This weekend, eJewishPhilanthropy, the main online publication supporting the Jewish professional world, published an essay by demographers of American Jewish life, Ira M. Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky, “How Many Jews of Color Are There?” which was republished in the Forward. The essay, a preview a chapter in their forthcoming “American Jewish Yearbook”, concludes that we have over-counted Jews of Color. While a recent study commissioned by the Jews of Color Field Building Initiative put the percentage of the Jewish community that are Jews of Color between 12 and 15%, Sheskin and Dashefsky argue that Jews of Color make up closer to 6% of the American Jewish community.
For many of us working to create a more inclusive Jewish community for Jews of Color and others who have been marginalized from Jewish life, this essay comes as a huge blow. Empirically, we have all observed that the Jewish community, though always racially diverse, has become increasingly more so in recent years. We have also observed that this growing diversity is not necessarily translating to proportional participation in mainstream Jewish communal organizations.
Read more: https://forward.com/opinion/446872/jews-of-color-deserve-an-accurate-count/
