100 clergy.

- Have you always been Jewish?

- I'm going to say what the challenge is with that question.

The question itself assumes a narrative of the Black Jewish experience.

When you look at data, for example, from the Jews of Color Initiative Beyond the Count Study, that study shows, and it was the first study that I'm aware of that really highlighted experiences of Black and brown Jews in the United States, or Jews of color in the United States, and so two-thirds of Jews of color grew up Jewish.

That combats the narrative that a majority of Jews of color are outsiders, are converted in.

Often, my experience, and maybe Dr.

Buffie's experience as well, is that when people see us, the question's sort of from, "How did you get here?"

Which doesn't happen with our white colleagues, or doesn't happen with many of the Jews who present as white.

- Right.

And forgive my ignorance for asking, right?

Yeah.

But I think it is, like you said, kind of this assumption that there's a journey in and not already in existence.

- Yeah, and for example, I have a lot of Black Jewish friends.

I've never felt the need to ask them how, why, all those things.

But that is not the experience that many Jews of color have that look like me, where many Jews who present as white are asking, "How did you get here?

How are you Jewish?

When did you convert?"

Or things like that, that are completely inappropriate for another Jewish person to ask another Jewish person.

- Okay.

Dr.

Longmire-Avital, I'd love for you to share your experience.

- Yes, absolutely.

I just want to pick up on this thread, because it's interesting.

One of the ways that we know each other is that I was a fellow in a race, religion, in American Judaism, I should know that, I was a fellow.

A cohort.

And so I was able to really dive into conversations around the ways in which we talk about race and the experience of Jews of color in our communities.

And I was always struck by a participant, and these were anonymous responses through a survey that I administered, that was talking about the importance of allyship and engaging with Jews of color.

And then made the statement, which I'm reading these first few sentences, I'm like, "Okay, this is amazing, yes, this is what we want to see."

And then made the statement, said, "Well, because they're likely, they weren't born Jewish."

And so it's just, it picks up on that assumption.

From my experience, my people are from Danville, Virginia.

And growing up, even though I grew up outside Boston, and my grandparents were part of that great migration that went up to New York and lived on the Upper East Side, the fascinating thing is that Judaism has always been in the threads of my family.

Going all the way back to Danville, Virginia, multiple generations.

I'm very comfortable in saying that I did not grow up Jewish.

It's an interesting conversation as to why that happened, and we don't have the time to pick that up.

But I always grew up in a multi-faith family, whether I recognized it or not.

My kind of modern or kind of recent relationship and identity as a Jewish woman, for me, was building over time as I started to realize and put the threads together for my family and recognize our really beautiful faith history.

And then really crystallized when I met my husband.

So it's a little bit of the, if anybody is watching Netflix or watched Sex and the City, they're probably thinking, "Oh, yes, I know this story."

I mean, you may know this story, but you may also not know this story.

And for us, that story was really having a conversation at a diner, how very New York of us, and talking about what it would mean to take this relationship further.

And the fact that he was white, I was black.

So if we were taking this relationship further, we were already going to be an interracial couple if we decided to have children.

We would be having children that were biracial.

And at the time, we were sitting in different kind of religious spaces.

And knowing that I was already having the seeds of a journey, I said, "Well, we may be different, representing different kind of religious spaces right now, but we may not always be."

Let's give ourselves this opportunity to just learn to see if we can really love and grow with one another.

And then we'll make that decision together.

And I think we had a moment where he said, "I love you as you are.

So there's no need to change.

We'll make this work."

And I had a moment of being around his family, having certain experiences, saying, "I want this for our kids.

And I want this kind of united front around faith."

Because I knew how important it was, especially to people of color, to have that pathway and always leaning on in terms of faith.

From my own research and experience, that I felt like we could do that as a team from one religious perspective.

And so that's what my experience has been.

- I love that.

When we look at the longstanding history of the Jewish history in America, right, begins 20th century.

But Jews have been in this country and in America much longer than that, right?

So what is the cause and significance of this omission in our history knowledge?

- Oh my goodness.

I'm gonna jump in.

- Yeah, I know you're itching.

- And the funny thing is, with the caveat that I am a professor of psychology and not a professor of history, but this plays a role in the study of identity and how our identity is at the forefront of the ways in which we engage with and sustain relationships over time.

So the origin story of kind of Jewish America, I think really, unfortunately coincides only with the 20th century because we see this massive moment of pain and horror in terms of the Holocaust.

And we see this massive wave of people coming to the Americas, not only, and that's the interesting thing, not only North America, but also South America.

A lot of times when we think about Jewish Americans or Jews in America, we think of America is just North America.

We're not thinking about South America as well, which also has a significant population.

And this time period also aligns with other waves of immigrants as well that are coming in.

So we see a period of years where we're looking at massive swells in immigration, largely coming from European countries.

And I think it's very easy for us to latch onto that and say, okay, that was the origin story when in fact, and we know this watching the documentary and for those who study, Jewish people have always been in the Americas in some capacity throughout.

The other thing that I think is interesting and why this time period is solidified is that if we think about how we understand memory making, a lot of times it's that collective memory, that shared memory.

World War II hits differently than other wars.

And we also have a significant population of individuals that are engaged in World War II in terms of our military.

And so they're there seeing these horrors for themselves and they're coming back.

And that also solidifies that need to place that-- - Shapes the narrative.

- Shapes that narrative there too.

- Yeah, I'd love for you to chime in.

I know you wanted to add.

- Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything that Buffie said.

And just to add more to that, if you zoom out more before the 20th century, the first Jews, even in the Louis Gates show, talks about Jews that were kicked out of Spain in 1492.

And the narrative that we're told is that those Jews, they left Spain, made their way to the Americas, and they wound up in what would be today's South America and eventually migrated up.

And so I remember I was in a graduate program years ago and I was like, the first Jews that came to this country were Sephardic Jews.

They were not Ashkenazi Jews.

So Sephardic means Jews that came, generally means Jews that came from Spain.

Where is that story?

Where is that narrative?

It's almost like the story of Jews in America is we acknowledge that those Jews came from Spain, then we jump to the 20th century and skip over all the other history.

And part of that memory is that history is all about the narrative that we tell.

So we have a particular American story of how America was founded.

But these stories are more complex and more complicated, and particularly in the time period that we're living now where people want to add in more of those narratives, people who've always held the power of the narrative feel kind of threatened.

And so, you know, and I also think there's something to be said about assimilation and trying to fit into American culture by showing that we're just like these other European immigrants that came here.

We're not different.

And then on top of that, when just like every other folks that immigrated that time from Europe, there was a group of people that were already here.

And so like we, you know, heard stories about Irish folks that were already here.

And then the newer group of Irish folks that came here were like, we're not like those folks, we're different.

And I think a similar thing could be played out to the later Jews that immigrated here.

And I also want to apologize.

I don't like using other people's stories when I'm not part of that story.

So for me to talk about Irish folks, I'm not Irish.

But I think that's a particularly European thing that happened where the first groups that came here, maybe looking down on the next group wave of people that came here.

- I don't want to make any assumptions, but would you, either of you say that there are any tensions between the black Jewish communities and the white Jewish communities?

And if there is tension, is there one side that's creating the tension more or is it internalized?

- So you're talking about the tension between black Jews and white Jews?

So I'll say the tension between black, so there's like, like black Jews are a part of Jews of color.

There are Jews of color, indigenous.

In fact, a really good friend of mine is featured in the film, Dr.

Samira Mehta.

She's of Indian descent.

And so, you know, the Jews of color is this whole blanket thing.

But as far as tension, I think my perspective is I wouldn't say it's tension.

It's sort of like a lack of acknowledgement sometimes that Jews of color exist or an erasure that we are part of it.

And the, you know, the sort of, when you front and center a particular type of Jewish person in all of the things that you do, it does send a message to people, whether intentional or not, that all Jews look like this.

When the reality is the longer the Jews live in America, the more Jews look like people in America.

And when I say that, that means the same subset that you would find in American culture.

So let's just say, for the sake of argument, if you believe 10% of Americans are queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, that also, that same percentage is going to show up in the Jewish community.

So if, you know, 12% of black people live in America, that same percentage is going to show up in the Jewish community.

And the reason for that is assimilation and just sort of like between arriving here, intermarriage, adoption.

The beautiful thing is that Jews look like the fabric of America.

- Anything you want to add?

And I want to also just kind of add on, is there, do you see efforts trying to kind of in the media, in the portrayal of what Jewish Americans look like today?

Is there a shift in that narrative?

- I think there is.

There is starting, we're starting to see the beginnings of a shift.

I think there have, you know, I'm part of groups that are focusing on celebrities that are very front and center, talking about the fact that they are very much people of color and they are very much Jews as well.

And being Jewish and a person of color is intertwined in their identity.

Even the fact that we have this terminology, Jews of color, which not everyone acknowledges and appreciates, but still this notion that there is this phrasing that captures the idea that at no point in time do I feel like you could just look at me as Jewish or just look at me as black because I sit at the intersections of so many, so many identities.

I want to just go back to the idea of where, you know, where there is potential tension.

And I think it goes back to that other, that question around this origin story of Jewish America and the notion that it is always placed at, within the 20th century and as a result of the Holocaust and that there, that this community is kind of morphed or not morphed, but is kind of absorbed into the larger story of European immigration because in America we typically view a person of European ancestry, certainly based on their phenotypic expression, as white.

Right.

So if we place the origin story of Jews in America as a result of the Holocaust and they're fleeing Europe, which already diminishes the full totality of the Holocaust because it was much further reaching than just Europe and people who were persecuted in the Holocaust were not just Jewish.

So already we're shaving down, we're reducing this moment in history, this pivotal moment in our history of humanity.

It leaves us a door open for people to make certain kind of connections and assumptions and stereotypes based on this idea that if they originated, if Jewish people originated from Europe, this assumption, right, that their story is coming, their pathway here is Europe to the Americas and phenotypically, from a phenotypic perspective, they appear or look like other European, our viewpoint or our assumption of what original Europeans might look like, whatever that might be.

It's easy to see where a narrative starts to take shape and an identity starts to take shape that centers around this one particular story or stories that align with that origin and you move further and further away from the fact that Jewish people have always been a multiracial people because Judaism predates the conception of race.

Race is a social conception.

It's not biologically driven.

It's not any of those things.

- I want to bring Rabbi back in.

Just a couple of minutes.

If there's a misconception or a point of clarity that you would love to leave viewers with, what would that be?

There might be many.

But what would be your top priority to share today?

I didn't give, wow, okay.

There's a lot.

I mean, we, the Jewish community, and I think needs to start to unpack more of how whiteness is operated within a Jewish context, needs to also understand that, like for example, we're in a time period of heightened anti-Semitism, heightened fear, and anti-Semitism plays out very differently for different people.

So I do experience anti-Semitism and I also experience different anti-Semitism.

I experience anti-Semitism that sits at the intersection.

So when you look at intersectionality, that often means new forms of discrimination and bias.

I experience a similar type of anti-Semitism that my colleagues do, but I also experience new forms of it.

And sometimes it's kind of hard to recognize.

And I think that we need to start articulating how anti-Semitism plays, do a better job of articulating how anti-Semitism plays out differently, particularly now since it's, does anti-Semitism can exist outside the religious narrative, meaning the Jews believing that Jews killed Jesus, how anti-Semitism plays out in right-wing politics, how it plays out in left-wing politics, how black and brown folks experience anti-Semitism.

- Well, we've got 30 seconds left.

I just want to thank you both, Rabbi Lawson, Dr.

Longmire-Avital.

Thank you so much both for being here.

And I thank you for watching.

If you want more content like this, we invite you to engage with us on Instagram using the hashtag #BlackIssuesForum.

You can also find our full episodes on PBSNC.org/BlackIssuesForum and on the PBS video app.

I'm Kenia Thompson.

I'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) ♪ - Quality public television is made possible through the financial contributions of viewers like you, who invite you to join them in supporting PBSNC.