Tablet Magazine - a new read on Jewish life

Like the Holocaust, the refugee crisis, the Yizkor service, and Bubbe’s mortality, racism and bias are subjects white Jewish parents often viscerally want to shield their kids from. But that’s our own discomfort talking. When you don’t help your child interpret the world, you’ve left a negative space in which other people will do your job. The TV, the car radio, the street, Instagram, other kids in Google Classroom. So what do we tell our white kids about the whats, hows, and whys of today’s protests against police brutality? Before we talk at all, we need to listen. A good place to start is by listening to African American Jews. Kenny Kahn, an African American Jewish educator in Northern California and dad to Theo and Harris, told Tablet in an interview, “Both the Black and Jewish sides of my family are good talkers, but sometimes it can feel less attentive to say, ‘I have a remedy!’ than to listen and be present in the moment.” ...

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