By Rina Torchinsky
About 20 minutes north of the U.S.-Mexico border, there is a Reform Jewish community rich with Shabbat dinners and Super Bowl watch parties. Ben Gonzalez, a junior computer engineering and journalism double major, calls this cozy community home.
Gonzalez is a member of the University of Maryland’s Jewish Latinx club and hopes to become a member of the developing Jews of Color club.
“You can be a Latinx Jew, but you don’t necessarily identify with being a person of color,” Gonzalez said. “It’s giving other people the opportunity to find other people like them.”
Sofi Elkin, a junior women’s studies major, is on a mission to develop the Jews of Color club so students like Gonzalez and herself can feel a sense of belonging.
The Steinhardt Social Research Institute reports that 1 in 10 adult Jews by religion in America identify as non-white, but Elkin has struggled to track them down on campus.
“There should be, like, a few hundred Jews of color on campus out of thousands, but we don’t know where they are,” Elkin said.
Elkin posted fliers at Hillel, but doesn’t expect to get much of a response out of them because she does not think many Jews of color feel like they belong there.
Elkin, a Costa Rica native, has not always felt accepted, even back home. She said she felt like an outcast because she practiced Reform Judaism in a place where Modern Orthodoxy was dominant. She was often excluded from Orthodox social circles as a child.
When she ventured beyond her Central American upbringing and encountered American Judaism for the first time at a synagogue in North Carolina, she said it was a “culture shock.” She was used to being one of many Jews of color in the Reform congregation, but in this community, “it was just the opposite.”
The American synagogue was in stark contrast to her Costa Rican Reform community of about 100 families, where her Sunday school classes never exceeded ten students. It felt like family.
“I was born there, bat mitzvahed there, everybody knew me,” Elkin said.
Despite the significant Jewish population at the University of Maryland, Elkin said it was not easy for her to find a space to express her identity among like-minded individuals. When she embarked on Hillel’s Jewish Learning Fellowship, she often spoke up about her experience as a Jew of color. She was the only one in the program.
“I made a point to make a point out of it,” Elkin said.
Although she doesn’t struggle to speak up for herself and her identity, she values the spaces where she can be herself without an explanation.
“I think it’s important for people to feel like they don’t have to explain their identity to anyone,” Elkin said. “I found myself doing that a lot, but it’s nice to be around people where you can kind of be you.”
David Akerman, a sophomore journalism major and interim president of the Jewish Latinx club, is looking forward to seeing where Elkin takes the Jews of Color club.
“I’m very excited,” Akerman said. “When I was younger, I didn’t really identify with my black heritage and now I’m more identified with it. I think it’s fantastic to have clubs that are specified, because we don’t know how many people there are.”