A new ‘pillar’ of community

When Sammie was growing up in a small Midwestern city, she felt embraced by the local Jewish community, which she described as “tight-knit”–cohesive enough, in fact, to sustain a Jewish community center, in whose activities she partook.

But once she began undergraduate studies at Oberlin College, where she met up with a robust Jewish student body, mainly from the East and West coasts, she began to realize that she was a different type of Jew, she said. It wasn’t simply that she had never eaten noodle kugel. It harkened back to her own personal history.

“It became really clear to me” during college and graduate school and, soon thereafter, in the working world, Sammie said, that many people–in fact, many Jews–called into question and made assumptions about her dual identity as Arab and Jewish.

“It was exhausting,” recounted the Jewish communal professional, to continue to justify her Jewishness to others and to rehash the basic facts of her Jewish existence. (Sammie’s mother is Jewish, and her father is a Muslim of Arabic descent.)

That’s why, Sammie said, she has been so delighted to come upon Ammud: Jews of Color Torah Academy, a virtual Jewish learning community founded and run by Jews of Color expressly for Jews of Color. It’s not just the opportunity to study and parse Jewish texts in a safe, accepting, and dynamic environment, she said, but to do so in an atmosphere in which “I feel like I don’t have to explain everything [about myself].”

That, said Chicago-based educator Alexandra Corwin, is Ammud’s raison d’être.

Jews of Color “often fall through the cracks” in gaining full acceptance in the Jewish community, said Corwin, Ammud’s executive director, and the legitimacy of their Judaism is frequently doubted and diminished. It is not uncommon for Jews of Asian, African, Latin, or Native American background–a growing proportion of the American Jewish community, a number of recent studies, including one from the Pew Research Center, suggest–to “walk into a Jewish space” dominated by white Jews of Eastern and Central European heritage and to “feel a little anxious,” she said.

“When someone is relaxed, they can bring their full selves” to a learning experience, added Corwin, a Jew of Peruvian, Quechua, and Ashkenazi descent who grew up in suburban Northfield. So far, she reported, hundreds of Jews of Color from around the world have enrolled in at least one of Ammud’s dozens of classes, including students from Canada, Spain, and Australia. Since its founding in 2019, Ammud has offered instruction on a wide range of Jewish-themed subjects: from the “Jewish Values of Communal Care” to “Tzedakah as Mutual Aid.” The instructors, said Corwin, are an impressive roster of Jewish scholars of Color.

One of those responsible for faculty recruitment is Rabbi Mira Rivera, one of the founders of Ammud, which, she said, grew out of enthusiasm that she and other Jews of Color expressed at the 2018 leadership trainings organized by and for Jews of Color. “‘Why can’t we make this a reality?” Rabbi Rivera, a Filipina American, recalled asking at the conclusion of the trainings.

Soon after, Ammud, Hebrew for “pillar,” began meeting in New York, with Rabbi Rivera, students, and faculty finding a home at NYU. But when COVID-19 hit in March 2020, Ammud quickly pivoted to online learning and discovered an eager community of Jews of Color, including dozens from Chicago, hungering for connection and Jewish learning experiences.

Corwin said that as schools continue to adapt to the changing nature of the coronavirus, so, too, will Ammud. “In-person gatherings for our members, based on their locations, are in our long-term plans,” she said, suggesting that sufficient interest from Ammud enrollees from the Chicago area might warrant a non-virtual class or get-together of some kind.

Robert Nagler Miller is a journalist and editor who writes frequently about arts- and Jewish-related topics from his home in New York.