Who I Was Meant to Be

In a world—and in an America—that constantly seems to be changing, as a Black and Ashkenazi Jewish woman, I have found one thing to be a constant: Someone else always wants to control the narrative around my identity. At times, it has been implicit. At times, explicit. And in a post-Oct. 7 world, it has only grown louder.

To be fair, in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, my identity was actually never discussed in constructive ways. I was simply that “Jewish girl” in Black spaces and that “Black girl” in Jewish spaces. Sometimes, in Jewish spaces, I was the “shvartze.” Sadly, sometimes, I still am.

Throughout my life, members of the Black community have regularly pushed me to simply identify as “Black.” Not biracial. Not mixed. And certainly not Jewish. And my refusal to do so has not come without consequences, for it has meant a lifetime of robust rejection, with me often wryly joking that I am never “invited to the barbecue.”

For a brief, shining moment, in 2020, and in a “post-George Floyd” America, I was celebrated for being both/and. The discussion around racial equity within—and outside of—the Jewish community was vibrant. Active. Engaged. It was a revelation, and for me, the hope of a revolution. I was finally seen as whole in being Black and Ashkenazi Jewish, rather than being divided into parts, which is too often how I am viewed. And it was glorious.

But that moment was not to last.

As antisemitism began to rise in 2022 with Kanye West’s painful and dangerous anti-Jewish ranting, so, too, did the openness to celebrating our diversity begin to shift in my experience. I slowly found that people again started to tell me that I “don’t look Jewish.” I was asked again “what are you doing here?”—by security guards and congregants alike—when I would try to attend services on Friday nights. The desire to engage in the challenging but critically important conversation around racial equity within the Jewish community began to slow. And when I would question why, I was told, “antisemitism and Israel are our problems. Not racism.”

In now a post-Oct. 7 world, with antisemitism at an all-time, violent high, and the relationship between the Black and Jewish communities under tremendous strain, there has been yet another shift. And that shift has been devastating for me. The conversation around racial equity within the Jewish community that thrived in 2020 has now become all but silent—even in the most progressive Jewish spaces. Security in Jewish spaces has rightfully been ramped up, but sadly, so, too, has racial profiling: I am now regularly patted down by security guards before I am allowed to enter. I am viewed as a potential threat to my own people, which is an experience that is far more demoralizing than I can describe.

I am exhausted. And I feel often more isolated than ever.

To make matters more challenging, I am also experiencing explicit pressure from some Jews to solely identify as Jewish, much as I have been pressured by some in the Black community to solely identify as Black. And that is something new.

Since Oct. 7, my Instagram and Facebook feeds have featured a steady flow of posts in support of the hostages still being held in Gaza, but recently I posted on my Instagram stories a clip from a Sister Act 2, 30th-reunion special. The 1993 film features a multicultural high school gospel choir and the music has always filled me with tremendous joy. As music so often does.

Almost immediately, I began to receive DM’s from people—many of whom I knew—telling me that “now is not the time for you to lean into being Black. It is your obligation to continue to focus your posts on being Jewish and on the Jewish community ….”

Some came from strangers, as they often do. But a few came from people who knew me. Who have spent time with me. Who dared to call me “friend.” And nearly all of the messages came from people who described themselves as “progressive.”

One especially horrifying note came from a now-former friend. A self-described “progressive in Judaism and all things,” this person tore me apart. “I used to respect you,” the note began. “But that you would choose NOW to focus on being Black is an affront to our community. You who cry out for acceptance won’t get it this way. Just be Jewish.”

All of this simply because I posted some music that made my heart sing.

To add insult to my considerable injury, many of the people who wrote to me privately to tell me that my focus that day on “being Black” offended them also spoke out publicly in horror when Donald Trump dared to question Kamala Harris’ race just a couple weeks earlier. They talked about the inherent racism in it and the importance of celebrating all of us for being who they are.

Except, it seems, if one is Black and Jewish like me. And the virulent hypocrisy in that is not something that I think should be ignored.

“Just be Jewish,” they said. “Don’t push your Blackness now. It’s not the time.” No longer is it glorious, it seems, that I am both Black and Ashkenazi Jewish as it was in 2020.

Just be Jewish.

In a Jewish world that is only increasing in diversity, to maintain the long-held fallacy that Jews are one thing—and that Black is not on the list—is not merely wrong. Or antiquated. In today’s world, I would offer that maintaining this position is divisive and dangerous.

Per the 2020 Pew Research Center study “Jews in America,” 8% of Jewish Americans identify as nonwhite, and among Jewish Americans under the age of 30, that number rises to 15%. Those numbers have increased from the 2013 study. This is something to be celebrated. Just as our diversity is something to be celebrated. Not pushed into invisibility so that people will “just be Jewish.”

At a time when there are those who are clamoring for our extinction, we cannot afford to be a divided people. We also cannot afford to push aside people who are deeply proud to be Jewish simply because of the color of their skin. We never could. But not now when, I would offer, we need one another more than ever.

To those who would have me just be Black or just be Jewish, I can only say that the request is an impossible one, for I do not exist without being both. I cannot exist without being both. Surely, I tell myself, that is not what people really want. Is it?

In Jonathan Larsen’s brilliant musical Rent, there is a duet called “Take Me or Leave Me” in which two characters sing, demanding to be accepted for who they are. “Take me for what I am,” the song goes. “Who I was meant to be.” And, I am singing the same song.

I have always believed that the promise of the Jewish community is that we are am echad b’lev echad—one people with one heart. Embracing one another as we are is the very definition of community and one of the ways that we fulfill that promise. In this world that screams at us to disappear, I live filled with the hope that we will draw one another close. Taking one another for who we are—as Jews and as people. That, I believe, is who we are meant to be.