opinion
Jews and Blacks Need to Talk
About ‘Race’ ... Together
BY JAMES ELAM, IV
AND SHOSHANA SCHILLER
A serve the greater good, rushing to judgment can,
in fact, be harmful to the greater good, stifling
conversation, dialogue and ideas. Here are some
of the things we’ve learned from our conversa-
tions together, that can easily apply more broadly
to the world we live in:
• P eople need to listen actively in order to under-
stand. You are hearing another person’s words,
trying to comprehend the intent and meaning
behind them, and, if you don’t understand, ask
a clarifying question.

• We all must communicate to be understood. If
we are as honest and open as possible, we are
genuinely speaking from our own point of view.

• We all need to commit to better understand the
other person’s perspective.

• Anticipate that emotions may run high.

Discussion on topics like racism, antisemitism,
privilege and discrimination can be painful and
challenging. Try to understand the source of
the emotion that the person is feeling.

• Consider the relationship. As you engage in
conversations with people with whom you
disagree, it’s a good idea to remember that
they come to those positions with their own
unique history, background, perspective and
experiences. It is only by truly listening and learning together
that we will ever find a path forward. The art of lis-
tening can go a long way to improving our outlook
as a decent and civil society. JE
James Elam, IV and Shoshana Schiller are co-chairs of the
Black-Jewish Alliance of the ADL. Elam is the managing
partner of Elamental, a multidisciplinary agency focusing
on technology, media, sports and social action. Schiller
is an environmental attorney in the Philadelphia area.

For more information on the Black-Jewish Alliance visit:
philadelphia.adl.org/black-jewish-alliance/. melitas / iStock / Getty Images Plus
t a time in human history when people can
share their thoughts to a billion people around
the world in a matter of seconds, the very simple and
important art of listening seems to be in jeopardy
more than ever.

Our nation was founded on the bedrock princi-
ple of free speech enshrined in the Constitution,
and while it does not mean we are entitled to
speech without consequences, a misunderstand-
ing should be approached as an opening for
discussion. Recently, ABC suspended Whoopi Goldberg
from “The View” for expressing her concept
of “race” in the context of a discussion about
the Holocaust. For many Americans, particularly
Black Americans, the definition of race is informed
by the history of the United States, from 1619 to
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Civil Rights Act.

It is an understanding based on skin color insep-
arable from the legal and moral history of our
country, and from the current lived experiences of
Black Americans.

The term “race” has a broader definition as well,
one that underpins centuries of antisemitism in
Europe and across the globe, that was the basis
of the Holocaust, and that remains a foundation
of modern-day antisemitism. Jews can look no
further than the immigration records and the cit-
izenship applications of their grandparents and
earlier generations in which their race is identi-
fied, uniquely, as Hebrew. In addition, it was the
racist Nuremberg Laws that enabled the Nazis to
carry out the “Final Solution” and the murder of 6
million Jews in the Holocaust.

To disregard this definition is hurtful to many
Jews. But American Jews also acknowledge
and celebrate that there are Jews of all ethnic-
ities, races and backgrounds, such that modern
Judaism is, at the same, at odds with the idea
of race.

This is the subtlety of race as a word, as a con-
cept, as a flashpoint of hate but also of pride. To
get to this place of nuanced understanding, how-
ever, we need to listen to each other. We need not
assume that others come from the same place of
understanding, and we need not assume that our
own experiences are either universal or widely
known or taught.

As co-chairs of the Black-Jewish Alliance of the
Anti-Defamation League Philadelphia, we have
worked hard to forge stronger ties between the
Black and Jewish communities by acknowledging
our commonalities as opposed to focusing on our
differences. We created a safe space to learn and be heard,
allowing ourselves to be open to making mistakes
and to having misunderstandings. We are learning
to listen to each other, to dash assumptions and
preconceived notions, and to understand each
other more deeply.

We stand united today and in the future as allies
against the twin sins of antisemitism and racism. But
standing together also means doing so when things
are comfortable and when they are uncomfortable.

This approach stands in stark contrast to the
current climate in America, where people seem to
be retreating more and more into their own echo
chambers or corners of social media where their
own biased views are affirmed and there’s no will-
ingness to experience discomfort. There’s a very
real danger here that we will stop listening to each
other altogether.

While there are instances where a person’s
words or conduct might be beyond the scope
allowable in a civilized society, we should not rush
to cancel people for expressing themselves hon-
estly without malice.

When a more complete understanding would
22 MARCH 10, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



opinion
Jews and Non-Jews Share a Bloody
History in Ukraine. But There Are
Reasons for Hope
BY SARA J. BLOOMFIELD
BojanMirkovic / DigitalVision Vectors
T he Russian invasion of Ukraine, justified
by Vladimir Putin as necessary to
“denazify” the country and stop “genocide,”
outraged me for its blatant assault on a
people, and on truth. But as I thought about
his previous misuses of history, I should not
have been so surprised.

In 2019, marking the 80th anniversary of
the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Putin sought to down-
play the significance of this agreement in
starting World War II and its secret protocols
that divided Poland between Hitler and Stalin
— two other masters at rewriting history.

This invasion also brought back the over-
whelming sense I had from various visits to
Ukraine, best summarized in a familiar adage
originally about the Balkans, that Ukraine
has had more history than it can consume.

As I traveled to big cities and small towns,
aspects of its many layers of complicated
history were on view everywhere.

In Kiev, I was greeted each morning out-
side my hotel by an enormous statue of
Bohdan Khmelnytsky, the revered Cossack
leader who commanded a 17th-century
uprising to promote Ukrainian independence from
Poland. He was also a vicious antisemite respon-
sible for the killing of at least 40,000 Jews. I was
appalled that the statue existed and wished that
at the very least it might be accompanied by
information about the innocent victims of this
Ukrainian nationalist. Today, I find myself reflect-
ing on this symbol of an independent Ukraine that
also symbolizes its complex past.

As I would drive around the country, I would
encounter common themes. You had the impres-
sion that one could stop in almost any town or
village and ask, “Where were the Jews buried?”
Someone would take you to a forest or a piece of
land near a farmer’s field to see the mass grave.

Over one and a half million Jewish men, women
and children were murdered in Ukraine by the
Nazis and their local collaborators. Unlike other
European Jews, they were not deported to distant
killing centers like Auschwitz but shot, one by one,
in the places they had lived for centuries.

We now know so much more about “the Holocaust
by bullets” because, ironically, of the fall of the
Soviet Union and the opening of massive archives
as well as the important work of Fr. Patrick Desbois,
who identified many of the mass graves and inter-
Ukraine has suffered from extraordinary external
threats such as German Nazism and Soviet
Communism and serious internal problems like
extreme nationalism and antisemitism. But in recent
decades it has begun to face its past, confront
important truths and create a pluralistic democracy.

“Hope” hardly feels like the right word for this
moment. But given a chance, the Ukrainian people
have given us reason to believe that in the long
term, freedom and dignity might prevail.

viewed locals who saw these horrible crimes. On
one visit to Ukraine Fr. Desbois and I went to a
wooded area, now a mass grave, where we met
an elderly woman who shared her memories as a
young girl witnessing the killing of her neighbors.

Another stark recollection is walking around
towns and seeing on door after door an indenta-
tion that once held a mezuzah — the small case
that traditionally marks the entrance to Jewish
homes. The Jews were long gone, but the unin-
tended marker of where a people had once lived
remained, speaking to us across the decades.

I will also never forget that in practically every
town and village one would see the same memo-
rial: an angel, her head lowered, her face drenched
in sorrow, holding a stalk of wheat in one arm
and a dead baby in the other. No explanations
required. One only needs the most superficial
sense of Ukraine’s history to know the statue
mourns Stalin’s deliberate starvation of at least
3.5 million Ukrainians, both Christians and Jews,
in 1932-33, now known as the Holodomor.

In summer 2014 I visited in the aftermath of
Putin’s annexation of Crimea and the Dignity
Revolution that preceded it. The revolution had
overthrown Ukraine’s Russian-backed president,
Viktor Yanukovych. Makeshift memorials and
anti-Russian sentiments were everywhere. I met
government officials, public intellectuals, directors
of archives, Holocaust scholars, Jewish commu-
nity leaders and American diplomats. All of them
saw this as a moment to write a new chapter in
Ukrainian history. One described to me a burned-
out bus with this declaration written in the ash: “One
day spent fighting here is a life worth living.” The
people I met were filled with similar defiance and
resilience, although sometimes tinged by under-
standable anxiety or cynicism. But, overwhelmingly,
the word I kept hearing everywhere was “hope.”
Ukraine has suffered from extraordinary exter-
nal threats such as German Nazism and Soviet
Communism and serious internal problems like
extreme nationalism and antisemitism. But in
recent decades it has begun to face its past,
confront important truths and create a pluralistic
democracy. “Hope” hardly feels like the right word
for this moment. But given a chance, the Ukrainian
people have given us reason to believe that in the
long term, freedom and dignity might prevail. JE
Sara J. Bloomfield is the director of the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum.

JEWISHEXPONENT.COM 23