PHOTO: The Jews of Color Initiative's national listening tour visited Tisch PDX's offices at the Eastside Jewish Commons Thursday, Dec. 11. (Jason Edelstein for the Jews of Color Initiative)

When the Jews of Color Initiative planned out their national listening tour, Portland was a natural stop.

“We’ve been working with the Jews of Color Initiative since 2022 when they gave us a grant to help fund what we think is one of the first surveys of Jews of Color in the Pacific Northwest,” Tisch PDX Executive Director Eleyna Fugman said. “We appreciate their support and the work they do nationally and have been really happy to be connected to them.”

Tisch PDX hosted JOCI’s Portland stop at the Eastside Jewish Commons Thursday, Dec. 11. After a presentation from JOCI CEO Ilana Kaufman, the assembled group of community leaders and Jews from communities of Color tackled a trio of questions, which Kaufman asks at each stop, designed to provide JOCI with feedback about how to tailor their work now and in the future.

“What is most important about the work that we do?” Kaufman said, listing her discussion questions for The Jewish Review. “Because who we serve in this community of multiracial, multi-ethnic Jews, changes over time, we want to hear from the community who, in their mind’s eye, they imagine us serving. The third question we ask is: if the Jews of Color Initiative stopped our work today, from their perspective, what would be lost in the community?”

One community leader in that conversation was Jewish Federation of Greater Portland President and CEO Marc Blattner.

“We are grateful for the ongoing work of JOCI,” Blattner told The Jewish Review. “They have assisted communities, like Jewish Portland, in recognizing the growth, impact, and importance of Jews of color in our community. We must continue to be open, accessible, and welcoming as organizations and find ways to engage this population even more.”

Sabina Spicer, the Cultural Shift Program Manager for Tisch PDX and a Jew of Color, was also on hand for the event.

“As people really started to explore things, we realized that there was a lot more to talk about, and it was a conversation that a lot of us have been wanting to have,” she said. “It was something we knew we wanted but didn’t realize how much we needed it. It could have gone on for hours.”

“You had that the whole community coming together around the table, representing the multiracial, multi-ethnic diversity of the Portland Jewish community together solving problems,” Kaufman said. “We were so happy to be able to convene that opportunity.”

“Synagogues and other places that are Jewish spaces, they say that they want to be more inclusive. They say they want to be more welcoming, and often they say that they think that they are, but people don’t show up, and they don’t understand it,” Spicer explained. “We were able, those of us who identify as Jews of Color, to give more of an insight.”