Before the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in July 1990, it was a fight years in the making advocating for the law.
In Willingboro, New Jersey, in the late 1980s, a 4-year-old Jared Jackson was trying to do his part, memorizing the phone banking script and making cold calls to inform people of the act.
“Who’s gonna hang up on a kid with a cute voice, right?” Jackson said.
More than 35 years later, Jackson, 40, brings the same spirit to his work at Jews in ALL Hues, a nonprofit by and for Jews of color, of which Jackson is the founder and executive director.
There’s a dearth of Jews of color-led organizations, Jackson said. And among Jewish organizations with predominantly white leadership, there’s a lack of consideration for the belonging and needs of Jews of color.
“If you’re missing a large portion of the community, you’re just not fulfilling your mission,” Jackson said. “Eighty percent is not 100%.”
Jews in ALL Hues provides diversity, equity and inclusion consulting for synagogues and Jewish organizations. The nonprofit is working with Tribe 12 to form a Jews of color “tribe,” or affinity group, for 20- and 30-something Jews involved. It sponsors programs at the Weitzman, such as the annual Passover Freedom Seder Revisited. Jews in ALL Hues also provides free professional development consultations to Jews of color. Jackson estimates the nonprofit has about 6,000-7,000 people in its network nationwide.
Jackson hopes to soon revitalize a small grants program to provide microgrants to Jews of color in need of funds for immediate medical and housing expenses.
Jackson represents Jews in ALL Hues on the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Philadelphia and believes he is the only Jew of color on the Mayor’s Commission on Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs. The Mount Airy resident is an active member of Germantown Jewish Centre.
Though including Jews of color in Jewish community may be new to many Jewish organizations grappling with racism after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, this is an issue Jews in ALL Hues has been tackling for decades.
Jews in ALL Hues gained 501(c)(3) status in 2013 but began in 2008. Jackson was in Israel accepting a communal service award and met with a wide array of multiheritage Jews: Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi. The leaders being honored noticed similar dynamics in their organizations: Jews of color were leading the communities while simultaneously feeling unwelcomed and unsupported.
“It’s very normal for me to be discriminated in Jewish spaces — and [for] many other multiheritage Jews and Jews of color who were meeting — and it’s a shame,” Jackson said.
“I wanted to do something about it, and there were other people in the area who wanted to do something about it, to at least have this container to express the joys, the sorrows, the frustrations, the liberatory aspects of having multiple heritages,” he added.
A small group met on a Sunday in Philadelphia in 2009, with Jewish leaders of color joining from several cities across the U.S. The efforts snowballed, with conferences being held in San Francisco and Baltimore in the following years. Jackson organized Shabbat dinners and professional development programming for Jews of color. Eventually, enough people shared responsibilities and organizing efforts for Jews in ALL Hues to become a nonprofit.
“That’s the whole point of an organization, right?” Jackson said. “Many hands lifting mountains — or destroying mountains, because why is it there in the first place?”
Jackson was always familiar with the mountain, the burden, of racism. His family tried to join synagogues in Willingboro, but were met with cold shoulders and rude comments from Holocaust survivors and rabbis, community stalwarts expected to greet a Black and Jewish family with open arms. Jackson did not attend Hebrew school growing up.
Not everybody in the community acted that way. From a young age, Jackson had a diverse group of friends, including other Jews of color. After his father died when Jackson was 3, Jackson’s mother made an effort to raise her children to feel connected to their multiple heritages.
“It could have gone the complete opposite way,” Jackson said. “I know of mixed-race Jewish families where one parent tries to erase their connection to their heritage on one side.”
The family celebrated their Judaism in its own way; Jackson remembers staying home on the High Holidays, watching reruns of “The Jeffersons.” But despite a non-traditional Jewish upbringing, Jackson felt connected to his identities.
Since his early days of phone banking activism, Jackson has noticed progress in the fight against racism in Jewish communities, “seeing some doors being cracked open.” One truth he has had to accept in racial justice work is that real change will likely not be seen in his lifetime, but Jackson believes it’s still worth fighting.
“There’s no golden past,” he said. “But there can be a golden future.”
om
