The Power of Jewish Women's Diversity

There is no better evidence for history’s power than the attempt to erase it. At a time when current initiatives attempt to erase women, trans people, and people of color from sites that celebrate their contributions to American history and society, Jewish Women’s Archive (JWA)’s mandate—to transform Jewish history and the Jewish future by centering and amplifying Jewish women’s diverse voices—is more urgent than ever. When we are deprived of a history that reflects the full range of leaders who made change in the past, our capacity to make change today is diminished.  

This climate made it particularly timely and meaningful to offer a new online course on “Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Global Jewish Experience” this winter, with support from the WRJ YES Fund. Guided by four stellar scholars and together with more than 1,000 participants from 13 countries, we delved into the complexity of Jewish identities as we traveled on a whirlwind tour, with stops in Baghdad, Ethiopia, Israel, the United States, and Argentina. In each session, we explored such questions as:

• How do concepts of race and ethnicity shift depending on place, time, and religious identity?
• How did transnational Jewish networks shape Jewish women’s experiences?  
• How did westernization affect Jewish women differently in different places, times, and classes?  
• How did Jewish women interact with their neighbors of different races and religions?  
• How have Jewish women of different backgrounds adapted their religious practices to fit into new communities? What is lost and what is gained when they do so?

We began dreaming of this course four years ago, when we offered our first course on Jewish women, race, and ethnicity. That course focused specifically on the United States and investigated a range of identities, including multiracial Jews in the early United States and Latina, Sephardic, and Black Jewish women in the contemporary US. It became clear from these conversations that any discussion of Jews, race, and ethnicity required a global perspective. The global and migratory nature of Jewish communities means that Jewish identities are often hybrid, shaped by many different influences, and therefore the black/white binary through which race is generally understood in the US doesn’t accurately capture the wide range of Jewish racial and ethnic categories.

In the current atmosphere of rising antisemitism, flattened narratives, and ugly stereotyping, it is particularly urgent to understand the diversity and nuance of Jewish identities. By amplifying and exploring the breadth and complexity of Jewish experience, JWA’s course offered an important intervention and corrective to these troubling trends.

In exploring Jewish women and modernity in turn-of-the-century Baghdad with Sasha Goldstein-Sabbah; the women of Enkash, Ethiopia with Shula Mola; the great African American woman cantor Madame Goldye Steiner in the 1920s and 1930s with Shahanna McKinney-Baldon; and Feminist Jewish Culture in Argentina with Dalia Wassner, we encountered new models of Jewish creativity and tradition, sources of strength and resilience, and powerful insights into the past, present, and future of the Jewish people.  

Participants in the course shared their gratitude for the learning and insight that the course provided. They wrote:  

• “What a brilliant and thought-provoking presentation. Thank you so much.”
• “What a treat to have you talk with us, and many thanks for sharing this ‘hidden’ story and supporting archival photos and articles.”
• “Dr. Mola's presentation is so important for white Ashkenazi Jews to learn from--Thank you.”
• “These are such incredible and important stories/pathways to learn and uplift. So grateful!”
• “This is one of the most illuminating talks I have heard in a long time. Presenting a different narrative of the more stereotypical ‘rescue’ of Ethiopian Jews is very important, as is the way women, globally, prioritize finding spaces to be together at vulnerable times in their lives. Thank you.”

Showcasing the diversity of the Jewish people has always been foundational to JWA. JWA ensures that previously underrepresented populations — including Sephardi and Mizrahi communities, women of Color, LGBTQ Jews, and women with disabilities — are included in our communal history, highlighting how these voices not only enrich but fundamentally transform our narratives.  

In this uncertain time, when talking openly about diversity has become controversial, I am grateful to the WRJ YES Fund for helping JWA affirm our commitment to expanding the Jewish narrative, complicating our understanding of who Jews are and have been, and centering the stories of Jewish women in all of our diversity. Thank you for supporting this urgent and essential work and enabling Jews around the world to draw on the full strength of our shared, complex, and vibrant heritage.