Understanding the Impact of Whiteness & White Dominant Culture: A space for white Jewish/Jewish Adjacent people to engage in antiracist skill building, stamina, and resistance
Please join us for this three-part series, entitled Understanding the Impact of Whiteness & White Dominant Culture: A space for white Jewish/Jewish Adjacent people (those of us who are not Jewish but are partnered with a Jew, part of a Jewish family, or interested in Judaism) to engage in antiracist skill building, stamina, and resistance.
This series will kick-off on Oct 12, 2021, 8-9:30PM ET with our Racial Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) 101 training (which can also be attended as a standalone session), and is for anyone interested in learning some important foundations of REDI work. The two subsequent trainings will be white antiracist affinity space sessions for those of us who are white.
A white antiracist affinity space is a space for white people to process their emotions and deepen their understanding around race and racism, without burdening or causing additional harm to People of Color. In these spaces, white people do not rely on or burden People of Color with the labor of teaching them but instead rely on previously created resources and content to learn and process. Affinity spaces are not instead of cross-race or mixed group anti oppression work, they are simply one important component of antiracism. To read more about affinity spaces, please check out: https://tinyurl.com/ycdx5s7f
Though sessions 2 and 3 will be for white participants, there are many additional opportunities for those of us who identify as People of Color (POC). The URJ regularly offers opportunities for those of us who are Jews of Color and Jewish Adjacent People of Color to come together to build a Kehilla Kedosha (holy community). Connect with other POC's and restore yourself in the community of others. Please indicate in the registration if you are interested in learning more about these gatherings. You can also learn more about/sign-up for the next two affinity gatherings here.
NOTE: We know not all white presenting Jews consider themselves white, and not all people consider white Jews “white”. We also know not all Jews of Color or People of Color associate with the term ‘Person of Color”. We acknowledge that there are no perfect terms and no group or individual is a monolith. For the sake of leveraging our positional power as white presenting people, we are using the terms white Jews and Jews of Color as terms to help us do both our collective and individual race-based affinity work.
This live, 90-minute session will not be recorded.
Session 2 of 3: White Antiracist Affinity Space (for white participants)
For those of us who are white, we must begin or continue to do the deep sacred work of looking within ourselves and communities and come to terms with how we benefit from the same systems that we are trying to dismantle. This session will help us deepen our commitment and our capacity to leverage our positions as white antiracists in our effort to create multiracial multicultural communities where Jews of all backgrounds can experience belonging. Please note that the three sessions build upon each other, and you must have attended one of our “REDI 101” trainings prior to attending sessions 2 and 3. The hosts for these calls will be REDI Program Manager Rachel Hall and third-year HUC Rabbinical Student Max Antman.