That young man, Kivie Kaplan, became an unsung hero of the civil rights era. He marched with Dr. King in Selma, traveled to Mississippi for Freedom Summer, and served as a president of the NAACP.
Late in life, Kivie helped found the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, our advocacy and social justice home in Washington. A few years after the RAC’s founding, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were penned on its conference room table.
The story of Kivie Kaplan is the story of Reform Judaism. We should be proud of the giants of that era: rabbis, Jewish leaders, and college students who risked their lives for the rights of all. But it is also a story of a bygone age. Kivie Kaplan was a white Jew, who fought for the rights of Black Christians. As the story is told, it was Jews and Blacks, two distinct and separate communities.
Ilana Kaufman addresses this dichotomy in a question: “Have you ever wondered if there were Black Jews on the Pettus Bridge?”[ii] To talk about a Jewish community and a Black community asks Black Jews and other Jews of Color to segment themselves in impossible ways. We are one community: white Jews, Black Jews, Brown Jews; a rich diverse Jewish tapestry. [iii]
On the High Holy Days, we are asked to be reflective of who we are and what we stand for. It is in this vein, that today, on Yom Kippur, we proclaim that Black Jewish Lives Matter.
I come to you this morning with trepidation because speaking about racism and our own bias is never easy. We want to believe that we don’t have racism in us, that we aren’t racist, but we are nurtured in a culture where even the most well intended of us can encounter blind spots and propagate racist ideas despite our desire to be kind. I never wish to cause hurt to anyone in our community, this is not my intent. But I do wish to make each of us, including those of us who are white, including myself, a little bit uncomfortable, because that is the only way to propel us to action.
Throughout Yom Kippur, dozens upon dozens of times, we will recite the words “Al Cheit Shechetanu… For the sins we have committed.” These sins are recited not in the singular, but in the plural, for each of us has an obligation for our personal sins as well as the sins of our congregation and our society.
That is why we must take responsibility, both individually and as a community, for the sins of personal, structural, and systemic racism. I share with you “For the Sins of Racism” by Yavilah McCoy. I urge you, as we do throughout Yom Kippur, to beat your chest for each of these sins.
“For the sins of racism that we have committed by not seeing racism as an evil among us.
For the sins we have committed through segregating Jewish souls in Black bodies from participation and leadership within our institutions.
For the sins we have committed in not caring for the ways that race and class intersect in our effort to welcome Black people in Jewish space.
For the sins of racism we have committed through creating hierarchies of value between our siblings from Europe and those from the Middle East and Africa.
For the sins of racism that we have committed by not committing to end it.
For all these, we seek pardon, forgiveness, and atonement” [iv]
I’ve taken this High Holy Days to focus my Cheshbon HaNefesh, the accounting of my soul – on my prejudice and discomfort around race. I’ve recognized that I fear talking about race. I worry that I will say something wrong or hurtful, so I shy away from discussing it entirely. I also sense my own vulnerability around my white privilege. Over these last few months, I’ve taken time to talk with peers, dug deeply into my own bias, and gathered as part of an anti-Racism course, to begin and address my own racism head on.
I urge us all, but especially those who are white, to take time to reflect. What is your bias? What is the inner racism which lies within your soul?
Answering these questions are not easy. We must sit in our own discomfort and truly listen to our hearts, but we must be brave enough to open up conversation, to be vulnerable enough to share our reflections with those who can hold a mirror up to our souls.
Reflection is good, but we need to make a commitment to heal this wound of racism. It means constantly working each-and-every day to be an anti-racist; speaking up when we hear any sort of racism or bias. Those of us who are white must recognize our whiteness, of what it means to be white. It means that we no longer will be a bystander, that we must be willing to give up our comforts to truly make a difference.
It also means relearning what we were taught. Our nation was founded on racism – so much of our country’s history is missing from our text books: Black people brought here against their will, not counted equally to white people, transition from slavery to mass incarceration, Black codes, Jim Crow, Redlining, laws created to disenfranchise Black people to voter suppression. We know there are double standards for how we treat white people and Black people, whether it’s police brutality to a simple traffic stop that could lead a black person to their grave. It’s time for us to rethink these standards, to reeducate ourselves by hearing the voices of Black and Brown members of our community.
Personal responsibility is a good first step, but we also must work to transform our congregation. Over the last few months, almost 20 members participated in a anti-Racism training, and another series will be beginning after the holidays. A separate task force has looked closely at “Not Free to Desist”[v] a letter to our Jewish community by Black Jews, Non-Black Jews of Color, and their allies about Re-Imagining Our Collective Jewish Covenant. This task force and our Board of Directors has begun to create an action plan that will work to create true equity and inclusion at Bolton Street Synagogue. This means new approaches to celebrating multi-racial Jewish identities; developing curriculum in our school that includes the full diversity of the Jewish people; creating new policies and practices that address racism and other barriers to Jewish participation, while finding new pathways to leadership for Jews of Color at Bolton Street and throughout the Baltimore Jewish community.
This is only the beginning; we have a lot of work to do! Yet, we can be proud of the community we’ve created: a home for the diverse Baltimore community. The foundation is laid, but now we must build upon the warmth and communal feeling of BSS. That means that if you are a part of our community, your liberation is bound up in mine. We stand together; we can’t move forward if anyone is left behind. We must dig deeper and do the difficult work of inclusion for all. This requires love, empathy, understanding, and vulnerability: anti-racism, yes, but also LGBTQ and gender equality and disability awareness; to make sure that our tagline “Doors Wide Open” is truly being honored.
Yet, we know that our work does not stop at our doors. The Jewish vision believes that prayer and Torah study must propel us to fix this broken world. This election is the most important of our lifetime; an election that will decide the survival of our democracy. We must vote like never before. That includes encouraging everyone we know to create a voting plan. We must speak truth to power and to do everything in our capabilities to change our nation, to fight against racism, to fight for decency. Whether it’s working on voting rights, joining with our local allies, or focusing on police reform and education reform, we need our broad Jewish community to risk something. If we say we’re an ally, what have we risked to be a true ally?
Many decades ago, Kivie Kaplan saw that sign “No Jews, No Dogs” and began a lifelong journey to build a just and inclusive world. We stand upon his shoulders, continuing to build a better world, not just outside the walls of our synagogue, but inside our community as well. In this New Year 5781, we are called upon to continue do this work of extinguishing racism and building an inclusive Jewish community. May we delve deeply into our own racial biases; may we work to transform how we as synagogue do what we do; may we risk our comfortable existence to stand up as an ally; and may we never forget that Black Jewish Lives Matter, for we are one community: white Jews, Black Jews, Brown Jews; a rich diverse Jewish tapestry.
[i] As
shared by Rabbi Jonah Pesner
[ii]
Ilana Kaufman, “The Uncomfortable Truth,” Eli Talk, August 4, 2015
[iii]
In appreciation to Rabbi Jessy Dressin, Alaine Jolicoeur, and KeSean Johnson
for their thoughtful critique and guidance in helping to craft this sermon.
[iv] A
Communal “Al Cheit” for the Sins of Racism by Yavilah McCoy, 2016 (Adapted)
https://www.truah.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Al_Chet_for_Racism_Yavilah_McCoy.pdf
[v] https://www.notfreetodesist.org/
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