{"id":40252,"date":"2022-12-23T01:57:54","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T09:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=40252"},"modified":"2022-12-21T17:46:21","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T01:46:21","slug":"building-bridges-to-inclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2022\/12\/23\/building-bridges-to-inclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Building bridges to inclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Volunteers from the Jewish community turn up each June to prepare, label and deliver freshly cooked meals to Black families as a sign of community support. (photo by JFS photo by Madison Slobin)<\/em><\/p>\n

How do you build a more inclusive Jewish community, one that thrives on diversity? For Vancouver\u2019s Jewish Family Services, says chief executive officer Tanja Demajo, resilience starts with building bridges. And it flourishes with finding common links between cultures.<\/p>\n

During the last few years, JFS has been expanding the programs it offers to Jewish communities throughout Metro Vancouver, and looking for new ways to enrich conversations around diversity and inclusion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Projects like the Shiva Delivers partnership with Vancouver\u2019s Black community and Twice Blessed 2.0: The Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ Initiative are helping forge alliances and cultural understanding.<\/p>\n

Sharing home-cooked meals<\/b><\/p>\n

Shiva Delivers, which provides traditional home-cooked meals to Black families dealing with loss and grief, was started by Madison Slobin and Becca Schwenk in 2020 following the death of George Floyd, who was killed on May 25 of that year during a routine traffic stop by Minneapolis police. His death ignited protests in cities across North America, including Vancouver. According to Demajo, Shiva Delivers emerged as \u201ca response to the social injustice and the grief that the Black community were experiencing.\u201d (See also jewishindependent.ca\/providing-comfort-and-hope<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Slobin and Schwenk ran the program independently the first year with a cadre of volunteers from the local Jewish community. In 2022, JFS jumped on board, offering its kitchen as an operation centre for the project, which takes place every June. According to Slobin, Jewish families from across Vancouver signed up to cook full-course meals and carry out the deliveries, inspired by the very Jewish tradition of responding to tragedy and mourning with food.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen someone in our community is grieving, we support them with food and with showing up and saying, \u2018we\u2019re here for you,\u2019\u201d Slobin said, noting that the concept was popular with volunteers from the start. \u201cWe had young Jews participating, we had Orthodox Jews participating, we had [people] from all spectrums [of the community].\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Demajo, news about the program arrived at the right time for JFS.<\/p>\n

\u201cJFS was going through this exploration of how do we work with and reach out to different communities,\u201d Demajo said. \u201cWhat we really learned was, first of all, a large Jewish community was interested in making this connection and intercultural exchange … with the Black community and showing their solidarity. And, on the other hand, the Black community was just touched by the fact that another cultural group offered that support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Demajo said she received many expressions of thanks from Black community members stunned by the gesture \u2013 and the elaborate dishes. \u201cAre all Jewish people such good cooks?\u201d one person called to find out. \u201cYour food is amazing!\u201d<\/p>\n

But the project also helped JFS confirm that there were members of the Black community who were Jewish but not affiliated with the Jewish\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

community. Demajo said she realized this when a young woman who had received one of the dinners contacted her to ask why the Jewish community was doing this.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you know,\u201d Demajo told the woman, \u201cwe have Black people in [our] community as well, and we want to build bridges and reach out [and] learn from each [other\u2019s communities].\u201d A moment later, Demajo said she heard the woman\u2019s child calling to her. The child was speaking in Hebrew. \u201cAnd that kind of took me back a little bit,\u201d Demajo admitted.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It turned out the woman had moved here from Israel some years earlier but wasn\u2019t participating in the Vancouver Jewish community. \u201cEven though I lived in Israel,\u201d she told Demajo, \u201cI\u2019ve never felt part of the community here.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I realized at that moment,\u201d Demajo said, \u201chow important this [program] is, because we don\u2019t know who the people are that we seem to support, until we actually do reach out and hear these stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

Slobin said the project not only inspires more opportunities for sharing between the two communities, it\u2019s helping convey an important message to Black Jews that they are indeed a welcome part of the Jewish community. \u201cEvery single year that we have done it, we have had Black Jews participate and express how meaningful it is for them to see their own community recognize them in this way,\u201d said Slobin.<\/p>\n

Being more welcoming<\/b><\/p>\n

Twice Blessed 2.0: The Jewish LGBTQ2SIA+ Initiative formed in response to a survey that JFS and JQT Vancouver (a volunteer-run Jewish queer and trans nonprofit) compiled in 2021 to determine the needs of the local LGBTQ2SIA+ community. The results were released earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Some respondents said they feel unwelcome in the greater Jewish community, while others stated they feel ostracized by the LGBTQ2SIA+ community because they are Jewish. Most respondents felt that clear \u201c\u2018indicators of support\u2019 for the LGBTQ2SIA+ community would make them more inclined to participate in the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOur commitment to diversity and inclusion must speak through our actions, and not only our words.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although not an easy task, it is an imperative one,\u201d wrote Demajo and JQT executive director Carmel Tanaka in the report, which can be found at jqtvancouver.ca\/twice-blessed-2<\/a>. (See also jewishindependent.ca\/thirteen-calls-for-action<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the lessons we need to learn is, how do we make our agency more welcoming for different people?\u201d Demajo said, \u201cAnd, very simply, how do we do that in a dignified way?\u201d<\/p>\n

These questions are also helping JFS reexamine how it\u2019s interacting with other cultures and communities when it\u2019s providing social and economic support to Jewish families.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important for us as a community to understand the clients that we support live in very diverse neighbourhoods, which means that probably, on a daily basis, they see a lot of diversity and they live in those circles. When we as an agency provide certain supports to one targeted group and exclude their neighbours \u2026 that creates a lot of tension that gets reflected in their day-to-day life. So, at the end of the day, we all go home but they have to deal with the aftermath of the way we provided services \u2026 and this is why, on our end, it became really clear that, in order to support our clients, it\u2019s not just a question of providing services directly to them,\u201d explained Demajo. \u201cIt\u2019s also ensuring that they have a safe community, a community of allies, a community that they can rely on when we\u2019re not around. By building these bridges between all these different groups, I believe that we can create that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learning from the past<\/b><\/p>\n

JFS is currently exploring a number of new projects focused on diversity and social inclusion, both within the Jewish community as well as forming relationships outside its cultural space. JFS\u2019s the Kitchen is often the meeting space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the beauty of having a kitchen is having a space for, again, sharing the stories and experiences through food,\u201d Demajo said.<\/p>\n

Recently, JFS has been partnering with organizations like CIJA and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver to explore ways in which different cultures can share their culinary traditions, stories and passions.<\/p>\n

Demajo said JFS is also doing a review of some of the programs it has offered in the past. \u201cWe really want to learn from things that went well, things that did not go well, and we\u00a0<\/span>understand in this space that there will be a lot of road [to travel], which is not easy. But it takes a lot of courage to step outside of that comfort zone as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

About tikkun olam<\/i>, repairing the world, she said, \u201cConversation may start with a handful of like-minded people, but it takes diversity and\u00a0<\/span>acceptance to build an inclusive community.<\/p>\n

Jan Lee<\/b> is an award-winning editorial writer whose articles and op-eds have been published in <\/i>B\u2019nai B\u2019rith Magazine, Voices of Conservative and <\/i>Masorti Judaism and<\/i> Baltimore Jewish Times, as well as a number of business, environmental and travel publications. Her blog can be found at multiculturaljew.polestarpassages.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Volunteers from the Jewish community turn up each June to prepare, label and deliver freshly cooked meals to Black families as a sign of community support. (photo by JFS photo by Madison Slobin) How do you build a more inclusive Jewish community, one that thrives on diversity? For Vancouver\u2019s Jewish Family Services, says chief executive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40254,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[7599,7702,7703,9807,19632,8474],"class_list":["post-40252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-diversity","tag-jewish-family-services","tag-jfs","tag-madison-slobin","tag-shiva-delivers","tag-tanja-demajo"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}