(Jewish Group) Jewish communities are finally paying attention to Jews of color.

[Behind the Aegis]

Jewish communities are finally paying attention to Jews of color. Here’s the long road to how they got there.

As protests for racial justice swept the United States this summer, many American Jewish organizations joined in.

They released statements and committed to action. They held online events elevating the voices of Black Jews and other Jews of color. And they contracted Jews of color to share their stories and advise them about how to create more inclusive and equitable environments.

One major organization that had spent the spring steering the Jewish world through the pandemic-induced financial crisis even took a detour from that work to create a new role focused on racial justice — and filled it with a rabbi who is a Jew of color.

The explosion of interest and engagement in racial justice work across the Jewish world wasn’t just circumstantial. It reflected decades of organizing and advocacy by Jews of color, who found the world suddenly oriented toward the work they had long been doing in an extension of a shift that began with the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement several years ago.

“I believe the Jewish institutional community found itself in a position of needing to catch up, and as a result the gaze turned back toward Jews of color and ‘How can you help us in this moment?’” said Yavilah McCoy, who began convening Jews of color in 1997 and now runs Dimensions, a consultancy focused on racial equity and programming for Jews of color.

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