organization of its kind serving Jews of color, Jews In
ALL Hues does not receive funding from the Jewish
Federation, he said.

Instead, many Jewish organizations hold work-
shops about race and racism or invest in initiatives
and task forces to conduct research on racism in the
Jewish community, Jackson said. Th ese eff orts are
oft en helmed by white people and do not fully take
into consideration the needs of the people of color
they intend to help.

“We need more than just people, mostly white peo-
ple, studying us,” he said.

Th ough Jackson advocated for better funding of
eff orts led by Jews of color to address racism and
build community, he’s quick to diff erentiate between
funding and reparations.

“It’s beyond the dollar you put in your JNF box,”
he said.

When organizations fund Jews of color-led eff orts,
similar to philanthropy, they receive a return on their
investment in the form of a tax deduction of commu-
nity programming the organization can hold with
increased funding.

With reparations, white institutions and individ-
uals must give back to people of color with the trust
that the recipients will use the money for what they
need it most, which may be invisible to the repara-
tions giver, or it may not align with the giver’s values
or agenda.

“If you’re giving reparations to Jews of color, the
people to decide where the money is going, the people
to decide the process, the distribution, all have to be
Jews of color,” Jackson said. “Th ere needs to be that
trust that we will make the right choices for us, in a
way that will look diff erent than what white supremacy
tells us is professionalism or philanthropic excellence.”
Before monetary reparations are given, there must
fi rst be teshuvah, Wasserman said.

Within the Jewish community, there must be an
understanding of the harm infl icted on a group of
people to know how to address it.

For the white Jewish community, this process is
hard, Wasserman said. To begin with, many Jews
don’t know about reparation eff orts in the larger
political climate. Others may not fully grasp the
breadth and depth of anti-Black racism or don’t see
addressing it as a Jewish issue.

Being a group that also experiences discrimination
adds to the challenges of recognizing and addressing
racism, Wasserman said.

“We have lots of concerns about antisemitism that
take up a lot of our attention and energy,” she said.

In white Jews’ eff orts to combat antisemitism, they
can forget that anti-Jewish hatred comes from the
same white supremacist roots as anti-Black hatred,
Wasserman argues.

“In a sense, anti-Black racism and antisemitism are
just sort of two faces of white supremacy and white
nationalism in this country,” she said.

Before the recent Jewish interest in reparations for
Black Americans, Jews tackled the topic of repara-
tions aft er the Holocaust. Even then it was met with
mixed opinions.

In 1952, Israeli and German offi cials signed
the Reparations Agreement between Israel and
the Federal Republic of Germany, in which West
18 JULY 7, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin
protests the 1952 agreement giving
reparations to the budding state of Israel.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons via the
National Photo Collection of Israel
Germany was to give money and resources to the
budding state of Israel. Germany would also give
payments to Holocaust survivors and direct descen-
dants of survivors through the Conference on Jewish
Material Claims Against Germany.

While German offi cials and citizens were either
in favor of or indiff erent to reparations, Israel had
some of the most signifi cant opposition to repara-
tions, according to Th omas Craemer, a University of
Connecticut professor of public policy who studies
reparations. Jews worried that accepting reparations from
Germany would mean that the trauma and pain
from the Holocaust would be “fi xed” — addressed
enough for Germany’s hands to be wiped clean of the
genocide. Wasserman uses the example of the Holocaust to
point out that reparations go beyond just the individ-
ual receiving compensation.

“Th e reparations aren’t only for victims but for
the whole society to recognize the wrongs and the
society’s complicitness in wrongs,” Wasserman said.

“I get the feeling that reparations probably do have
the power to change perspectives and repair relation-
ships,” Craemer added.

Even aft er overcoming ideological barriers to
address reparations, Americans have become para-
lyzed with how to practically approach reparations.

Members of Green Street Friends, a Quaker meet-
ing, shared their blueprint for giving reparations in
the Philadelphia area at the Juneteenth interfaith
event. “Our meeting house is located in Germantown,
which is a predominantly Black neighborhood where
the average household income is below the poverty
line, but most of our members are upper-middle class
white,” said Afroza Hossain, a founding member of
the Green Street Reparations Committee. “So it felt
like a very personal thing for our meeting to make rep-
arations and repair some of the wounds of racial injus-
tice that have been done in this country historically.”
Quakers draw on a similar value as teshuvah, using
the value of “repair” to guide their reparations move-
ment. Th ey have had to undergo their own reckoning
with racism as a predominantly white institution;
William Penn, a Quaker who founded Quakerism in
the commonwealth, owned enslaved people.

Th e meeting made a 10-year plan to give $500,000
in reparations over the next 10 years. For the past six
months, the meeting held six legal clinics at the meet-
ing house, partnering with Philadelphia VIP and
providing pro bono legal counsel for Black residents.

Th ey give money to residents who need home repairs.

Th e goal is to keep Black residents who have lived
in the neighborhood for generations from being dis-
placed. Th e Black members of the meeting decided
on the eff ort to invest in this past year and will be the
only meeting members to decide where reparations
go, Hossain said.

Hossain believes that reparations is an active pro-
cess. While larger bodies like corporations can give
money, their ability to invest time and emotions into
the practice of repair is limited. Th e “holy” nature of
reparations — its foundation on community, trust
and repair — is what makes it an obligation for faith-
based organizations.

“Th is is spiritual work,” she said. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Green Street Friends Reparations Committee created a 10-year plan to give reparations to the Black
residents in their Germantown neighborhood.

Courtesy of Green Street Friends Facebook page