Hanukkah at the Roots: Night 7 - Anti-Black Racism
Koach Baruch Frazier is the Founder of Black Trans Torah Club and Co-founder of Tzedek Lab. They are a collaborative leader, rooted in tradition, curiosity and love and they are a member of The Shalom Center’s Advisory Council.
The Council for Democratizing Education defines anti-Blackness as “being a two-part formation that both voids Blackness of value, while systematically marginalizing Black people and their issues. The first form of anti-Blackness is overt racism. Beneath this anti-Black racism is the covert structural and systemic racism which categorically predetermines the socioeconomic status of Black folks in this country. The structure is held in place by anti-Black policies, institutions, and ideologies.”
This antiBlack racism is at the root of many of the crises that we are facing, including within the Jewish community. And this doesn’t end with Jews of Color in the rabbinic world. It has been present in the devaluing of the Israelites who have been here in the United States for centuries. Many folks claim that they are not Jews, however when we look at the movement of Israelites throughout the continent of Africa, one can trace the Israelites of the Tanakh to many of the Black folks who were stolen and enslaved through the trans atlantic slave trade. This has been documented through many historians (Joseph J Williams, Steven Jacobs, Moses Farrar, John Jackson, James Landing, Remy Ilona and many more) and published in books that are readily available to those who seek them out. What has been made a debate in opinion pieces and in the walls of synagogues is just a fact. Israelites have had dark skin, going as far back as Avraham and Sarah, Yitzhak and Rivka, and Ya’akov, Bilhah, Zilpah, Rachel, and Leah. Denying our existence is participating in antiBlack racism.
When I first heard about Mordachai Kaplan’s two civilizations, I immediately thought of Black folks' experience in this country. I have known this deep down in the belly of the soul feeling that comes with living in these two worlds and the exhausting work of navigating them in order to survive. And for Black folks of Israelite heritage, there is yet this third world that doesn’t accept the fact that Black folks are Jews. In fact, the rich and beautiful cultural, religious and spiritual practices of Black Judaisms is no doubt long and varied. Just listen to the spirituals, which kept the Israelites who were enslaved grounded and nourished, which became the foundation of so many musical traditions in this country. Additionally, there were many Israelites who fought in the union army during the civil war and in the heat of the race riots of the early 1900s, the Israelites were establishing temples around the country, creating refuge for our people. Many of these institutions are still around today and continue the work of justice and spiritual grounding.
If we want to reach the promised land, which I believe IS the future, we must do the necessary work of uprooting antiBlack racism in our own community, dedicating ourselves to this endeavor every day of our lives.
— by Koach Baruch Frazier
Read/Watch/Listen:
There are many ways to learn about Israelites here in the U.S. You can bring Rabbi on the Block to your community and meet Shebrew herself, Rabbi Tamar Mannaseh. You can also purchase her book, Run! Run! Run!: A Child's Book About Gun Safety, which is a children's book based in her anti gun violence work she has been doing for many years in Chicago.
Action Items:
If you are interested in learning about one way to repair the harm that has been done to the Israelite community through education, you can read Rabbi Dr. Walter Isaac’s recent article in the Forward. Anything that Dr. Lewis Gordon writes is good, however I recommend this short biographical piece.
Kavannah
by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
When Pharaoh decided to split
The working class of Egypt
To protect / prolong his royal power
He called the Godwrestle-folk with ugly names:
“Hebrews” — Ivrim, Cross-Overs,
Double-Crossers, Cosmopolitans, Wetbacks
Who swarmed with babies,
Who wanted to replace
The sturdy Egyptian farmers.
Make them share-croppers
Who had to move
To habitats far from home
“In a foreign tongue,” he warned,
“They’re plotting to become domestic terrorists.”
Perhaps the first carefully invented racism.
The strategy almost worked
And served the powerful,
Not only Pharaoh! — for millennia.
But there was Light
That sparked a great rebellion,
Nonviolent, more powerful than pyramids.
A fire that was inward,
Did not consume the Bush it burned in,
Bespoke the focused anger
Of the Breath of life
That could nurture Justice
Or bring a plague to vanquish unjust power.
This Inner Fire we welcome
In the seventh Hanukkah candle
For it teaches us to make Alliances
With all the oppressed.
The Freedom Flag is Black and Brown,
Red and Yellow, with Fringes
To celebrate our Fringiness.
All of us Godwrestlers
Who know God’s world needs fixing.
We light the inner Burning Bush
Of Love and Liberation.
Blessings
midrashic translations by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Baruch atah / Brucha aht Yahhh, Blessed are You, Breath of life, Ruach HaOlam, Interbreathing of the world, asher kidshanu b’mitzvot, vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Hanukkah, Who makes us holy by connecting with the Breath and with each other, at this moment to kindle the light of Hanukkah to see our cousins.
Baruch atah, <Brucha aht> YHWH {Yahh} Eloheinu, Ruach haolam, she-asah nisim — lo v’chayil v’lo v’choach ki im b’ruchech — l’horeinu bayamim hahaeim baz’man hazeh.
Blessed are You, YHWH [Yahhh] our God, Breath of all life, Who has brought about amazing deeds — not by might and not by power, but by Your Spirit — through our forebears in those days and in ourselves, this very season.
Light shamash / helper candle and Candle 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7 of Hanukkiah.