On being Black and Jewish
June 28, 2020
SAN DIEGO — Being of mixed racial background and also Jewish often feels like no matter what group you are with, you are perceived as the “other,” sometimes prompting doubts if there is any group with which you truly belong. Such was the thrust of comments made by Jessica Lemoine and Jenni Asher during an Internet forum on Sunday sponsored by the San Diego Outreach Synagogue and moderated by Rabbi/ Cantor Cheri Weiss and her husband Dan Weiss.
Asher, a musician with a degree from the Royal Academy of Music in London, is now studying for the cantorate at the Academy of Jewish Religion in California, the same institution at which Rabbi/Cantor Weiss was ordained. Married to a Jew whose family fled Egypt, Asher decided to convert to Judaism first in a Conservative ceremony and later in an Orthodox one. When her 2-year-old daughter grows up, she explained, should she want to marry a religious Jew, she doesn’t want anyone to question the authenticity of her mother’s conversion.
Prior to Asher’s decision to become a Jew by choice, she had been a member of the fundamentalist Worldwide Church of God, whose members often styled themselves as inheritors of Biblical Judaism. She said she decided to search out “real Jews” and began attending synagogue in London, then continued her exploration of Judaism and eventual conversion in the United States. At first, she said, she welcomed explanations of synagogue rituals from members of the congregations she attended, but after she learned her way through the rituals, she was bothered that people still assumed that she had to be instructed — that because of her skin color, she must not be Jewish. “To be seen as the other, comes as a surprise, when you don’t think of yourself as the other,” she said.
Asher recalled playing violin at a Friday night service, and being asked afterwards by a female congregant, who was White, whether it was true that she was Jewish. The mother explained that her daughter is half-Mexican and considers herself to be, like Asher, a “Jew of Color.” Asher said anyone who looked at the girl would consider her to be White, no matter her Mexican heritage. “I had to grapple with my feelings: ‘This girl passes, what problems does she have?’ At that point, Asher added, “I realized that I’m as racist as anyone else.” Difficult conversations among people of different race are needed “to recognize these feelings exist.”
Asked if she had ever experienced anti-Semitism, she said she had been challenged by people of her former church, but that the opposition she felt was “different” from the kind of negativity she experiences as a Black person.
