Program
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Who Counts as a Jew? Hebrew Israelites and American Judaism
Most Americans first encounter the words "Hebrew Israelite" through a street corner encounter, a news story, or a Southern Poverty Law Center label. Rabbi Walter Isaac, PhD, has spent two decades documenting an entirely different reality: a global, centuries-old tradition with roots in the Atlantic slave trade, ties to figures from throughout United States history, and a population the Manhattan Institute conservatively estimates at 22 million in the United States alone. In this conversation, Rabbi Isaac will walk us from the foundations of the tradition through its painful entanglement with the slave and sex trade, the wide variety of people who claim Hebrew Israelite identity today, and what an honest truth-and-reconciliation process between Hebrew Israelite and predominantly white rabbinic Jewish communities could actually look like.
Related Programming
- Event
- Streaming
Optimism of the Will: Arielle Angel on 8 years of Jewish Currents
A conversation with Rabbi Andy Kahn on what eight years in the work has taught her, and what she wants us to know now.
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- Education Series
- Event
Global Shavuot Teach-in "From the US to Palestine: Solidarity is Holy"
On May 21st-22nd, the American Council for Judaism and Rabbis for Ceasefire will be hosting our third annual Global Shavuot Teach-in
Under the theme “From the U.S. to Palestine: Solidarity is Holy” we will demonstrate global Jewish solidarity with Palestine, deepen relationships across continents, and develop shared analyses, songs, interpretations of texts and beyond that guide our way to liberation.
This teach-in will be wide ranging including short films and discussions, traditional Jewish text studies, skill shares, song shares, history lessons, political discussions, art making workshops and beyond!
We look forward to seeing you there!
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Keeping the Score: Jewish Trauma, Memory, and Healing with Jon Danforth-Appell
What if the dominant progressive Jewish explanation for Zionist attachment, that our bodies carry the accumulated trauma of generations, is itself a kind of myth?
In his just-published essay for @jewishcurrents, "Does the Jewish Body Keep the Score?", writer Jon Danforth-Appell traces how the language of embodied, intergenerational trauma has come to saturate Jewish organizing spaces over the past decade. He argues that this framework treats Zionism, a political project, as a pathology, and in the process flattens a wildly diverse community into a single wounded body, relieving us of agency in the process.
Join Rabbi Andy Kahn in conversation with Jon on Tuesday, April 28 at 3:30 PM EST for a public education conversation exploring the history, theory, and politics of "Jewish trauma" as a concept. We'll talk about where these ideas come from, what they do inside our institutions, and what becomes possible when we accept agency as creators of Judaism.
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