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Teen people of color are finding, and building, their own spaces in Jewish life
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — As a young Black Jewish adoptee, Lindsey Newman felt close to the Jewish community on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where she grew up. Then adolescence hit and she started to feel like an outsider, struggling to find acceptance and independence at her synagogue.
It wasn’t until the end of high school that she began connecting on social media to organizations like the Jewish Multiracial Network and Be’chol Lashon to build her own connection to other Jews of color and find a sense of belonging.
Now, as the director of community engagement at Be’chol Lashon, an organization that supports Jewish diversity, Newman works to make sure other Jews of color like her feel welcomed and included in Judaism.
“Diversity is one of Judaism’s greatest assets,” said Newman. “When we even unintentionally leave out or marginalize parts of our community, we all lose.”
Around 17% of American Jews identify as nonwhite, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center report. But, as the Jews of Color Initiative found, only 18% out of the 1,118 surveyed belong to a synagogue — compared, according to another Pew study, to the 35% of all U.S. Jews who are synagogue members or have someone in their household who is a member. To address this gap, organizations and synagogues are developing programs to help Jewish teens of color feel at home.
For BBYO member Micah Pierandri, 17, the experience of being part of her local chapter in Tulsa, Oklahoma has been great. For example, she loved meeting Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas at the youth group’s International Convention. However, Pierandri, who is African American, wanted to connect more with JOCs, so she started the Members of Color Alliance through BBYO late last fall.
The club came about after she was called slurs at a BBYO summer camp in Pennsylvania by, according to Pierandri, participants who were “a mix of people of color and not.” BBYO did not respond to requests about the incident. Pierandri said the staff handled it well enough, but that she wanted to build on her experience. “I knew that if someone wasn’t going to stand up for other MOCs within BBYO I knew I could make that change,” she said. “I fought and fought until I did and here we are.”
The 12-member group provides a space specifically for teens of color to come together and connect with others similar to them, something Pierandri didn’t see existing before. MOCA members usually meet online through Zoom to discuss racial justice, learn from speakers, play games and provide cultural exchanges. Sometimes, members just get to chill with each other. “While the club is more racial justice-based I try my best to make sure it’s still fun and everyone has an amazing time,” said Pierandri.
Pierandri was able to form MOCA through On Demand, a virtual platform of BBYO. Late last year, the youth group released a new form for BBYO members to create any type of club that they desired. “Almost within less than 24 hours I had texts from all sorts of BBYO staff telling me they have my back for MOCA and want to help me make it a reality,” Pierandri said.
One MOCA member, Morgan Rodriguez, 16, felt turned off by other organizations’ JOC groups until she found the club within BBYO. As a Latino Jew, she felt she didn’t fit the stereotype of what a JOC should look like. “It was almost disheartening to find out that an organization wouldn’t want somebody because they’re mixed [race],” said Rodriguez, who lives in Delray Beach, Florida and is a mix of Ashkenazi and Ethiopian Jewish, Liberian, Cuban, Irish and Dutch ancestry.
Fortunately, Rodriguez sees the conversation changing, something she credits to social media. As a bonus, being able to see Jews who looked like her online made her feel more comfortable in her Jewishness.
The LUNAR Collective is trying to create this same space for teen Asian American Jews. The Bay Area-based group, which started as a film project, holds events to encourage pride in Asian Americans’ identities.
Rabbi Mira Rivera, rabbi-in-residence for LUNAR and the first Philipina rabbi to be ordained at the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary, said that when she joined synagogues after she was married, she struggled to find others to unite with. “The people I saw who looked like me were the ones I wasn’t supposed to talk to because they didn’t want to be outed [as converts] or they were the caregivers of members,” she said.
Other institutions have introduced initiatives over the past few years to engage Jewish teens of color in their community.
Be’chol Lashon, founded in San Francisco, started a Teen Tzedek fellowship during COVID. It provides mentorship for teens who are ethnically diverse, a multicultural summer camp and an online publication, Jewish&, that allows people of all ages to express their beliefs and stories through personal articles.
“Many young JOCS not only wanted and needed a peer network of other JOCs that looked like them, that had similar experiences, but also wanted and needed role models that reflected their experience,” said Be’chol Lashon’s Newman about Camp Be’chol Lashon.
The North American Federation of Temple Youth plans to create a fellowship for Reform Jewish teens of color, according to Kelly Whitehead, a rabbinic intern there.
This would be a welcome step for NFTY member Ben Smulewitz, 15, a Jewish teen of color living in San Rafael, California. “I’ve found a whole new Jewish community, and I’ve really enjoyed finding those people because there’s not that many of us out here,” said Smulewitz. “It’s nice to have Jewish friends because then you can relate on different levels about things.”
Rabbi Mira Rivera, center, said that when she joined synagogues after she was married, she struggled to find other Jews of color to unite with. (Courtesy of Ammud)
Last summer, Camp Newman in Virginia Beach organized a mediation after a few white teens made a game out of trying to stick pencils in a Black camper’s hair without her noticing, according to Smulewitz. JOCs shared their personal stories, which included programming that he helped lead.
When asked about the incident, URJ’s Executive Director of Strategic Innovation and Program, Michelle Shapiro Abraham, declined to disclose any specific information. In an email she wrote that: “We understand and embrace the diversity of our Jewish community and are very focused on making sure everyone feels like they belong.”
Another thing that helped Smulewitz feel more comfortable at NFTY was the affinity groups he joined at L’Taken, a social justice seminar held in Washington DC. It was, however, to acknowledge that you are a “minority within the minority.”
“It makes me sad to know that there are people that are scared to come out and say that they are a Jew of color instead of just blending in with everyone else.”
Synagogues are also striving to include teen JOCs in their programming Although Romemu and Central Synagogue, both in New York, don’t currently have programming specifically tailored for teens, they are making efforts to expand and include more teens of color.
Romemu is working with IKAR, a synagogue in Los Angeles that helps organizations and synagogues introduce more strategies to enhance their inclusivity.
According to Susan Brooks, human resources and operations manager at IKAR, “a lot of Jews of color are not affiliated with synagogues or Jewish organizations because in the past, they have not necessarily felt welcome,” making it difficult to get a good turnout. Being welcoming is the first step, Brooks said, to attracting a diverse group.
Gulienne Rollins-Rishon, racial justice specialist at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, said that within programming, JOCs sometimes “end up feeling like collectors’ items,” because they are often treated as tokens by organizations that want to demonstrate their diversity: “Like, how many Jews of color [do] we have here?” Rollins-Rishon said that people, especially teens, need to be able to define and own their identities.
“We need to create not only the space for Jewish teens of color to come and see that they’re being represented and reflected, but also [for them to think], I’m so glad that’s there because it means that I know I’m welcome here and I’m included here,” she said.
As a Black Jew, Rollins-Rishon has dealt with jarring experiences, such as when she was refused access to a Hanukkah party during her freshman year of college because the Hillel liaisons told her the room was reserved. They “literally tried to turn me away,” she said.
Now as an adult, her mission is for this not to happen to others. She said, “Now it’s my torch to carry to make sure that kids don’t have to run up against that wall as much.”
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The post Teen people of color are finding, and building, their own spaces in Jewish life appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Colorado congressional race upset hinged on Israel
A democratic socialist who put condemnation of Israel front and center in her campaign defeated a long-serving member of Congress in Colorado’s congressional primary Tuesday, adding to recent upsets that are rocking the Democratic party and Jewish politics.
Melat Kiros beat U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a 15-term incumbent first elected in 1996, just one week after two New York members of the Democratic Socialists of America movement defeated sitting congressmen targeted as supporters of military aid to Israel.
“Denver voters of all ages, of all races, of all religions sent a clear message: We will not wait!” Kiros declared in her victory speech, which took aim at U.S. aid for Israel. “We will not wait to reject corporate PACs like AIPAC. No, we will not wait to end the genocide in Palestine.”
She will face Republican Christy Peterson in the general election but is favored to win the heavily Democratic district.
Meanwhile, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors, won the Democratic nomination to replace the term-limited Gov. Jared Polis, who also is Jewish. David Seligman, a progressive Jewish candidate for the open attorney general seat, lost in a four-way contest to Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who gained notoriety for removing Donald Trump from Colorado’s 2024 ballot.
Kiros, who was born in 1997, the year DeGette took office, used Israel as a wedge throughout the campaign — calling for an arms embargo against Israel, including a suspension of funding for defensive weapons including the Iron Dome.
She also vows to abolish the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency and pass Medicare for all.
Hasan Piker, the progressive streamer who has been accused of trafficking in antisemitism, attended Kiros’ victory party in Denver Tuesday. She also picked up endorsements from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and a slew of leftist groups. Some Jewish Coloradans supported her, saying that her harsh criticism of Israel is necessary and warranted.
In her victory speech on Tuesday, Kiros reminded supporters that she did not flinch when her former law firm, Sidley Austin, threatened to fire her if she didn’t take down a post on Medium addressed to law firms nationally supporting anti-Israel student protesters on college campuses — and was ultimately terminated.
Kiros’ victory on Tuesday comes on the heels of the defeat of two Democratic incumbents in New York targeted specifically for their support of aid to Israel. A former Gaza war encampment leader on Columbia University’s campus, Darializa Avila Chevalier, beat incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, while former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander will replace Rep. Dan Goldman. Another candidate who campaigned on Israel, Claire Valdez, secured the nomination for another House seat being vacated by Rep. Nydia Velazquez in New York’s 7th district.
Like Kiros, both Valdez and Avila Chevalier are DSA members. Lander, who is Jewish, left DSA after Oct. 7, 2023, when DSA promoted a pro-Palestinian Times Square rally that Avila Chevalier attended.
Like Avila Chevalier, Kiros has come under scrutiny for her repudiation of Israel and its supporters.
In the final stretch of her campaign, Kiros gained national attention for declining to declare antisemitic the 2025 firebombing of a group holding a vigil in Boulder, saying in an interview: “I don’t know what was in the heart of the perpetrator. All I know is that he attacked innocent people because of what they might have believed,” adding that she could not say what they believed, either: “most of them were probably just there to ask that the people who were kidnapped on Oct. 7 be returned to their families.”
The attacker, Mohammed Soliman, was heard saying “Free Palestine” as he threw molotov cocktails and used an improvised flamethrower to burn 13 people, including an 82-year-old woman who later died of her wounds.
As a candidate, Kiros has said in interviews that weapons that defend Israeli citizens against attacks from Iran and Hezbollah “give Israel the cover” to continue policies of genocide and ethnic cleansing. (Genocide scholars have debated whether the war in Gaza rises to the level of genocide.)
And asked whether Israel “had it coming” on Oct. 7, Kiros told a local news channel “no, not at all — it’s about understanding the conditions in which violence and war happens.” She said Israel had resisted change despite decades of international frustration with its policies; her job as a member of Congress, she said, was to change those conditions.
In the gubernatorial contest, Weiser’s victory over U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet made him the likely next governor of the state. Colorado has not had a Republican governor since 2007.
Bennet’s mother, like Weiser’s, survived the Holocaust. She was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto as a child before her family immigrated to New York. But Bennet was raised Christian and does not identify as Jewish.
Estare Weiser was born in Buchenwald the day before the camp was liberated. Now 81, she was photographed celebrating with Weiser, 58, at his victory party Tuesday.
Weiser’s platform focuses on expanding the state’s universal preschool program, defending LGBTQ+ and women’s rights and countering Republican gerrymandering efforts in other states. He entered the race as an underdog, but successfully attacked Bennet for backing several Trump cabinet nominees.
The post Colorado congressional race upset hinged on Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Survey: Jews in smaller communities feel less heard when raising concerns about antisemitism
(JTA) — Jews living in smaller communities are less likely than those in large communities to feel their concerns about antisemitism are taken seriously by law enforcement and would-be allies, a new survey from the Jewish Federations of North America has found.
Jews in smaller communities were “lacking a sense of allyship in the communities around them,” said Mimi Kravetz, the chief impact and growth officer for JFNA.
“Jews in small communities tell us that they feel deeply concerned that they’re looking for support, that their leadership is looking for network and resources, because it can feel like they’re on their own,” Kravetz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The JFNA survey, which was compiled from its March 2025 study of Jewish Life in North America, found that 22% of Jews live in small communities. Defined as Jewish communities with fewer than 5,000 Jews living within five miles of their zip code, small Jewish communities are also more likely to be found in the South or in rural or suburban areas.
Although the survey found no statistically significant difference in the antisemitism experienced by Jews in smaller and larger communities, it found that Jews in small communities are more likely to feel that antisemitism is invalidated or dismissed.
Among respondents, 58% of Jews in small communities reported feeling more likely to be invalidated, compared with 48% of Jews overall.
Jews in small communities were also less likely to express confidence in local law enforcement’s responses to antisemitism. Just 39% of Jews in small communities say local law enforcement takes antisemitism seriously, compared with 47% of Jews in larger communities.
Leaders of small Jewish communities also feel less physically safe in Jewish spaces than their big city counterparts: 60% of those small-community leaders said they feel safe, compared to 86% of community leaders overall.
While the survey found that 50% of Jews in smaller communities report being unengaged in Jewish life, compared to 36% of Jewish respondents overall, they were just as likely to say they wanted greater connection to Jewish life.
The survey suggested that geographic constraints and limited availability of Jewish life likely caused the disparity in engagement, even as Jews sought out Jewish connections in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
Kravetz said Jews in small communities were just as likely as Jews in big communities to crave those connections.
“What’s needed in small Jewish communities is more leadership infrastructure and support for Jewish life,” Kravetz said.
The survey was conducted before the January arson attack on Beth Israel Congregation, the only synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, which drew renewed attention to the security challenges facing smaller Jewish communities.
Michele Schipper, the CEO of the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life, a nonprofit that supports Jewish communities across the South and was housed inside Beth Israel Congregation prior to the arson attack, said security remains a challenge for some smaller congregations.
“For some of those smaller communities, they may not be able to have personnel on site every time they’re open,” Schipper said. “It may be an older building. Not everyone is able to get one of the secure community grants,” she said, referring to federal and state government grants to nonprofits seen as vulnerable to attack.
Earlier this month leaders from Jewish communities across the South convened at the ISJL’s annual conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, where Schipper said they discussed strategies for keeping smaller communities safe.
“One of the things we really did share is how important it is not to isolate ourselves in these communities, but to continually build relationships with the local community, with local law enforcement, so that when, God forbid, something happens, you’re not starting to reach out or wait for somebody to contact you,” Schipper said.
Looking ahead, Schipper said her message to Jews in small communities was to “continue to build relationships in your own local community, and just continue to participate in the Jewish community and stay strong and positive.”
The study, which was conducted online by JFNA from March 5-25, 2025, surveyed 5,798 total U.S. adults, of which 1,877 identified as Jewish. The margin of error for Jewish adults was ± 2.26%, and samples were weighted to be representative of the U.S. population and Jewish community.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Survey: Jews in smaller communities feel less heard when raising concerns about antisemitism appeared first on The Forward.
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Hitler appears in the baby photos section of a New Jersey middle school
(JTA) — Adolf Hitler cropped up in the student baby photos section of a New Jersey middle school yearbook, prompting condemnation from school officials and local Jewish leaders.
In a letter sent last Thursday to the school community, East Brook Middle School Principal Ryan Aupperlee said that the school in Paramus had launched an investigation into the incident in “coordination with law enforcement.”
“Adolf Hitler represents hatred, antisemitism, and the horrors of the Holocaust, including the murder of six million Jews,” Aupperlee wrote in the letter obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “An image of him has no place in a yearbook created for our students. It does not reflect who we are or what East Brook stands for, and we condemn its inclusion without reservation.”
Sean Adams, the superintendent of Paramus Public Schools, told JTA in an emailed statement that the yearbooks were taken back from the students “the same day they were distributed, before the students left school for the day.”
“We are working with the yearbook company to develop a solution that will allow us to redistribute the yearbooks after removing the offensive content while still allowing students to retain the handwritten, personalized messages their classmates and teachers had already written in their yearbooks,” Adams said.
Adams said that an investigation into the incident was “ongoing,” and that “any details related to students must remain confidential.”
The incident comes amid a spate of allegations of antisemitism in New Jersey schools in recent years. In 2024, the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Teaneck Public Schools after parents alleged the system had fostered an antisemitic climate since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas massacres in Israel. The same year, teachers at Fort Lee High School presented a lesson that described Hamas as a “Palestinian political party and armed resistance movement.”
A high school yearbook in East Brunswick, New Jersey, also drew condemnation and was recalled in 2024 after a photo of the “Jewish Student Association” was replaced with one of a Muslim student group.
Jason Shames, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, said that the incident was “shocking people to the core.”
“I’m not rushing to judgment, but again, if I know that it’s a minor, I want consequences. If I know that’s an adult, I want consequences,” Shames said, adding that the Jewish community “demands” to see accountability.
On Friday, Paramus Mayor Chris DiPiazza condemned the incident in a post on Facebook, writing that, “Any examples, like yesterday’s, does not reflect Paramus.”
Shames said that while he felt the school “handled it right,” he was still looking to other state leaders for a statement condemning the incident.
“There should be global condemnation,” Shames said. “If the school has already done it, and the mayor’s already done it, where’s the uproar?”
He said the incident reflected a broader normalization of antisemitism.
“It’s infuriating that it’s come to this. There’s a bigger statement about the illness in American society today, and the antisemitism, and the hate that’s involved in this,” Shames said. “Even if it winds up being two middle school kids who thought it was funny, we have a problem now with people thinking Hitler and Nazi jokes are funny.”
Rabbi Arthur Weiner, the leader of the Conservative Congregation Beth Tikvah in Paramus, said that he was first alerted to the yearbook by a congregant whose child attends the school.
On Monday, Weiner sent a letter to congregants saying that he was “angered by this blatant antisemitic incident,” and had been in contact with the school district and local elected leaders about their response.
“Events like these are of great concern to us both personally and as a community,” Weiner wrote. “Incidents involving Nazi imagery or references to Hitler are not merely offensive. They touch deep historical wounds and remind us why vigilance remains so important.”
Weiner said that the local Jewish community could “take heart in the reaction of the authorities to this particular event.”
“We have not always seen that clear and unambiguous response from school districts when similar incidents of antisemitism and bias have occurred,” Weiner told JTA. “I think we’ve been very, very proud of the response.”
Rabbi Shmuel Goldstein of the Modern Orthodox Congregation Beth Tefillah in Paramus said that while many parents at his congregation had expressed “frustration,” “hurt,” and “concern” over the incident, they also felt “supported by the local government.”
Goldstein said that he nonetheless did “not feel that there’s nearly enough proactive measures in the local school systems.”
“These incidents don’t happen in a vacuum,” Goldstein said. “They happen because someone is taught at home on social media or informally amongst peers at schools, that it is okay to hurt Jewish people, that has to be made clear, that that is unacceptable.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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