Stacey Aviva Flint
Favorite traditional Jewish food: Persian jeweled rice, it’s a Sephardic/Mizrahi dish
Favorite Jewish holiday: That’s hard. It has changed, I think now it is Shavuot How would you describe your identity? I am Jewish, I am African-American, I am of mixed race heritage, I am a woman, I am a novice intellectual, academic sometimes, writer, speaker. Do you feel like your looks and experiences are included in the general picture of what a Jewish woman is? No, not in the traditional American-Jewish community. It is very Ashke-normative. Either you have the complete secular Jewish Ashkenazi woman and family, or you have the orthodox Jewish Ashkenazi women and family. People of mixed race, who are African American, even those who are Sephardic and Mizrahi in the Jewish community, are not really known. Every once and awhile, I’ll go to an event and people will be like, “Oh, how are you Jewish?” Ok really!? We’re going to have that conversation? I’ll say, “How are YOU Jewish? You need to give me your whole lineage as well!” I usually don’t stand for that kind of thing. If someone asks me that question, I will ask them right back. Or I will say, “That is kind of an intimate question for someone who just met me. If you would like to take me out to dinner and talk about it, I would be glad to do that!” But I don’t entertain any kind of things of that nature because Judaism teaches that we are not even supposed to ask those questions. I check people on that one! |
How does this affect your feelings about Judaism?
It doesn’t affect it in a negative way, I see it as an opportunity to remind the Jewish people of who we are. We are one of the oldest, multicultural, multinational communities in the world. We have been like that from the beginning. Because of the diaspora, because of how the Holocaust killed so many people and it was very concentrated on Europe, even the hundreds of thousands of Jews in non-European countries are not included in the Jewish story. I think it is an opportunity for the Jewish community to learn about ourselves and really help the greater community understand who we are, because studies show that up to 20% of American Jews are people of color. And that is only going to increase. Do you feel like you have been generally welcomed in Judaism? Why or why not? Yes, I do. I do believe that you are more welcome the more education and the more Jewish experiences you have. At a young age, I got involved in Jewish education and in the Jewish community. Because of that, I have those long-time experiences to bring to bear. I do notice that when people of color don’t have those, it is harder because you are playing catch-up. I knew Hebrew and worked in the Jewish community for 15 years. |
"We are one of the oldest, multicultural, multinational communities in the world." |
"People feel more freedom to exclude you online than in person, so it is where I have felt the most tension and exclusion." |
Are there times where you have felt excluded from Judaism because of your various identities?
I think online, that is where it can be the most exclusive. People want you to fit into a certain box. They either want you to be anti-Israel or completely pro-Israel. Online is where you get those conversations of “You’re not Halakhah if you don’t do this, that, and the other.” When you get into conversations online either politically or religiously, there is no Derech Eretz there. People feel more freedom to exclude you online than in person, so it is where I have felt the most tension and exclusion. Have you felt excluded from other spaces because of your Jewish identity? Being a person who is in another marginalized community, being African-American, a lot of times people expect that I can identify culturally with that community heart and soul. I can’t, not because I don’t want to, but because my experiences have been different. I have raised my children in the Jewish community. There are ways that I eat that are different, even before, I was mostly vegan or vegetarian. There is also a lot of socialization, I feel like when I socialize, I love having diverse groups of friends and I like to bring them together in my home, but it is hard. I’m either in an all Jewish space or an all Christian space or an all African American space. I’d love to see more spaces that have natural diversity. I’m also the only Jewish person at my job, that’s interesting. People will always say something like, “Oh, what’s that on your neck?”, or they will offer me food and I have to say, “No thank you.” My times off are different. Sometimes it is really confusing. I had a co-worker one time, I don’t think she knew that she was being anti-semitic, but over the phone, she said, “Wow that’s so interesting that you’re Jewish! So you don’t believe in Jesus?” Like no… And she said, “You know, I feel like I am Jewish because Jesus was Jewish…” and she goes into this whole thing. And I just wanted to talk about the work that we were doing because I was super uncomfortable! At the end of the conversation, she said something like, “One day, all Jews will come to know.” I thought, this conversation has REALLY gone off the deep end. But I was new there and she was senior to me, so I didn’t know if I should call out her anti-Semitism, or try to get off the topic and just never talk about it again. I have to talk to this person every week by phone! I know that it is [also] very hard [as a Jew of color] to have relationships. I’m divorcing right now, and I know that there is not a lot of diversity in the dating world. I know a lot of African-American or mixed race Jews who are single and looking. As I am starting to go into that world, I’m really overwhelmed and scared. |
You mentioned that you are a “novice intellectual” and “writer”. What topics do you tend to write about?
I like to write a lot about intersectionality of people, especially being African American and Jewish. I like to look at areas where people are finding commonalities at the soul and human dignity level, rather than the shallow level of things like race and religion. At the end of the day, when we talk about Palestinians and Israelis, they are two people who are human and who deserve human dignity and rights, and both of them have harmed each other. It is not that one side is all right and one side is all wrong, but there has to be an acknowledgement of human dignity and of the fact that each one of them will have to give up something so that their basic needs are meet. Neither one of them will ever get that idealistic goal of the whole land, that is just not realistic, and thinking like that will destroy both of our communities. I want to help people understand that and to understand that people are very traumatized. You cannot speak in ways that are anti-Semitic or racist, and think that you are not re-traumatizing people. Just because someone may look white and they are maybe privileged, being a Jewish person means that you have trauma in your family history. Being African-American means that you have trauma in your family history. There is a history of trauma no matter how successful you become, so those words and those tropes are still going to sting as if you were in slavery, or you were in the Holocaust, because those are stories that our families have told us over and over and over again. If anything, we have vicarious trauma. People should respect those communities. And if you are talking to someone who is African-American and Jewish, those two traumas come together, those are deep. I expect people who are discussing [the Israel-Palestine conflict] to be both educated and sensitive enough to understand the history of trauma that comes with both of those identities. You should be able to argue your points logically, but also be sensitive to the experiences of those communities. I write a lot about BDS and anti-semitism. I am actually going to Howard University in two weeks to talk about trauma-informed dialogue, how to have a trauma-informed dialogue about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is about what trauma does to the brain, memories and experiences, and how a lot of the discussions that we are having now about BDS and anti-semitism is creating more trauma, and it is not trauma informed. We are harming people emotionally and psychologically by trying to have a discussion where people are not taking into account the history of trauma. |
"I like to look at areas where people are finding commonalities at the soul and human dignity level, rather than the shallow level of things like race and religion." |
"The pure definition of [intersectionality] is the acknowledgement of the fact that at any given time, a person can be made up of so many multiple identities. When you push someone into just one identity, you are actually be harming them." |
Have you experienced prejudice when talking about Israel in your writing?
People expect that if I am African-American, I need to be in full support of Black Lives Matter. They expect that I only fall into one camp, and that somehow I am being a traitor, or not well-informed [if I support Israel]. Black Lives Matter comes out of a lot of trauma, so I understand where we are coming from because black lives do matter, and black lives are being destroyed around the world. I think that when you start to talk on an international level, you need to be so much more informed. Yes, there are people of black ancestry in Israel who are Israelis and who are Jewish. Yes, they are upset about some of the terrible things that are happening to them in their country, but they still would fight for their country because, heart and soul, they are Israeli and they are Jewish. Just like being an African-American in this country, I think some of the policies in America are absolutely racist and horrible, but when push comes to shove, I’m going to fight for my country because I am an American. I think that what people don’t understand when they get into conversations about Black Lives Matter all the way in Israel is that that person has more identities besides being black-- they are Israeli and they are Jewish. How/why do you think that a knowledge of intersectionality is important in social justice conversations? I really like Professor Crenshaw who highlighted intersectionality, but I think it has been hijacked. The pure definition of it is the acknowledgement of the fact that at any given time, a person can be made up of so many multiple identities. When you push someone into just one identity, you are actually be harming them. She gives an example of someone being at the intersection of being a woman and being in the workforce. There was a woman who had some sort of legal dispute, and she could fight the issue on one side of the law, but she couldn’t bring in the gender discrimination [that she had experienced]. That was something that wouldn’t be able to match with the legal case. But it’s like, “Do I just throw out my gender? Because I was discriminated against as a woman at work?” Either you take the work discrimination or the gender discrimination, but you can’t take both. [The problem with that is that those two things] go together, they belong together, they intersect. It is important to realize that that intersection is going to be different for a white woman who experiences work discrimination then a black woman who experiences work discrimination, because it could also be racially motivated. To ignore that can harm a person emotionally and psychologically. |
Does Judaism play an important role in your life?
Yes! It is amazingly important. [It influences] how I live every day, how I raise my children, how I eat, everything!
What is your favorite part about being Jewish?
My soul is at peace because I am being authentically me.
Want to read some of Stacey Aviva Flint’s work? Click on the links below!
As a Jew of Color, I Back Black Lives Matter But Not Its Approach to Israel, Which Erases Jewish Experience
The Women’s March Has An Intersectionality Problem
Setting One Table
ELI Talk- Many Faces, One Community
Own Your Story
Yes! It is amazingly important. [It influences] how I live every day, how I raise my children, how I eat, everything!
What is your favorite part about being Jewish?
My soul is at peace because I am being authentically me.
Want to read some of Stacey Aviva Flint’s work? Click on the links below!
As a Jew of Color, I Back Black Lives Matter But Not Its Approach to Israel, Which Erases Jewish Experience
The Women’s March Has An Intersectionality Problem
Setting One Table
ELI Talk- Many Faces, One Community
Own Your Story