An Open Letter to Emmanuel Acho and Brene Brown

I listened to this podcast this morning from two people that I follow whom I love, admire, respect and always learn so much from. And I was triggered. 

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day so perhaps it’s fitting that this is coming up for me today. It is not the day on the Jewish calendar that we remember the Holocaust - that comes in the Spring - today is a day for the International non-Jewish community to remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and what it means for them and what they can learn from it.

I am addressing this post directly to Brene and Emmanuel because it’s something I think they completely missed and misunderstood and it’s something that the non-Jewish community needs to recognize.

Emmanuel - First, I want to say that I love you. You have taught me so much since releasing your first video of “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man.” I admire your willingness and ability to hold space for people to ask the hard questions, and how you always speak truth from a place of love and understanding. Plus, you’re a former Eagle and that’ll always mean something to this girl from Philly 😉💚🦅 

You told a story about how during your show with Oprah, you were asked a question- “The Holocaust was both more recent and more deadly than slavery but Jewish people have managed to recover, how come Black people can’t?”

WOW. That question hit me like a knife in the heart. It’s both ignorant and just plain wrong.

But, (and here’s where the pain really came in) the response you gave just twisted that knife. You said “it is easier to judge someone based off their skin color than it is to judge someone based off of what they believe.”

While I completely agree with that statement, you missed the the most essential parts to someone who is Jewish.

You acknowledged the ignorance interwoven in the question, but, here’s what you missed in your response, Emmanuel.

Jews have NOT recovered from the Holocaust. That’s where the first point of ignorance lies in the question. Antisemitism is at an all time high in this country and across the world. And it’s not just from White Supremacists or the extreme right. It’s also coming from the “left” and it is interwoven into the dominant white Christian society we live in. The pain of the Holocaust and the pain of thousands of years of discrimination, persecution and oppression before that still runs deep in our veins and is passed down through collective and inter-generational trauma and memories. And it’s still happening. 

Jews have become a “model minority” seen as wielding power, and many have assimilated into white society. But our experience is not the same. And we are not white.

That brings me to the next point that you missed. Your response pre-supposes that discrimination against Jews is based on their beliefs and that Jewishness is categorized by belief. This is just plain wrong. A person who is ethnically Jewish is Jewish whether or not he/she believes in the religion or not.

Judaism is an ethnoreligion. Yes, belief and religion play a part - but it is not the only thing that defines someone’s identity as a Jew. A person is a Jew because they were born of Jewish ancestors. Yes, we welcome converts - but it is not a proselytizing religion and the process of conversion is cumbersome. Once a person converts, they are welcomed in as part of the tribe as if they are ethnically Jewish.

Moreover, your response ignores the experience of Jews of Color - of which there are many. The fact that many American Jews look white is a direct result of our own discrimination and expulsion from our indigenous homeland. And while some were pushed into areas of Europe where our persecution continued, others were expelled to areas in the Middle East, Northern Africa, Asia and all over the world (where they were also discriminated against)… resulting in there being Jews of almost every race. But we’re all still ethnically Jewish- in addition to our other respective nationalities and races.

Those of us whose ancestors were expelled to Europe may look white.. and YES, we benefit from white privilege. But our experience is vastly different - and even more painfully, it is denied or ignored.

Brene - you are one of my heroes. You are one of the reasons I’ve decided to become a Life & Impact coach after 17 years in the music industry as an artist manager. Your response to Emmanuel and the questions you asked him were compassionate and on-point. But you missed all of this too.

You brought up the idea of “comparative suffering.” But that’s not what this is. I admit, perhaps the person who asked Emmanuel the question was doing so- but that person was clearly coming from a place of complete ignorance. 

We as Jews are not trying to compare our suffering to that of Black people. We are just asking to also be seen. We are also empathizing and saying we see your pain and we know pain. 

Yes, our pain is different. Our experience of the world is different - but we also know pain and we want to stand beside you to learn from you and to heal, to grow and to make change.

We just want to feel seen and understood as we stand beside you.

It is scary, uncomfortable and painfully vulnerable for me to even write this because I know there will be people from all different sides that won’t agree with me. But as you both said so beautifully, the discomfort is necessary for healing and growth to happen. 

We have to have the uncomfortable conversations.

It is MY work to understand your experience, and it is also YOUR work or to understand mine.

That’s how we come to real equity and working towards a better more inclusive society for all.