FEBRUARY 20 • 2020 | 15
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are Jews of color. A 2018 Brandeis
University study found that 1.9% of the
estimated 7.4 million American Jews, or
about 150,000 people, identifies as black
and non-Hispanic.
However, a study released in 2019
by the Jews of Color Field Building
Initiative, a San Francisco Bay Area-
based national effort to advance the
Jewish professional status of Jews of
color, estimates that figure to be much
higher. According to the group’
s find-
ings, between 12-15% of American Jews
are Jews of color, defined as anyone
identifying as non-white.
“American Jewish population studies
have neglected to systematically and
consistently ask about the racial and
ethnic identities of American Jews,” the
organization concluded in its findings,
which analyzed numerous Jewish popu-
lation studies dating to 1970. “The result
has been that we know little about the
composition and size of the population
of Jews of color. This has been due, in
part, to the working assumption that the
vast majority of American Jews identify
as white.”
The study also found that the number
of multiracial and non-white Jewish
At Adat Shalom, when Re’
uvein Rickman performs Hagbah, lifting the Torah
after the final reading, he spreads the scrolls wide for all to see.
JERRY ZOLYNSKY