Coalitions of One: Moving Beyond Labels
Earlier this week, the JCPA hosted a national conference on “Coalition- and Bridge-Building Post-October 7th.” It was excellently designed, offering many novel perspectives on community relations during this challenging time. One thought from a workshop particularly resonated with me, especially given the abundant tsirus (challenges) we have faced all Pride Month.
Ayele Shakur, speaking on a panel about Black-Jewish relations, urged us to: “Think about coalitions’ relationships in terms of individuals.”
Like most of the best ideas, it’s so simple and yet so profound.
“The Black community,” “the Muslim community,” “the Jewish community,” “the LGBTQIA+ community”—these are all abstractions, composed of multitudes of individuals. “The ____ community” can’t “feel” any which way about an issue any more than my keyboard can. And, although we can speak of averages and generalities, we’re probably better off from a community relations standpoint focusing on the wants, needs, fears, and hopes of the actual flesh-and-blood individuals within various communities.
This Pride Month, with the tensions between “the Jewish community” and “the LGBTQIA+ community,” it’s important that we remember this lesson.
Yes, the framing and these categories do have some utility; but they also limit us. They obscure realities: That many such groups have overlapping demographics. That there are Jewish and queer folk who identify primarily with aspects of their identities other than Jewish or queer. Or that even the folks within the center of these circles (the “most Jewish Jews,” the “most Black Black folk,” the “most Muslim Muslims”) possess a great diversity of opinions.
In the case of our very real concerns with the treatment of two Jewish individuals by “the Cincinnati Pride board,” too, we must accept that further individuation is merited. Not everyone on Cincinnati Pride’s board revealed themselves to be tone deaf to the needs of the Jewish community. In fact, we (the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati and JCRC) have worked with key individuals on Cincinnati Pride’s board over the last week at tikkun (reparation), with tangible results of that process.
We are now collaborating more closely with Cincinnati Pride’s board to:
Ensure that Jewish safety is taken seriously at Pride;
Educate them on what antisemitic, unacceptable rhetoric would look like at the Parade and Festival;
Facilitate trainings for them about understanding antisemitism; and
Reestablish Jewish representation on the board.
No question, there is still a lot of work to be done. However, it feels clear to me that our current progress can only be attributed to focusing on relationships with individuals, rather than with amorphous groups. I’m confident, too, that this strategy will take us even further as we work (as our mission instructs us) to “strengthen Jewish security, recognizing that Jewish security depends on a just society for all.” This strategy will be indispensable as we work to repair, strengthen, and expand our coalitional relationships going forward.