{"id":44390,"date":"2015-11-30T01:57:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-30T01:57:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44390"},"modified":"2016-10-26T16:22:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T16:22:19","slug":"meet-april-baskin-the-multiracial-face-of-reform-judaism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44390","title":{"rendered":"Meet April Baskin, the Multiracial Face of Reform Judaism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet April Baskin, the Multiracial Face of Reform Judaism<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Forward<\/a>
\n2015-11-28<\/p>\n

Allison Kaplan Sommer<\/strong><\/a> (Haaretz<\/a><\/em>)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nImage: Haaretz<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

See also: “Black and Jewish: New Reform Leader Works to Bring Marginalized Groups Into the Tribe<\/a>”\u00a0on 2015-11-25\u00a0from Haaretz<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

To meet April Baskin<\/a> is to see the change in American Jewry personified. A tall, confident, 32-year-old with an impressive mane of curly hair and a wide smile, the self-described \u201cmultiracial Jewish woman of color\u201d is the newest executive in the Reform Jewry<\/a> movement.<\/p>\n

Her offbeat job title\u2014vice president for audacious hospitality\u2014incorporates the catchphrase that the Union for Reform Judaism<\/a> has embraced as its central mission. It is meant both to include aggressively welcoming newcomers into its institutions, along with widening its tent by inviting groups that have traditionally felt marginalized from mainstream Jewish institutional life – this includes interfaith couples and families, as well as adults who grew up in interfaith homes, LGBT<\/a> Jews, Jews with disabilities, unaffiliated Jews and multiracial Jews like herself. \u201cThe Jewish community has been by and large marginalizing these groups and put them on the back burner if they have even been on the stove at all,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Her job is to put these groups front and center. Baskin sums up the philosophy with which she is approaching her admittedly \u201cenormous portfolio\u201d: \u201cIt is the belief that we will be a stronger Jewish community when we welcome and incorporate the diversity that is the reality and future of Jewish life.\u201d Since unaffiliated Generation X<\/a> and millennials<\/a> are another important target for her outreach work, her young age is an advantage, rather than an obstacle.<\/p>\n

…It is language, however, that Baskin\u2019s family hasn\u2019t really been able to avoid. She was raised in a Jewish home by her Ashkenazi<\/a> mother and African-American father. Early on, they regularly received questions about \u201cwhat\u201d she was, and thus sought out the expertise of a psychology professor, who recommended they tell Baskin she was \u201cmultiracial and Jewish.\u201d The couple raised April and her brother in Sacramento, California<\/a> \u201cenmeshed in Jewish life\u201d complete with a close-knit Reform congregation and Reform Jewish summer camp…<\/p>\n

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

Meet April Baskin, the Multiracial Face of Reform Judaism Forward 2015-11-28 Allison Kaplan Sommer (Haaretz) Image: Haaretz See also: “Black and Jewish: New Reform Leader Works to Bring Marginalized Groups Into the Tribe”\u00a0on 2015-11-25\u00a0from Haaretz. To meet April Baskin is to see the change in American Jewry personified. A tall, confident, 32-year-old with an impressive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3601,8,820,20],"tags":[22121,22120,20566],"class_list":["post-44390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-judaism","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-usa","tag-allison-kaplan-sommer","tag-april-baskin","tag-forward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44390","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=44390"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44391,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44390\/revisions\/44391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}