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Jews of Color in the United States and Israel

6th Biannual��Embodied Judaism Symposium

This year’s Embodied Judaism highlights the oral histories of Jews of Color that are being added to our archive through the Jews of Color: Histories and Futures project, made possible by funding from the Henry Luce Foundation. Please join Ilana Kaufman (the Jews of Color Initiative), Marc Dollinger (San Francisco State University, author of��Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s), and Bryan K. Roby (University of Michigan, author of��The Mizrahi Era of Rebellion: Israel’s Forgotten Civil Rights Struggle, 1948-1966) for a panel discussion about the lives, experiences, and histories of Jews of color in the United States and Israel.

Judaism is often considered a religion of the mind, defined by the study and practice of Jewish law, but it also has rich traditions as a religion of the body, engaging sights, sounds, emotions, and feelings of spirituality. The Embodied Judaism Series, held biannually at the University of Colorado Boulder, draws on materials housed in the Innovations in Jewish Life Collections to explore the role of the body in Jewish life through public symposiums, featuring academic scholars, prominent practitioners, and artistic performers, and multimedia exhibits aimed at academic and non-academic audiences.

Ilana Kaufman is the Chief Executive Officer of the Jews of Color Initiative. Her work sits at the center of Jewish community, racial equity and justice, and is anchored by the voices and experiences of Jews of Color. Ilana has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered and Code Switch,��The Forward, eJewish Philanthropy, and her Eli Talk, titled “Who Counts? Race and the Jewish Future,” has over 45,000 views. She is passionate about the intersection of Jewish community, racial justice, Jews of Color, education, and philanthropy, and is a Senior Schusterman Fellow.

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Marc Dollinger holds the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and Social Responsibility at San Francisco State University. Professor Dollinger is author of four scholarly books in American Jewish history, most recently��Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing The Alliance in the 1960s. He has published entries in the��Encyclopedia Judaica, the��Encyclopedia of Antisemitism, and the��Encyclopedia of African American Education. His next project, an academic memoir titled��Laundering Antisemitism: Identity Politics, Ethnic Studies, and the University,��Indiana University Press, traces his experiences as an identified Jewish (and Zionist) professor in the current political climate. Professor Dollinger has spoken about his research with the CEO of the NAACP on CNN as well as the CNN-podcast “Silence Is Not An Option,” the NFL Network, ESPN, and Germany’s National Public Radio. Just for fun, Dr. Dollinger helped actress Helen Hunt learn about her Jewish roots on the prime-time NBC show, “Who Do You Think You Are?”

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Bryan K. Roby is an Associate Professor of Jewish and Middle Eastern History at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor. His research focuses on the history of race/racism, Black diasporas, and Jewish identity in Israel/Palestine and North Africa from the nineteenth century to the present. His first book, The Mizrahi Era of Rebellion: Israel’s Forgotten Civil Rights Struggle 1948-1966 (Syracuse University Press, 2015), provided an extensive history of social justice protests by Middle Eastern Jews in Israel.

His current book project, Blackness Refracted: Race and the Making of the Jewish Color Line in the Twentieth Century, traces the migration history of racialized peoples and ideas across seas and oceans throughout the global twentieth century. The book examines how early 20th century European scholarship constructed Afro-Asian Jews (i.e. Mizrahim) as Black and how, in the second half of the 20th century, Afro-Asian Jews responded to this interpellation within Israel, Asia, and Africa. It explores the histories of the Israeli Black Panthers, Indian Jewish civil rights activism, and Ethiopian Jewish migration to Israel with the aim of engaging in reparative history.