The feeling of being an outsider is an all too familiar one for most human beings. The experience of a Jewish person being made to feel an outsider in Jewish spaces is eloquently investigated by the Eli Talk by Rabbi Shais Rishon who goes by the moniker MaNishtana.
Find April and Tracie's full bios and submit topic suggestions for the show at www.JewsTalkRacialJustice.com
Learn more about Joyous Justice where April is the founding and fabulous (!) director, and Tracie is a senior partner.: https://joyousjustice.com/
Read more of Tracie's thoughts at her blog, bmoreincremental.com
Additional Resources:
Watch: MaNishtana’s Eli Talk: What Makes This Jew Different Than All Other Jews? Race, Difference, and Safety in Jewish Spaces
Reflection/Discussion Questions:
April and Tracie focus their conversation on MaNishtana’s Eli Talk which you can view at the link above. Watch it yourself, what were your initial reactions and takeaways. Tracie shares about her own experiences with being shut out or didn’t feel a full sense of belonging within their own Jewish community. When have you felt this similar feeling in reaction to gate-keeping? What are the microsoms of this similar to what Tracie describes in Baltimore between German and Russian Jews. April speaks to the root causes of this gatekeeping, including it as a reaction to intergenerational trauma around antisemitism. What do you think about this? How could this have served us in the past but not in our current moment? Another potential root that April and Tracie discuss is that we may have some internalized antisemitism and that we can’t love our neighbor as ourselves if we truly don’t love ourselves in the context of White Supremacy Capitalism. What are the ways in which you may have internalized antisemitism? April asks what would it feel like if we got the healing we need and just enjoy and savory the diversity of our religion and our community? What would it feel like to you? What would that look like? April brings up MaNishtana’s point that we are a global people were originally 12 tribes that originated from Africa and West Asia, and now with globalization, we are a diasporic people made up of new types of tribes. April invites you to practice this thinking and framework to help bring ease to the antiracism work you are doing. How can you practice with this framework? How can you build this lens in a deeper way?
