May Is Jewish American Heritage Month
You could be forgiven for not knowing that.
May is Jewish American Heritage Month. Missed the memo?
I usually miss it too.
My Google calendar reminds me that May 1 begins Asian American Pacific Islander Month, and local media falls over itself to share the best books by AAPI writers, causes to donate to, restaurants to try. I mean to throw no shade on the AAPI community. It’s big and diverse and doesn’t always get attention from mainstream outlets (or the local government, which has failed to help Chinatown/International District deal with rampant crime). But it makes me think about which communities get the spotlight at any given time. As we’ll see in this week’s excellent guest essay below, Jewish American identity is complicated, a weird swirl of privilege and disenfranchisement. We’ve been blended into greater American society more, apparently, than other groups. It’s a huge success story. It’s the American Dream. Yet it comes at a cost: Are we disappearing?
So in thinking about this week’s post, I decided to do something a little different. Here are 10 ways to get your Jewish history appreciation on—this month and beyond.
Attend a local Jewish community event. Check out the Federation’s calendar for tons of events around the Sound, like a concert with the Seattle Jewish Chorale or join other Jews for an urban hike with the Stroum JCC. May is looking more like Israel month, actually. Want to grapple with our relationship to the Holy Land? Sign up to hear from historian, activist and author Gil Troy at the StandWithUs NW reception May 23, or go deep at the inventive new Z3 initiative at the Stroum JCC on May 21.
Support local Jewish history. Walk around the Central District and look for the stars of David in the architecture, especially at the Tolliver Temple, a church that was the original home of Sephardic Bikur Holim. Tolliver Temple has been nominated for City of Seattle Landmark status and will undergo consideration on May 17 at 3:30. You can write a letter of support or attend the hearing and give public comment. Other landmarks include LANGSTON, originally the Bikur Cholim Ashkenazi synagogue, and the former Cherry Street Mosque, which was the Talmud Torah and now functions as an interfaith social justice center.
Browse our amazing archives. Start with the Washington State Jewish Historical Society’s digital Jewish museum. Queue up an oral history, and learn about what life was like for Jews in Washington going back several generations.
Learn about American Jewish history. Maybe this sounds obvious, but how much do you really know about Jewish history in this country? Start with George Washington’s letter to the Jews of Newport in 1790.
Support Jewish food. This one shouldn’t be hard. From Eltana to Zylberschtein’s to Dingfelder’s to the new Ben & Esther’s Vegan Jewish Deli, this is pretty low hanging fruit.
Read a Jewish book. This is another pretty easy one. But I’m constantly amazed at how much I don’t know about Jewish history and I went to school for it. I truly think lack of historical knowledge is the biggest problem for American Jews. I recommend Dara Horn’s People Love Dead Jews and Bari Weiss’s How to Fight Anti-Semitism. What’s your favorite Jewish book? Put it in the comments or the chat!
Take on a new mitzvah. Whether you take mitzvah to mean commandment or good deed, try establishing a new one. Gossip less. Light Shabbat candles. Find out what Jewish Family Service needs help with. Something.
Honor Shabbat. However that may be. Set aside dedicated technology-free time with family or friends. Share a meal. Talk. Study the parsha. Take a walk. Take a nap. Brunch and shopping can happen on Sunday. Your brain and nervous system will thank you.
Be proud to be Jewish. We have a habit of keeping our heads down and even apologizing for our existence. Embrace your heritage and don’t let anyone make you check it at the door. Know your own story and practice your Jewish identity elevator pitch.
Be proud to be American. I can’t believe how controversial this sounds these days. America treats Jews better than any other country in the history of the world by a light year. Help the country to live up to its promise as a beacon of liberty for all.
Share your thoughts and your own recommendations in the comments or chat.
Guest Essay
The Two-Sided Heritage of American Jews
By Mark Fefer
I came across this essay by my friend Mark Fefer on LinkedIn this week, and I thought it perfectly stated what I’ve been thinking about lately, and I thought it was the perfect message to share for Jewish American Heritage Month.
This article was first published in the monthly newsletter of Project W, a national program that connects venture capital investors with startup companies led by women.
Mark Fefer is head of PR and strategic communications at Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
Being Jewish can put you in an odd place in the diversity conversation.
We’re only 2% of the U.S. population—a fraction of even other minorities. And we carry a long and painful history of persecution over many centuries.
But are we, in diversity parlance, underrepresented? Most definitely not. We are overrepresented—wildly overrepresented—in almost any professional field you can name: medicine, law, business, journalism, science, the arts, professional sports. (OK fine, professional sports management….)
We are an extremely privileged group. We feel it ourselves. Jews have had such success and acceptance in this country, it almost feels like a dream. And yet. Antisemitic conspiracy theories proliferate. Comedians openly express suspicion of Jews on national television. Our schools and synagogues are surrounded by security fencing and armed guards.
As we enter Jewish American Heritage Month, it’s a good time to consider the effect this discordant heritage can have on your Jewish co-workers, business colleagues, and friends. It may seem strange that Jewish people, who seem to have been blessed with every advantage imaginable in this country, who now walk with seeming ease through the corridors of wealth and power, could at the same time be so anxious and hypersensitive to anything they perceive as antisemitism.
The reason—at least part of the reason—lies in what our entire history has taught us: that today’s privilege quickly becomes tomorrow’s nightmare. The Jews of pre-World War II Germany were also comfortable, successful, and assimilated. A lot of good it did them.
Last month was the holiday of Passover. It celebrates the Israelites’ liberation from Egyptian slavery. It also recalls our descent into slavery, as recounted in the Torah (aka the Hebrew Bible). As the book of Genesis comes to a close, Joseph has impressed the king of Egypt with his wisdom and been installed as a powerful viceroy. He’s brought his extended family down to Egypt too and they’ve taken residence in a rich and bountiful part of the country. The Jews have it made. Then the book of Genesis ends. Years pass, and as the book of Exodus opens, we’re told that “a new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph.” This new king is worried about these Jews. They’ve grown too strong, too numerous. He’s suspicious of their loyalty. And only a few verses later, we’ve been completely enslaved.
This isn’t just a foundational story—it’s actual history that’s happened to us across countries and continents. Not always slavery, but expulsion, ghettoization, and murder.
There are many, many strains of antisemitic hate. There’s religious animosity. There’s a belief in Jewish racial inferiority. There’s resentment of the way Jews cling to the authority of their own tradition and resist majority culture. One of the most common kinds of antisemitism arises from paranoia about Jewish power. We saw it again last month when former President Trump was indicted. Instantly, his supporters made it known that this was all a scheme being orchestrated by the Jewish philanthropist George Soros. It’s a kind of trope being heard more and more in this country and it’s always a sure sign of authoritarianism on the rise.
Yet with all this, we still enjoy tolerance and security that my murdered grandfather in Lithuania could never have thought possible. And not just tolerance! According to recent data from the Pew Center, Americans look more favorably on Jews than any other religious group.
Several years ago I started wearing my kippah, or skullcap, in public, in a city (Seattle) where that’s extremely rare. And I can tell you it’s prompted nothing but positive interactions. I can’t count the number of people, of all colors and walks of life, in all kinds of settings, who’ve greeted me with “Shalom” or otherwise shown approving interest. I was walking to the train the other day when a guy leaned out his car window and shouted: “Hey, what do I gotta do to become Jewish, man? I like you guys’s business!” And drove off.
This is, for many of us, a Promised Land.
But that memory of slavery—which the Torah exhorts us, over and over again, to keep fresh in our minds—remains. It’s the wolf at the door that helps drive Jewish ambition. It inspires the progressive politics that characterize the vast majority of American Jews. And it makes us an important part of the DEI conversation. As you engage with the Jewish people in your professional life—and it’s likely there are some—this two-sided heritage is one to bear in mind.
Community Announcements
Check out the Seattle Jewish community calendar and the virtual calendar.
Shoutouts
Mazels to Bill Mowat who will receive the Dr. Charles & Lillian Kaplan Board Chair's Award for Outstanding Service at the upcoming Federation’s Annual Meeting.
Many thanks to Outgoing Board Chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle David Isenberg for his light touch and steady hand on the tiller. —Linda Clifton
In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week, thank you to all our Jewish day school teachers who go above and beyond not only to teach but to nurture and help us raise good kids. —Emily
"who now walk with seeming ease through the corridors of wealth and power, " More about what it's like to walk through the corridors of wealth and power - getting an offer for a contract job at a local tech company, coming here from CA, arriving on the first day, only to find that the job didn't exist because the people who hired me weren't authorized to hire anyone. Then when the manager returned from vacation, he refused to talk to me. At group meetings, he went around the table and passed over me. When I presented my results and gave them to him in writing, he refused to read it. When a new project leader was hired, there was a layoff notice on my desk. Oh, and they tried to tell me I had to buy a $10,000 computer for the job, and that I could put it on a credit card. Here's another example of dark skinned Jewish women walking through the corridors of power: a male from Australia given a teaching assistantship and my not being treated as an equal, and having to take a teaching assistantship in another subject. Or being bullied by white Anglo students in graduate school to the point where I changed advisers and my topic. Or another example, attending a public math lecture at the Institute of Advanced Studies, with two men from France sitting next to me, talking in French about how this woman (me) could be there, and asking what I could possibly know about this subject, not realizing that I could understand everything they were saying in French. Or winning a fellowship to study in Japan for a year, only to have it rescinded after a Japanese professor in the US asked them to award it to his male student., whose music composition project was about murdering people, whereas my project was about computers and signal processing. Or winning a fellowship to study in Korea for a summer, only to turn it down because it wasn't a 100% fellowship and nothing would have replaced my hourly wages from a summer job. Or a job at a large company in NJ, when two white Anglo men mentioned their salaries, which were $20,000 more than mine, with the same job and the same education level. So please don't erase the life stories of Jewish women with dark skin who come from the other side of the tracks, the students who didn't have parents paying for their college or even emotionally supporting them, the people without inheritance or trust funds or houses. Or teaching at four community colleges in New Jersey, but not one community college here even calling me in for an interview - that's hatred, not privilege and power. Perhaps some Jews have enjoyed advantages, but these generalizations, and the failure to count the hiring and promotion of Jews just as Hispanic and Black workers are counted by HR offices, has damaged and seriously damages our lives. Now Black and Hispanic women know their labor statistics, but Jewish women were denied that. At the very least, our community should acknowledge how privileged we are not, how everything is a struggle, and how you have to work much harder to achieve a tenth of what comes automatically to the majority culture. And many Jewish women struggle with being able to walk at all, let alone through the corridors of power. A whole generation of Jewish women in the US is going into old age alone and with no support system. This is how we walk through the corridors of wealth and power.
Anyone who thinks we walk through the corridors of professional life easily doesn't know what it's like to be a Jewish woman who isn't wealthy in R&D in the tech industry, even to have a Jewish person offer you some hourly gig economy contracting, but not the principal engineer role. Or to have a Jewish science professor offer and promise you a job and announce it to his lab, but then never follow though with the paperwork, primarily because you are competent enough to be a threat to the postdoc on the project. Or to have a rabbi say to you that you can clean houses when you have a Master's degree in engineering from the top school in the US. Or to get a layoff notice in your contract job from a Chinese director when you say you will be out for Rosh Hashanah, because bosses think that you're really going to a job interview and don't understand our holidays. Or to go to a job fair and have the female recruiter from India not talk to you regardless of how qualified you are. Or to teach at 4 community colleges in NJ and have not one community college here even offer an interview. Or to see white, Christian men with the same level of education and experience I have easily get Research Scientist 3 or 4 at UW, while I was never able to get a job. Or to be interviewed at a large company in Silicon Valley and have the interviewer say, "I will work on the algorithms and you will do the software." Or to move here for a contract job with papers from a national staffing agency and show up on the first day of work only to find that there is no job because the people who hired me weren't authorized to hire anyone, and the manager returning from vacation refusing to have a conversation. Or to be undermined by another women playing little tricks when that would not happen to a male. So privileged and walking so easily through the corridors of power.