[COLD OPEN] What is the expression? If you didn't have the Jew, the antisemite would invent one. We happen to be this easy scapegoat throughout space and time.
[MUSIC, INTRO] This is The Book of Life, a show about Jewish kidlit, mostly. I'm Heidi Rabinowitz. As you may remember, in December 2023, I participated in The Artists Against Antisemitism auction, which raised funds for Project Shema. Today we'll talk with April Powers, Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at Project Shema, to learn more about their mission and how it can help us kidlit folks. Have a listen.
April Powers, welcome to The Book of Life.
Thank you.
April, could you go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience?
Sure. And I want to say something about my introduction, particularly for our audience who are Jewish. I am going to give you my story of self the way that we present ourselves a la Project Shema, and I think it's important because when we're talking to people about antisemitism, there's not just the Jewish story, but there's our personal story that folds into that. So as I'm introducing myself, I want for people to hear perhaps where they can bring their own stories to life as they are not only advocating for Jewish people but helping people understand Jewish peoplehood in a really complex way. So that being said, I'm April Powers, she/her pronouns, coming to you from sunny Southern California, and I am a descendant of survivors of chattel slavery here in the US, and Jews who fled pogroms in Eastern Europe, which means I'm blewish or black and Jewish, my sons are HeBros, and my Jewish grandparents don't have a single white identified great grandchild. They have Jewtinos, Latinos who are Jewish. We have LGBTQIA2P+ in my family, disability, neuroatypicality. We've had poverty, homelessness, drug addiction, substance abuse, those last four being on the white presenting Jewish side of my family. That along with my Jewish values of tikkun olam brought me into working in DEI because I also speak a few languages, have lived in different parts of the world. And I've been insulted by all my people, about all my people, and in multiple languages. I've been doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work for most of my career, including at Nestle, the world's largest food and beverage company, Amgen, the world's largest biotech. And of course, as some people may know, me, having been the Global Head of DEI for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, where I experienced extreme online antisemitism for only posting about antisemitism when it was then at its peak after the last Israel-Hamas conflict. I was called a white supremacist talmudic Jew C-word. It was very scary for me and my family, I opted out of DEI for a time, but also realized that I hadn't adequately folded antisemitism education, or countering antisemitism appropriately into my own DEI practice. So I make a point of doing that now through Project Shema and the other work that I do.
Wow, you've really led a fascinating life. And I wish we could just unpack your whole personal life, but we're gonna go ahead and talk about Project Shema. So can you please explain, what is Project Shema? And how did it come to be?
So Shema means to hear, to listen, to understand. And it's, of course, one of our most sacred prayers in Judaism. The cofounders of Project Shema realized that we were really having a lot of problems with antisemitic rhetoric coming from the progressive or extreme left, they noticed that it surges in fact, anytime there's a conflict in that region. Jews may be beaten on the streets of Los Angeles, New York, London. And we know that when Jews in diaspora are at risk because of something going on in Israel or anywhere else, it can be perilous to us in a big, big way. So they created Project Shema initially to equip Jewish people working in progressive spaces with the appropriate language, history and understanding to combat antisemitism ourselves. But we're only 15 million people. Point 2% of the world's population. 2% of the US, most people have never met a Jewish person. We cannot solve this thing on our own. So Project Shema equips Jews and allies in progressive spaces to combat antisemitism in corporate, campus, and nonprofit spaces. We've done sessions all over the country and the world. But really, for me, my goals around this is to help DEI professionals understand why and how antisemitism should be a part of any robust DEI program, and that the Jewish employee resource groups should be in the cultural bucket versus the religious bucket, and how to approach some of that work.
What services does Project Shema offer?
We offer consulting, training, and workshops, even around the language that's emerged post October 7, that is quite problematic. And we also have just Antisemitism 101, that comes in a pre October 7 package in a bubble, so people can see yes, this was all going on and happening before there was ever a terrorist attack and a response. We're hopefully enhancing and helping with dialogue that results in a world where you don't have to pick sides, where you can have empathy and be expansive in your advocacy.
What are the main teachings that Project Shema wants to get across?
For Jewish people, I would say if we expect and hope for empathy, we have to deliver that empathy ourselves. For people who are not Jewish and are potential allies, we want them to understand how antisemitism impacts them as well. Like, why should you care? Many people don't understand how antisemitism animates white supremacy. There's a great article called "Skin in the Game" by Eric K. Ward, who is a black civil rights activist, not Jewish, but who realized as he was studying these white supremacist movements, they all just kept going back to these antisemitic conspiracy theories, where Jews are the puppet masters of the global majority or black and brown people, and they can't get rights on their own unless it's the subversive Jew that's doing it. And I don't think black and brown people know that that is the story that's being told on their behalf. So when someone shoots up a supermarket in Buffalo, and hunts black people, or a Walmart in Texas hunting Latinos, or a mosque in Christ Church hunting Muslims, what they all have in common are these antisemitic manifestos. People need to understand that antisemitism is not a religious bigotry anymore. It is a series of conspiracy theories that blame Jews for whatever the ills of society may be. So whatever the worst thing is: if you're communist we're capitalists, if you're capitalist we're communists. In this case, you know, colonizing genociders, like pick a thing, we are that thing. and the worst example of it, right? And as Deborah Lipstadt likes to say, we're the canary in the coal mine because antisemitism is based on conspiracy theories or lies. When those things flourish, democracy and civil rights are at risk. It's why for the first time, the Biden administration put together an antisemitism strategy last year. History tells us we are the warning signal for democracies. Demagogues will just use this thousands and thousands of year old hate to foment even more hatred, but also say, I can fix this problem: It's the Jews, don't look at anything else, let's not worry about some of these other problems here. Over and over again, demagogues who have used this latent antisemitism to fuel their power grabs.
So it's interesting, you said that antisemitism is not a religious hatred *anymore.* Can you explain what you mean by that?
Sure. I'm sure there is still antisemitism that is religious based, you know, if you are not an adherent to Christ being the son of God or Muhammad not being one of our prophets, then there may be some tension there. But the way that antisemitism works is more of a racialized hatred against us and what we are accused of doing more than it is about our religiosity. The person who shot up the synagogue in Pittsburgh, the you know, the largest massacre in a synagogue in the US history, did not shoot the synagogue because of the Torah portion they were reading that morning. It was because he blamed those Jews in that synagogue for helping immigrants, which they were doing, and blaming them for the browning of America. Charlottesville is a great example: "Jews will not replace us." What does that even mean? We haven't replaced our pre-Holocaust numbers. It means that we are somehow undermining the white race by replacing them with black and brown people. How that benefits us, I don't know. How we are involved in that, other than helping the downtrodden as we needed when we have been victims of systemic oppression, you know, other than doing our repairing the world, these are the stories that they tell themselves. So when it comes to an Orthodox man being stabbed on the streets of New York, they'll highlight his religiosity. But the reason he was stabbed wasn't because he was davening or praying, it was because he is easily identifiable as a Jewish person.
When you said "anymore," do you mean that in the past, antisemitism was more about religious belief? For instance, I'm thinking back to like the Inquisition, it seems like at that point, it actually was about differing beliefs.
I think religion has always been a really great excuse for this type of hatred. But if you think about Jewish identity, our identity predates modern concepts of even religion, race, all of these things. We were a people with a nation, a culture and a language for thousands of years before we received religion, and we were discriminated against even then, right? Like, there has always been a Jew hatred. So yeah, you could say the Inquisition was about religion. But if you look at the time period, Queen Isabella, she had borrowed money from her Jewish bankers to expel the Moors, or the Muslims, from her lands, owed a lot of money. She couldn't have even sent Christopher Columbus to the Americas at that time, they were broke. And so what do you do in a moment like that? Well, you can kill your bankers, convert your Jews and take all their money. Problem solved, you now have enough money to send Christopher Columbus to the Americas. I don't even think we can talk about the founding of the Americas without talking about antisemitism. It was a big part of it. And if you go to many churches in Spain, they'll have these towers, towers of gold and jewels. And they call them tesoros, silver, gold, all these things, treasures, and they would compete to who would have the biggest treasures. And if you ask them very nicely, because I was told the lawyers wouldn't let them say, all those gold and jewels came from the gold that they stole from the Americas, and the Jews that they slaughtered and expelled from Spain at that time. And Spain wasn't the only place we were kicked out of, we were kicked out of Portugal, Passau, Ravenna, all manner of countries in very short periods of time because of this, quote, unquote, religious bigotry. But we were also taxed at different rates, blamed for the ills of those societies. You know, what is the expression, if you didn't have the Jew, the antisemite would invent one. We happen to be this easy scapegoat throughout space and time.
That's really fascinating. On the website of Project Shema, there's a list of eight core principles. And number seven says, We reject the notion that one must either support Israel or Palestine. So can you explain a bit more about that? Why is that one of the core principles?
Well, liberation is not a pie. Everyone can have liberation. We don't want to be part of a world that creates a zero sum game for humanity. Because when you dehumanize anyone, you dehumanize yourself in the process. When you condone or celebrate violence against anyone, you automatically are dehumanizing yourself in that exchange. And we believe that Palestinians and Israelis, Jews and Muslims, should be able to live together in peace. And we are not our governments. You know, think about all the times that the US government has not represented you personally, in the world stage. This happens with Hamas, it happens with Bibi Netanyahu. It happens here in the US and in any country that may be listening. And we're a small fraction of the global population that is commanding a lot of attention right now. But I want to command attention towards building bridges more than tearing them down. At Project Shema, we call ourselves an ampersand organization, we believe that you can have peace for Palestinians AND Israelis, that you can operate in a space that honors the lived realities and experiences of both groups. And you can denounced the behaviors of Hamas or the Netanyahu government or any government for that matter, without denouncing and giving up on the people of that country.
That's beautiful. Thank you. So I want to talk a bit about literary spaces. My friends at Storytime Solidarity, which is a progressive literary advocacy group, they got pushback and negative comments for some recent posts that supported Palestinian children's books and also for posts that supported Jewish children's books, not even Israeli, just Jewish books. So how do we help organizations that are trying to be allies, but they're in countering this kind of resistance.
You're never going to make everybody happy. You just need to know that. If you keep children as your focus, the safety and moral equity and inclusion for children as your focus, I think we'll be okay. And that means not all-lives-mattering Islamophobia or antisemitism, or Israelis or Palestinians. I think you should have Israeli books, you should have Palestinian books, and let people know that we are here for the children, not your politics. But I would also be concerned with propagandized books because we also know that some books are out there that say horrible things about different types of people. Having it be in a children's book or in children's language, doesn't mean that it is a book that will be helpful for humanity. So I think posting a book, we may want to vet those books a little bit more, because anything that vilifies either of those groups could be a problem. Or sometimes, you know, this book is dedicated or benefiting XYZ group, that may be a group that is doing harm in the world or doing nothing in the world, right? A lot of nonprofits have come out of the woodwork in this conflict that aren't benefiting anyone. So we want to do a little bit more vetting.
That's great advice. Thank you. How do we reach out to organizations that could be allies, but they're silent because they don't know what to say? Or they're afraid of backlash if they do speak up, or maybe they just don't even understand the need.
So I experienced silence during my antisemitic episode, it was very scary. The voices online just were pounding in my ears. People didn't even know me, saying horrible things about me, I would get a little email from time to time from somebody, "thank you so much for supporting us. I hope you're okay." And then there were a few people whose voices were out loud and proud. Those were my life rafts. Those were my emotional life rafts. If you were part of that moment, and you stayed silent, I want you to go back into that moment. I'm not blaming or chastising anyone for being silent, I totally get it, I curled up into myself, and hid for nine months. But when I experienced that I realized, you know, people are genuinely afraid to say anything, don't know what to say, don't really understand. They think they have to be geopolitical experts to understand the conflict or to speak out against it. So for the people who are have been silent, we want to reach out to them and tell them that we're really hurting, we need their support. But we don't want to assume why they've been silent, we can ask, especially if they're friends (if they're not friends, I wouldn't reach out to these people) but empathize with them and how they might be grappling emotionally, tell them we need them to understand our concerns for Jewish safety, how moments like these have resulted in acts of mass violence against Jewish people over and over and over again in our history. And let them know, you know, as the war gets worse, antisemitism is going to get worse. And we're hoping that they'll speak up privately, and if they're willing to, publicly as well, because this is the time that our ancestors and our elders have warned us about. That it's not a matter of if but when. And it's hard to imagine Jewish people being victims of systemic oppression because we're perceived to be on top, even though our numbers and our lived realities are not the stereotype. It's sort of a model minority myth. People don't feel like we need help. And they don't know Jewish history. And they don't know how antisemitism works, that it surges every generation, resulting in mass casualties to Jewish people. So this is one of those moments. We are at pre-Holocaust levels of antisemitism. Many of us are worried; some of us are actively seeking citizenship in countries not where we were born. And letting someone know that you are a safe space for them is huge, whether that's emotionally or otherwise, and that allies who have come out on social media, be they actors, or politicians, or regular people, it has touched my soul, because just like I didn't expect to see a pogrom live streamed in my lifetime, that just was not part of my life expectation, I also did not expect to see the types of allyship that I have seen. And maybe that's my algorithm, and I'm really fortunate, and I also take huge social media breaks. But it is also soul crushing -- soul crushing -- when our friends, even in their allyship mess up and say things imperfectly, or don't understand us. And it is up to us to clarify and verify with them: Do you know what Zionism means? It does not mean the occupation, it simply means our thousands of years old desire to return to our ancestral homeland in Zion, which is Jerusalem. It's mentioned 669 times in our Torah, we pray in that direction. It's really simply the belief that Israel has a right to exist. If you believe Israel has a right to exist, you're a Zionist -- yay! I don't believe people who are chanting "from the river to the sea" know what river, what sea, what that means, or even that it originally was a Jewish phrase to free Palestine from the British occupation at that time. I think one of the things that we do in this anxiety ridden state is we might jump down people's throats for being imperfect allies or for saying something wrong, when really we need to take a pause, and ask better questions.
So you've mentioned the antisemitism you experienced while you were with SCBWI. I saw that unfolding in real time. But for those who are not aware of what happened, could you explain?
Yes. I'll just walk you through my year 2020 to 2021. So I joined SCBWI basically the weekend of the George Floyd murder. So we put together statements and resources and all kinds of things. The author of Harry Potter put out some anti-trans tweets. So we did a statement in support of trans youth and their families. We put out a Black Lives Matter statement. At the same time, our President was talking about the Kung Flu and blaming Asian folks for the pandemic, calling it "the China virus," and Asian people were being beaten in the streets also and stabbed and murdered. And so we put out an anti Asian hate statement. Fade to black. There was a war between Israel and Hamas in May of 2021. And Jews were being pulled out of restaurants in Los Angeles (and non Jews, anybody in a kosher restaurant), beaten in the streets, stabbed in New York, beaten in London, there was a spike, a sharp spike, in the rise of antisemitism. And as the SCBWI, in addition to all those other statements, we put out a statement on antisemitism. It did not mention Israel, because Jew-hate predates Israel, of course. We all-lives-mattered it a bit, meaning "antisemitism and all other forms of hate." So that left it open to somebody saying, "Are you addressing Palestinians and Muslims in this statement?" And I said, "Absolutely, all other forms of hate." And she said, "Well, where's our specific statement for Palestinians and Muslims?" And I mentioned that when we see a surge, like we're seeing this spike, expect us to say something. And I meant that. And the statement was attacked by one of the members who happened to be Palestinian Muslim, and then it became this monomaniacal pile-on of all the things that had happened to Muslims, on an antisemitism statement. And basically, the way that I managed our social media at that time, my philosophy was if people are coming here for solace to see their statement, we weren't going to support other statements or anti-statements like, you know, Blue Lives Matter on a Black Lives Matter statement, we're going to maintain the space. And certainly on a children's book website, when a Jewish person talked about Palestinians slaughtering children and the Palestinian person talked about Israelis slaughtering children, that was like a non-starter. So we had those deleted, and then she #FreePalestine'd me and she also went through all of my social media and put it all out there, you know, I was pro-Israel, and my admin who was also Jewish was pro-Israel, and put her work number and our work address out there for all the world to see. So all these really horrible people started coming my way. We deleted and blocked and, and I didn't do my own research, I didn't see that she had done this before with Nancy Pelosi and other antisemitism statements. I just took it at face value. She was a member. I wanted to respond to her and welcome her into the organization. She went on to post about it every week, or every few days, more and more and more of the book world became involved. We were delayed because our entire leadership team was on a retreat with really bad cell service. So it seemed like we were really slow in responding to some of this stuff. And we were but it was in part because the team didn't understand what was going on. They didn't have eyes on the ground, so to speak. So yeah, there, there were a lot of people who blamed me or blamed Lin, who was the executive director at the time. People didn't understand all the little bits and parts that had happened, and I thought it was important for people to see the full picture. And I think the SCBWI wanted it to just go away and apologize for the mishandling of it but not explain where there was some responsibility on the part of the person who attacked the statement and me. I had agreed upfront if this went wonky that I would address all of the questions on this statement, and if it doesn't go well I will remove myself from the situation so that the SCBWI can continue on. We shouldn't have to have all of those conversations and fold ourselves into pretzels just to talk about antisemitism, this should not be a thing. I don't think this would have happened had we put out an anti-Islamophobia statement. And it certainly didn't happen with any of the other statements that I put out that year. And so when I say antisemitism really needs to be incorporated into DEI, I mean it. And I mean, it needs to be in there like any other form of bigotry, for training and understanding, to have a refresh at the same rate that you would anti-black racism, anti-Asian hate, or any of the other ones. I feel that this is an area that has been neglected for so long. And people just really don't understand it. And it's allowed to get bigger and bigger and bigger because of that.
Thank you for going into that. I know that a lot of people at the time were confused about what was going on. It's interesting to hear that a lack of connectivity was such a big factor, just bad wifi. And I think a lot of people were confused when you left SCBWI, people assumed that you had been fired, and they were up in arms about that.
I went private, like hard private because like I said, people wanted to attack me and my mother and thought I should die. Deleted all the pictures of my kids, whatever it was.
Wow.
But I did post and the news cycle got a hold of it, that I was not fired. When we couldn't tell the whole story, I realized that there was just not room for me to be there. And they asked me multiple times, "Are you sure? Are you sure?" Because the next statement that I put out was "I quit." You know, "April has resigned" but... and the reason people thought that I was fired is because it was very stark, like "effective immediately, April Powers is no longer with the organization" you know, versus "in light of this distraction, April has submitted her resignation and you know, we're going to move on with love and light for Palestinians, Muslims, Israelis and for everybody," right? The statement kind of didn't go down with that touchy feely vibe. So I think that's why people thought I was fired. And you know, the folks at SCBWI are such kind, good people. It's just a small, mighty team of nonprofit people who love children's literature. And people are not always going to get this right. Even for me as a DEI professional, I thought there might be some conflict, but I could not have imagined it making Newsweek three times, being invited on The View, receiving articles in multiple languages from around the world. But I think people realized when a black Jewish woman who's worked in progressive spaces for most of her career is being called a white supremacist talmudic Jew C-word, it's not jiving with what we think of as progressive spaces, liberalism. And I saw a really great person who, I know she's Muslim, I'm not sure what country she was from, but she just talked about how empathy is gone in some of these progressive, extremely left wing and right wing spaces, that they are using the tools of the other to cancel and to limit one's freedom of speech. And these are things I really especially am concerned about in the children's book world, the book bannings, whether it's Maus or anything, you know, it's like "don't say Jew," right? God forbid, it mentions Israel or a trip to Israel. An author came to me and said, her publisher asked her to make something less Jewy, that it all looked good if they could just take the Israel part out. You know, these things are happening to Jewish authors in ways that are perhaps happening less to other types of authors, where you want that authenticity and you want to hear more about their lived experience. And so I think we also have to be very wary of that.
So our listeners are book people: librarians, educators, authors, publishers, readers. Do you have any suggestions for anything that listeners can do to push back against antisemitism in their own realms like libraries, schools, bookstores, book clubs, or even just among friends?
May is Jewish American Heritage Month and Asian American Heritage Month. I'd love to see books highlighted that focus on Jewish joy. You know, I have black Jewish kids who, around Holocaust Remembrance, they're hearing our sad stories. Around Black History Month they're hearing about enslavement of their bodies and Rosa Parks. And they just want Jewish joy and black boy joy, right? I think we have to find stories that celebrate the resilience of the Jewish people, the fun and the joy of Jewish people, keep writing Jewish books and supporting Jewish books, and especially those that include Israel, because it's tied to so much of our identity, mainly because that's where many of us look to as our ancestral homeland, the land of Judea. That's where the word Jew comes from. Also, we never want to pit two groups against each other. I don't want to see a display that has Muslim books and Jewish books side by side, not because I don't believe they can exist side by side, but I feel like visually, we keep creating this zero sum game. If I do this, then I have to do this, or someone's automatically going to ask if you're talking about Jews, are you talking about Muslims? Like what happened to me in 2021. It's not appropriate. They each are very complex. They each deserve their own time. They each deserve their own month, there's Arab American Heritage Month. So host some of these things, have book clubs. Make sure you're reading. There's so many great books on our history. My favorite, is Michener's The Source. It's long, but it's delicious. And it really helps ground us; lots of trauma there, too, but it helps ground us, if you like historical fiction. I also like The Assignment for the older kids, it was just a really good, well written, well done YA novel. So putting things out there that resonate with our audience, it's gonna resonate with more audiences than just Jewish people.
All right, thank you for that advice. Right now, with book banning running rampant, and with the very word "Jewish" seeming like a controversial hot button to some folks, how do we advocate for Jewish books?
I think we have to start at the beginning with Antisemitism 101. Project Shema is engaged with some of the publishers around the country, so that they understand who Jews are, what antisemitism is, and how it works, because silencing Jewish voices ends up invariably leading to the silencing of other voices historically. Book banning, I mean, I wish I had the solution. But we just have to keep pushing out more books. And for those of you who think that your vote is not going to count, one of the most important elections you are ever going to participate in are your local elections, for school boards and things like that, because those are the people at the local level who are making these decisions. And there are movements afoot to silence any minority or marginalized voice, including ours. So voting and getting involved, maybe running for school boards, making sure that you are part of those conversations. You know, there's a movement around liberated ethnic studies, which tends to vilify Jewish experience, or Israel, or inserts some antisemitic things into the things our students are able to access, which could also result in book banning, so we have to be very careful and really proactive.
So antisemitism, its nickname is "the oldest hatred." And it's somewhat different from other forms of bias, because it's not just based on fear of the other. It's this long, long running conspiracy theory. So in the world in general, and in literary spaces, in particular, should we fight antisemitism and other biases, like racism and homophobia and so on, in the same ways? Or does antisemitism require different methods to fight it?
You think about our calendar being 6000 years old, naturally, anything that survives thousands of years is systemic. And we think about anti-black racism being part of the air we breathe, having been around for hundreds of years because of slavery, we can think about something that's been around thousands of years really being baked into how societies operate. So we have to address it as something ancient, that it's going to be really difficult to relieve ourselves of. I would say, we need to attack it in similar ways, whatever the methodologies are, that we're using to protect and liberate other groups, I think we need to use some of those similar methodologies to address antisemitism. We cannot continue to ignore it. We're ignoring it at our peril. And we're ignoring it because of stereotypes about Jews, and the conspiracy theories about Jews that aren't true about us, right? "We don't need help. We're wealthy, we're powerful. We're controlling this and that and the other thing," and people believe that even if someone is your staff member making less money than you, you see how they live. And there's this presumption that somehow we have more access or resources, which is patently and clearly not true. So I think it really starts with an overhaul, addressing antisemitism head on by inviting into your organization, people to explain how it is, how it works, who we are. And if you are a creative and you are writing books that only include white-presenting or European or Ashkenormalizing white Jewish people, I want you to please consider the diaspora and making sure that we are all represented, because that impacts how people see us. We have Beta Israeli, we have Igbo Jews, we have Asian, Indian, Moroccan and Middle Eastern, Mizrahi and Sephardic, we have such a rich tapestry. I can't tell you how upset I was when I first tasted other types of Jewish food. I felt like I had been hoodwinked and bamboozled most of my life, no offense to people who love Ashkenazi food, but it just opened up a world for me that I felt like I hadn't been part of. And so I want us to authentically invite other Jewish voices to the table, especially for Jewish books and celebrations and characters and faces. We want people to understand Jews, most of us don't identify as white, most Israelis are not white, and one in seven of us would be considered Jews of color here, not to mention all the other marginalized identities that we hold, whether it's disability, or LGBTQ, or poverty, or immigrant status, or some of these other things. The vast majority of us don't look like what's projected in a Jewish children's book. It's at the point where it's offensive. And we really have to revisit how we are talking about ourselves in literature and presenting ourselves in media.
It's interesting, as you're talking about the intersectionality and the representation of that in Jewish books, I've been noticing a trend with a lot of the illustrations, the classrooms, all the guests at the Seder, you know, the crowd scenes are a lot more colorful. And the next step is we need more Jewish people of color protagonists.
Yeah. And we do that to protect ourselves. We've done that historically. In the United States of America having access to whiteness, is a protection mechanism. So we did project ourselves as more white, more mainstream, adapted our religious frameworks to be more like the way that Christian frameworks were, you know, we've got Reform, we've got this one, we've got that one. But our identities predate all of these constructs, right? We don't even define ourselves as white, brown, black; we've got Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Mizrachim, you know, Beta Israeli, and most of the Jews of color in the US are Ashkenazim. And my kids are a little older, so I'm not getting all of the books right now; I just recall that none of the main characters were mixed. In one of my most delicious moments, besides Puppy for Hanukkah, was seeing Daveed Diggs as a rabbi and seeing a family that looked like ours. And I don't recall the series, but he was a rabbi in Israel. And it was it was a beautiful thing to feel so seen.
So speaking of intersectional Jewish identity, can you talk about your organization Jewbian Princess?
Sure. So Kiyomi, my co-founder, and I, having experienced being black, brown, you know, othered in Jewish spaces, decided that having experience doing DEI work corporately, we wanted to be able to bring those concepts into Jewish spaces, because we recognize that white-presenting Jewish people, when you take on whiteness, sometimes you take on other aspects of whiteness, like discrimination and, and this idea that there's just one way to Jew and all of these other things. And so we wanted to ensure that Jews of color and Jews of other felt welcome in Jewish spaces. And many times we don't and you think we don't exist, but we do, we just exist in other spaces outside of traditional lanes, or maybe we're not at the synagogue, maybe we're not at the JCC. But we gather in places that feel comfortable and safe for us. But it would be great to be able to be a part of synagogue life and to be part of Jewish organizations and leadership in Jewish organizations in the same ways as other folks are. We just started Jewbian Princess to have those conversations to celebrate difference in diaspora.
Very cool. It's Tikkun Olam Time. So what action would you like to call listeners to take to help heal the world?
Uh, what action would I like? I have a couple. One, I think you have to put your own mask on first sometimes, and we are really suffering in the Jewish community. So I'd like to see Jewish people be heads-up Jews. My partner Kiyomi says "put your kippot back on." Hiding has never helped us. So if it's safe to do so, be out and proud and Jewish. Bring antisemitism education to the spaces that you occupy. I am going to ask that every Jewish person not engage with people who don't believe you have a right to exist. It's wasted energy and it is only going to hurt you more, but to also take a pause and breathe and really I try to connect with people versus canceling people. I don't want us to be the face of cancellation. I want us to be the face of empathy and understanding, even when it's hard to do that. Because nobody is going to be able to humanize us and empathize with us if we can't offer that same empathy and return.
Okay, thank you. If listeners want to get involved in any way with Project Shema, schedule a workshop, make a donation, anything else, where can they find Project Shema?
It's ProjectShema.org. We do not really have social media. We have a big Donate button on our website and appreciate any donations. We are a small nonprofit. And if you have an organization that would like to bring us in, to speak on antisemitism, we do charge for services, but we do offer a variety of training and consulting and help with formation of Jewish employee resource groups. They're part of diversity, equity, inclusion programs that help folks from different backgrounds come together in a space of community. Jews were traditionally left out of those spaces, in part because there was a perception that we're white, a perception that we're privileged, perception, you know, that we don't need it. And especially in moments of crisis, we definitely need community. Many of us are not out at work, and we need those brave spaces in order to just even tread water sometimes.
Is there anything else that you would like to talk about that I haven't thought to ask you?
Being a part of the children's book world, I do hope that the Jewish experience continues to be told, I hope that Jewish diversity and diaspora is on the menu, not just Ashkenormalization of Jewish characters, but also to include disabled, queer, multilingual Jewish families and people and characters.
April Powers, thank you so much for joining me.
Oh, thank you so much. This is lovely, and I really appreciate your podcasts. You're doing some really cool things here.
Oh, thank you.
[MUSIC, DEDICATION] This is Ruth, Behar, author of Across So Many Seas. I'll be joining you soon on The Book of Life podcast. I'd like to dedicate my episode to the same people to whom I dedicate my book, in memory of my paternal grandmother Abuela and her oud and to my granddaughters Mila and Colette, with
[MUSIC, OUTRO] Say hi to Heidi at 561-206-2473 or bookoflifepodcast@gmail.com Check out our Book of Life podcast Facebook page, or our Facebook discussion group Jewish Kidlit Mavens. We are occasionally on Twitter too @bookoflifepod. Want to read the books featured on the show? Buy them through Bookshop.org/shop/bookoflife to support the podcast and independent bookstores at the same time. You can also help us out by becoming a monthly supporter through Patreon. Additional support comes from the Association of Jewish Libraries, which also sponsors our sister podcast, Nice Jewish Books, a show about Jewish fiction for adults. You'll find links for all of that and more at BookofLifepodcast.com Our background music is provided by the Freilachmakers Klezmer String Band. Thanks for listening and happy reading!
[MUSIC, PROMO] During the Holocaust, desperate parents placed their children with Christian families and in convents in the hope that the children would survive the war. After the war, Jewish organizations went to reclaim these children to be raised in the Jewish community. But how did these children deal with yet another displacement? Join me for a conversation with Jennifer Rosner about Once We Were Home at Nice Jewish Books. Find us at JewishLibraries.org/NiceJewishBooks.
