blogs/masa

This week’s Torah portion is the first portion in the book of Numbers. The English name for that book of the Torah comes from the census with which it begins. This census counted the Israelite people… well, just the males over the age of 20, and only by their affiliation with their families. The census reflected the priority of the leaders at the time: who would be able to fight for the Israelites as they made their way through the wilderness, and what were their affiliations?

A census might seem boring, but I’m an historian, and I know that the census is where you can find out something about people who don’t show up in other parts of history. But there are some people who don’t show up in the census, based on the priorities of the people who create it: I can’t find out about half of my ancestors before 1870, because they were only numbered in order to count as three-fifths of a person for representation in slave states. I can’t find out about LGBTQ+ folks from the census, because the 2020 census is the first in the US to recognize those relationships.

All of this came to mind when I was asked to sign this letter, a response to an article titled “How Many Jews of Color Are There?” published recently in the Forward and in eJewish Philanthropy. The article disputed statements that Jews of Color make up 12-15% of the US Jewish population, and instead stated that these people are only 6% of the population. But for decades, the people doing surveys of the Jewish population have not asked about Jews of Color, or have shaped their questions in ways that under-count this population.

Being counted is a way to be seen, and being seen is an important piece of what brings a person to engage in community. As an educator, I know how important it is for people to see themselves reflected not only in the community around them, but also in the numbers that community uses to define itself. Each number we see in a census refers to actual people, who have the deeply human needs both to be counted as a part of a whole and to be seen as individuals.

At BHA I have been welcomed, and I know that I am counted both as a Jew and as a person of color. For the children of our community, and for the adults, I think it is important for us to sign this letter, and to let people know that we value the contributions of Jews of Color not only in our small community, but also in the larger Jewish world. I hope that you will join me, and sign this letter to let people know Jews of Color count!