
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Black History Month serves many purposes, including celebrating the diversity of Black Americans and reminding us that that Black Americans are far from monolithic.
Enter Ilana Kaufman, the chief executive officer of the Jews of Color Initiative (JOCI).
"We are a U.S.-focused organization and our work centers around anchoring the voices and experiences of Jews of color here in the United States," Kaufman, 51, told 1010 WINS from her Berkely, California, office.
1010 WINS spoke with Kaufman, born to a white Jewish mother and a Black Baptist father, about the Jews of Color Initiative's work, how her upbringing shaped her as a person and led to the creation of the JOCI, how Black Jewish Americans have been recieved in the larger Jewish community (and vice versa), and much more about this intersection of race and religion.
Below, listen to the interview, followed by a few excerpts:


WHAT'S THE MISSION OF THE JEWS OF COLOR INITIATIVE?
We run the country's only and first philanthropic fund focused on Jewish people of color and we use those funds from our community and we use those funds to help build organizations, leaders, new policies and practices We help fund programs led by ... Jews of color.
We also commission research for the United States focused on Jews of color and that research is really ... for helping us understand how many Jews of color there are here in the United States. What our experiences and perspectives are as Jews, what our experiences and perspectives are as Jews of color and then what we can do to help build, sustain, reinforce the U.S. Jewish community to really thrive as a multiracial community, as a community really connected to our Jewish identity.
TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND AND UPBRINGING
I'm 51-years-old and I was born in San Francisco in the Western Addition [neighborhood], which is and has been a community that was really rooted in Black communal identity and actually a Japanese communal identity.
I grew up in a context where I was raised in a Jewish community and was part of a religious school and a religious community.


My father's family live in Texas City, Texas [about 40 miles southeast of Houston].
And so I have a Black father, I have an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and I was raised in my own biracial multiracialism, communal context where ... I could count on one hand, the number of people in my community who looked like me as a person of color and someone who was Jewish.
And to be honest, I was raised in a communal context at that time where the Jewish community didn't really understand or see the diversity of us Jews.
So the way we were taught, the way we were informed, the way we were reflected, our stories back to us was one that really projected whiteness and didn't feel like my own experience.

WHAT DOES BLACK HISTORY MONTH MEAN TO YOU?
Black History Month means to me that we get to pause and even further elevate Black culture, Black Excellence, Black Connectedness ... For us at the JOCI, it's about celebrating our grantees who help advance Jews of color and Black Jewish community members.
It's about celebrating Black expression of Jewish life. It means that we will connect ... as Black Jews and create spaces where our Jewishness is unapologetically expressed as part of our Blackness and vice versa.
For more about the Jews of Color Initiative, click here.