The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism

by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz exposes and challenges the common assumptions about whom and what Jews are, by presenting in their own voices, Jews of color from the Iberian Peninsula, Asia, Africa, and India.

Drawing from her earlier work on Jews and whiteness, Kaye/Kantrowitz delves into the largely uncharted territory of Jews of color and argues that Jews are an increasingly multiracial people--a fact that, if acknowledged and embraced, could foster cross-race solidarity to help combat racism.

This engaging and eye-opening book examines the historical and contemporary views on Jews and whiteness as well as the complexities of African/Jewish relations, the racial mix and disparate voices of the Jewish community, contemporary Jewish anti-racist and multicultural models, and the diasporic state of Jewish life in the United States.

Genres: Jewish, Judaism, Nonfiction, Race, Judaica, Religion, History

296 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz is a writer and poet, activist, scholar and teacher. A pioneer in women's studies, she taught the first such course at the University of California at Berkeley in Comparative Literature, where she earned her Ph.D. Since then she has taught all over the U.S., twice as a distinguished chair--at Hamilton College and at Brooklyn College/CUNY--and in fields as diverse as Jewish Studies, Women's Studies, Urban Studies, Race Theory, Public Policy, Gender and Queer Studies. For five years she directed the Queens College/CUNY Worker Education Extension Center in Manhattan. She currently teaches at Queens College in Jewish Studies, History and Comparative Literature, and recently taught in the Bard College Prison Initiative. Born and raised in Brooklyn, a graduate of City College/CUNY, Melanie worked in the Harlem Civil Rights Movement as a teenager, and continues to be active in progressive movements, anti-war, lgbt, feminism, anti-racism, labor. She gave up a tenured teaching position to return to New York to work against racism in the Jewish community.

Reviews

[Elijah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written by an ashkenazi (white jewish) lady, definitely from an ashkenazi perspective . The first half she spends a lot of time talking about how "jewish" doesn't mean "ashkenazi," with a lot of personal writing and stories by mix race jews, black jews, mizrahim, sephardim, etc, that part is pretty rad, but a lot of the second half flips over into a focus "the movement" in the states with a lot of white jews interviewed and writing about the european holocaust, so.. the book loses integrity overall, but.. I was still glad to read a book about racial identity and politics in judaism.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad this book was written. It lost focus for me as it went along although all the material is important. The first chapter, which asks the question "Are Jews White?", contains some very powerful and thought-provoking questions about the color of Ashkenazi/Eastern European Jews. The issues raised however were left undeveloped and the concomitant questions were left unanswered. Those issues and questions are worthy of at least another book's worth of further thinking and understanding of history IMO. I was sorry the author left that topic and didn't stick with it. I'm really glad she wrote about Jews of African descent and also of recent Middle Eastern heritage. That is another important topic. But it is a different topic. The question "Are Jews of Ashkenazi heritage white?" can't be answered by talking about the issue of the invisibility of Jews of African heritage. These really are two different topics. And in this book the two topics are actually used to obfuscate each other and neither one is discussed with the clarity that I would like to see.

[York · Rating 4 out of 5]

While presenting an engaging wealth of material, the book becomes disorganized in the latter half. The lack of information on Mountain and Bukharan Jews is also disappointing, especially since New York City has large populations of the latter.

[Nadav David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a critical read for Jews and non-Jews who are invested in racial justice work. The author uplifts the cultural, ethnic and racial fullness of the Jewish community, while examining the ways in which the internal community work emboldens broader solidarity work. I found the first 3-4 chapters to be especially captivating and enlightening, and at times the final chapters to be harder to follow.

[Adrian Shanker · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Solidarity is the political version of love”

As a white, Ashkenazi Jew I found this book to be powerful, truthful, data-driven, and urgent for all of us to read.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The introduction questioning assumptions about Jews and the ending reframe to diasporism are brilliant, but the interviews were repetitive and could’ve been summarized.

[RYAN PHAM · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laminated hardcover

[Sellyndavies]

About halfway through....Kaye/Kantrowitz begins with the question “Are white Jews white?” – from there, she discusses interracial dynamics in the U.S. and the many varieties of Judaism beyond the dominant American Eastern-European model.