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Reconstructing Judaism Grows
Opportunities for Black and
Jewish Community-building
L ast October, a minyan of Jews of African
descent traveled to Montgomery,
Alabama, with the Wyncote-based
Reconstructing Judaism. Specifically
for Black Jews across the country, the
Reconstructing Judaism pilgrimage is
believed to be the fi rst trip of its kind.

Though the trip was months ago, the
impact among participants is palpable.

“It was really powerful, not just to
be able to engage with other Jews of
African descent, but to be able to do
so while being held in a Jewish frame-
work,” said Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi,
Reconstructing Judaism’s vice president
for academic aff airs, of the pilgrimage.

6 FEBRUARY 16, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
“That really made tangible for me the
commitment of Reconstructionist
Judaism to really receive people of color
as Jews and as whole people.”
The pilgrimage is part of Reconstructing
Judaism’s intention to build commu-
nity for Black Jews both within the
organization and in the greater Jewish
community. On Feb. 9, the Weitzman
National Museum of American Jewish
History hosted “Deconstructing Racism
to Reconstruct Judaism: The Story of a
Pilgrimage Down South,” a panel outlin-
ing the event’s signifi cance.

The pilgrimage was a way to consider
the experiences of Black Jews in the
greater Jewish American context, partic-
ularly looking at the relationship between
healing, teshuvah and anti-Black racism.

Calling the trip a pilgrimage draws on the
Jewish tradition of pilgrimage for Pesach,
Sukkot and Shavuot, according to Koach
Baruch Frazier, a Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College student and Tikkun
Olam Commission representative who
co-organized the trip.

“In the Torah, it says that you must go, so
that you can be seen and, some say, so that
you can be seen by God and that you see
God,” Frazier said. “... What does it mean
to show up and see God in Black people?”
During the pilgrimage, participants
visited the National Memorial for Peace
and Justice and Legacy Museum: From
Enslavement to Mass Incarceration,
as well as met with civil rights activist
Joanne Bland, who took part in the
“Bloody Sunday” march.

For participants, the pilgrimage was an
opportunity to explore the depth of both
grief in the American legacy of racism
and celebration in Black resilience.

Without white counterparts, participants
felt they were able to bring their identi-
ties to the experience without inhibition.

“It was so nice to be in a place where
you didn’t have to explain your Judaism,
your Jewishness,” said Wilbur Bryant II,
a Kol Tzedek member who attended the
pilgrimage. “As Black people in this country, we
have to go about our day not being
angry, outwardly being angry, about
what’s been done to us and what is still
being done to us,” he said.

On the pilgrimage, Bryant continued,
“I didn’t have to smile if I didn’t want
to, like we have to do in our everyday
lives, because, you know, God forbid
someone thinks we’re angry.”
The purpose of the all-Black and
Jewish pilgrimage was to provide an
opportunity for participants to feel
present and whole, without having to be
privy to the potential guilt and judgment
of white Jews on the trip grappling
with their complicity in racism, according
Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi at the
National Memorial for Peace and
Justice in Montgomery, Alabama
to Rabbi Micah Weiss, Reconstructing
Judaism’s assistant director for thriving
communities and tikkun olam specialist.

“We want people to have as much
sholem, and wholeness, in space with
many lines of diff erence,” he said. “But
the more that we can access our whole
selves in particular spaces, it empowers
us to bring as much of our full, healthy,
as-healed-as-possible selves to group
spaces across lines of diff erence.”
Reconstructing Judaism is planning
another pilgrimage from March
16-19 open to Jews of any race. The
March pilgrimage is another piece of
Reconstructing Judaism’s eff orts to think
critically about Jewish identities.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work as a
community, thinking about engaging with
accessibility, engaging with class, and a lot
of diff erent ways of really thinking about
identities and experiences that are often
marginalized,” Mbuvi said, “Not only to
make our own community more inclusive,
but also to really think about how we can
really see and receive and respond to the
full diversity of experiences that people
are bringing to Jewish community.”
Outside of pilgrimages, Black Jews
are looking to connect in Philadelphia,
experiencing delight in both fi nding
similarities in ancestral narratives and
diff erences in Jewish practices. Frazier
attends a monthly “Black Folks Shabbat”
and is looking to build relationships with
Black Jewish communities in the Greater
Philadelphia area, such as Congregation
Temple Beth’El in North Philadelphia.

“I make it my duty to be around all
Black folks, all Black, Jewish folks to
continue that joy and that exuberation
and that experience of being with my
kin,” they said. ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Reconstructing Judiasm
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer