What to the Black Jew Is Passover?

  • February 20, 2022

It Should Be a Haven From White Supremacy

One of the strangest things about U.S. Passover traditions is the way some white Jews apparently integrate Negro spirituals and Black civil-rights history into seders. I don’t know how many people do this, but it’s enough that this content is integrated into the Reconstructionist Haggadah, A Night of Questions, which I own 15 copies of.

I never really paid much attention to this or thought much about what it would be like for this Haggadah to be used by a non-Black seder leader until last year, when due to the pandemic, my spouse and I attended a seder led by white Jews from our synagogue. We, a Black Jew and a Taiwanese American Jew, were the only two Jews of color at the seder. I cannot express the intensity of awkwardness and even pain that we experienced watching these white Jews perform Blackness by singing Negro spirituals  and reading clips where the word “Negro” appears repeatedly. My spouse changed each instance because even he did not feel that it was necessary or appropriate for him to use that language.

In some ways, the specific meaning Passover would hold for me as a Black Jew was determined for me by a fight about what to name me as a baby. My white Jewish paternal grandmother — the feminist activist Selma James — insisted that I be named after Sojourner Truth, the 19th- century formerly enslaved Black feminist abolitionist activist. My Black, maternal grandmother wanted to give me a family name. My mother, not wanting to upset anyone, compromised by selecting “Chanda” from a name book and giving me two middle names, one of which is Sojourner. As a result, my earliest memories of learning about a historical figure are all about Sojourner Truth, whom I understood to be a heroine that walked to freedom and then vigorously demanded it for others. Her activism was inextricably tied to the name: in Dutch-speaking New York, she discarded the name she was given at birth into slavery because G-d had told her to sojourn through the land, spreading the truth.

My earliest memories of Torah are also connected with this name: I knew that “sojourner” appeared in Exodus, which was the book that told the story of slaves leaving Egypt. As a Black child growing up in the United States, raised in a Caribbean family, to me the Exodus story didn’t seem like ancient mythology. It sounded like something that had happened to my family — and fairly recently, too. It wasn’t an allegory; it was Black history.

Not surprisingly, Passover is therefore an important time of the year for me. Part of this is because it is the last holiday I experienced with my paternal grandfather, with whom I was very close. I recall going to his cousin’s house and searching for the afikomen. I did not find it, but the child who did gifted me the silver dollar that was the finder’s reward. We were the poor side of the family; I treasured that John F. Kennedy silver dollar for far longer than was merited.

By my Grandpa Norman’s side, I had no sense of being different from the rest of the family at the table. I didn’t pay much attention to the fact that they were a different color than me, nor did I really notice that they were incredibly rich, while we were not really. That last seder we had together was also the last time I remember entering a Jewish space without feeling hyper aware that I was entering it as a Black Jew. I was 6.

Grandpa Norman was born poor and Jewish in Brooklyn right before the Spanish Flu pandemic killed his father. When he was born, he was not white, though he was white when he died about 70 years later. He had spent his life a labor organizer, and I know he welcomed my Black, non-Jewish mother into his family without question. But importantly, part of the power of whiteness is having the option to not be welcoming. The story as I heard it is that my parents were afraid to introduce me to my father’s maternal grandfather; they did not know whether he would welcome a “n***er baby” is how the story was relayed to me later. The only photo I have of us together is him smiling as he holds me. But the nature of white supremacy is that he could have chosen to reject me, and the force of American history would have backed his decision.

In the 30-plus years since my last seder with Grandpa Norman, I’ve had to learn how to navigate talking to white Jews about their whiteness, in part because the failure to reckon with it means that Black Jews like me and other Jews of color often feel alienated in Jewish spaces. Though contemporary translations of the Torah use the word “stranger” instead of “sojourner,” I can safely say that I understand deeply what it means to be the Sojourner of Exodus 23:9, which reminds us, “You shall not oppress a stranger, for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.”

I am grateful to the ancestors who fought to end slavery so that I was not born a slave. So this is not to say that moving among white Jews is like being a slave. But I know what it is to feel like a stranger, sojourning through Jewish spaces that struggle to figure out how I belong. Being called to the Torah only when large numbers of guests will be at the temple. The maybe well-intentioned but Ashkenazi-centric, “So are you Mizrahi?” The construction of Ashkenazi as “white,” when here I am, both Black and Ashkenazi simultaneously. My spouse and I felt forced to leave the synagogue where he became a Jew because the rabbi insisted that there were no Jews involved in the slave trade, or at least not in any significant numbers. Mainstream discourses about Jewish history, Ashkenazi-centrism and whiteness struggle to reckon with the fact that some Sephardim were deeply enmeshed with the slave trade — not just in North America, but also in Barbados, where my mother was born, and all over Latin America and the Caribbean.

Passover is the week when I deal with what it means to be simultaneously Black and Jewish in America. I organize a seder; I invite people I care deeply about into my home. I create and print a custom Haggadah each year. We get wasted drinking two sizable grape dranks on empty stomachs (wine, gin/vodka/soju and concord grape juice, take your pick). We laugh our way through whatever play-version of the Maggid my spouse has picked out that year. We also make sure to talk about Black and Palestinian experiences around the world. It is through this joyous experience that I reconcile being Black and Jewish at the same time, getting to craft an environment where my identity is whole. I know that everyone there understands this is a time when I honor my ancestors, biological and spiritual, who toiled under the Pharaoh of white-supremacist capitalism and colonialism. Passover is the part of the year when I bring my community together and call on us to lift up Black history, Black joy and bountiful Black futures.

It took me a long time to realize that white Jews don’t quite have the same experience — and can’t. Intergenerational slavery did not systematically happen to their biological ancestors. They do not have to negotiate the complexity of color the same way that Black Jews do — wading through understanding our skin color as a mark, as a site of danger, as a representation of legacies of rape and dehumanization. For those of us who are Black Jews, this discourse has its own unique manifestations, though the contours are familiar: Those of us who are darker are treated worse, and those of us who are lighter don’t always take responsibility for noticing that.

This is not to say that Jews of all kinds don’t have trauma. I remember an Iraqi American Mizrahi woman telling me that her family’s trauma was not the Holocaust; it was being forcibly relocated to Israel. My great-uncle and his family escaped Germany just in time; when he returned as a soldier in the U.S. Army, he could not believe how bad things had gotten. Much of my grandmother’s father’s family escaped pogroms in Poland, only to face poverty and antisemitism in the United States. I have no interest in comparing these traumas with slavery or ranking them. But I need people to understand that they are not intergenerational chattel slavery. Nor do they need to be.

Yet Black Atlantic experiences are deeply integrated into American seders. I think the two most common justifications for this are: “But we do this because we recognize the journey of Black people through slavery and segregation” and “Jews sang these songs side by side, arm in arm, as they marched for freedom.” I appreciate these intentions, the symbolism and the history. Importantly, I want non-Black Jews to think about the significance of this symbolism and the extent to which this annual practice is supported by daily activities that uplift Black well-being. They should also ask themselves: How would they feel about gentiles taking Jewish traditions and treating them as their own — without any Jews in the room to be accountable to as they do it? There is a difference between singing side by side with Black people as you put your body on the line to fight the forces of white supremacy and doing the same at a festive celebration where there are likely no Black people at all. It’s important to think carefully about this, in part because it has been decades since mainstream Jewish organizing was strongly linked to contemporary Black calls for liberation.

There are days when I wish I could stop being Jewish because I experience so much alienation in the Jewish community, and frankly, it would be easier to fit into the Black communities I am a part of if I were Christian. But I never wish I wasn’t Black because at the end of the day, I can find diverse Black spaces where I am embraced without hesitation. This Passover, I invite white Jews to discuss what they will do to ensure Black Jews and other Jews of color can find Jewish spaces like that, too. This means rethinking what exactly you may be doing when you invoke Black trauma and the art created in response to it as part of your Passover celebrations. Instead, perhaps you take should use that time to ask difficult questions of yourselves. You may find yourself feeling like you do not know how to ask. That is a fine place to begin the story.


7 Responses

  1. Thank you so very much for writing this. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated your words. I am putting together a “lay” lead Seder in a small Jewish Community in Wildwood, NJ. and I am going to make copies of your words to give to everyone. Sharing experiences, observations, and feelings is what weaves communities together and increases the understanding that allows everyone to grow. Thank you again.

    1. Because you did not invite her to join your small Seder, you still failed to consider them in your heart.
      Same heart, different use of the outcry from a fellow Jew. Remember, we are forbidden to look on while another Jew suffers, and do nothing.

  2. This is an incredibly useful explanation of what the proper relationship should be between the liberation narrative of a white, Jewish celebration of Passover and the liberation narrative of the people who were forced into slavery and freed themselves in America. Thank you.

  3. Dr. Chanda Prescod Weinstein,

    Thank you for your personal sharing of the experiences you’ve had at passover
    and in other white Jewish spaces. My life in Asheville has included African American people in
    my participation against racism.
    But, this very white and smallish city has not allowed me to meet Black Jews.
    I am appalled at the numbrs of Jewish POC who experience racism in the Jewish community.
    I am connectec, now-by Zoom-to a progressive Jewish community in Chicago. And there are people of various races and nationalities there. Blessings to you, Chandra

  4. Thank you Chanda for this thought-provoking perspective. I view the
    passover story/mythos as somewhat of an archetype – a liberation story
    which depicts the arc and dynamics of personal and social liberation. There’s
    a universal quality to the human struggle and yearning for what we call
    “freedom” – freedom from, freedom towards, whatever form. And there is
    also a universal stream from which flows the cultural products of this quest –
    the struggle of the oppressed under what ever humanly created system of
    injustice. For me, singing revolutionary songs from Italy to Cuba, the liberation
    chants of the anti-apartheid liberation struggle or songs of black slaves in
    US – these are universal cultural products expressing the yearning for and
    proclaiming the possibility of systemic transformation towards liberation.
    It’s affirming to me to embrace these songs and chants and to sing them
    loudly, as we gather momentum, together, intersecting communities to do the
    work of deep transformation. Chag sameach

    1. The thing is, they are not universal cultural products. The liberation songs of Black people are not mine to co-opt as universal songs of liberation, as a white Jew. There are other liberation songs that I can sing without appropriating Blackness, Black pain, and Black liberation as my own. A Black, Jewish person has named this as harmful, naming that it is painful to think of these songs being sung out of context, led by white Jews, sung by groups of all or mostly white Jews. To respond that Black liberation songs are universal just continues to perpetuate that harm.

  5. Thank you for writing this. I came across it looking for examples of cultural exchange versus cultural appropriation. Synchronously, I was looking for Passover resources in a separate search. I’ll preface by saying it’s been awhile since I’ve been at a seder, so I may not have the most relevant lived experience to draw on. I recall “Go Down Moses” being sung at seders, but not other Black spirituals.

    In terms of “Go Down Moses,” I’m not sure how to think about it in terms of cultural appropriation. While I understand the origins and some of the history of the song (and am glad the Passover story served as a source of inspiration and feel it was appropriate that it did and that that it did honors Passover), it feels weird for me to say non-Black Jews singing it is cultural appropriation when the song tells the Passover/our story. (“Our” referencing Jews and all Jews.) I think Haggadahs do have to acknowledge the history of the song and have reflection questions geared towards meaningful solidarity that do not default assume attendees are white Ashkenazim.

    I’m open to feedback of course! I also do not expect it since feedback is time and emotional labor (and I’m a stranger on the internet who is not compensating you -you referring here to the author or a reader- with at least a coffee and pastry!) I wanted to share though because other non-Black Jews besides me may be wondering the same thing, and I think moving beyond a surface level understanding of cultural appropriation requires getting into topics such as this.

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