{"id":25601,"date":"2012-09-26T16:39:57","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T16:39:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25601"},"modified":"2012-09-26T16:39:57","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T16:39:57","slug":"mixed-race-jewish-children-locate-their-communal-comfort-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25601","title":{"rendered":"Mixed-race Jewish children locate their communal comfort zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed-race Jewish children locate their communal comfort zone<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Jewish Chronicle Online<\/a>
\n2009-11-12<\/p>\n

Sue Fishkoff<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dafna Wu, a 48-year-old San Francisco nurse, was born to a Jewish mother and Chinese father. She was raised Jewish but looks Asian, as does her daughter, nine-year-old Amalia, whose father was also Chinese.<\/p>\n

The Hebrew School Amalia attends is filled with mixed-race children, but the parents in the congregation are all white, as is the majority of American Jewry. That concerns her mother.
\n\u00a0
\n\u201cAll my life I\u2019ve had to defend being Jewish,\u201d says Ms Wu. \u201cWhen I go to a new synagogue, people ask who I\u2019m with. I don\u2019t want her to have to explain her Judaism, or be exoticised for it. I just want her to be a kid, not \u2018that special, multi-racial kid\u2019.\u201d
\n\u00a0
\nThat\u2019s why Ms Wu brings Amalia to Be\u2019chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), a San Francisco-based organisation for ethnically and racially diverse Jews. At the group\u2019s most recent retreat last month, at a camp north of San Francisco, Amalia played with other Jewish children who are black, Hispanic and Asian. They sang Hebrew songs, built a succah, and learned about tzedakah, but they also talked openly with their counsellors about what it means to be Jews of colour, to have an identity people do not see due to the colour of their skin.<\/p>\n

About 5.4 per cent of America\u2019s Jews are either non-white or Hispanic, according to the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey. A 2004 study by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, Be\u2019chol Lashon\u2019s parent organisation, puts that number at about 10 per cent. Nevertheless, say activists in the field, the prevailing assumption is that Jews are white, and that Jews of other racial or ethnic backgrounds are adoptees or converts. Sometimes they are, but increasingly they are not, as the children of mixed-race couples grow to adulthood and begin raising their own Jewish children…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mixed-race Jewish children locate their communal comfort zone The Jewish Chronicle Online 2009-11-12 Sue Fishkoff Dafna Wu, a 48-year-old San Francisco nurse, was born to a Jewish mother and Chinese father. She was raised Jewish but looks Asian, as does her daughter, nine-year-old Amalia, whose father was also Chinese. The Hebrew School Amalia attends is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,414,3601,8,820,20],"tags":[12162,12165,12163,12164],"class_list":["post-25601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-family","category-judaism","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-usa","tag-dafna-wu","tag-jewish-chronicle-online","tag-sue-fishkoff","tag-the-jewish-chronicle-online"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}