Asian Jewish Americans have a double reason to have a good time their heritage this May

May is each Asian American, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month And Jewish American Heritage Month. Two completely separate commemorations for 2 completely separate communities, right?

Think again. Not only are there Asian American Jews, but we come from different places and are available to Judaism in other ways.

Centuries of history

Some Asian American Jews come from longstanding Jewish communities in Asia. The two most famous of those are the Kaifeng Jews the Henan Province in China and the Jewish communities in India.

Today it’s the Kaifeng Jews a tiny number of individuals to which only a few, if any, Chinese-American Jews trace their heritage. The community probably got here to China from India or Persia around 1000 AD and doubtless numbered around 5,000 people at its peak.

However, Indian Jews are a distinct matter. In fact, they consist of three separate communities: The Bene Israel, the Jews of Cochin and the Baghdadi Jews. Everyone arrived in India at different times – with the Baghdahi community Because they’re the youngest, their traditions sometimes differ. For example, the Jews of Cochin are known for this their musical traditionsand the Bene Israel attach particular importance to it to the prophet Elijah.

In 2020 there have been approx 4,800 Jews in Indianearly There are 85,000 Jews with Indian roots living in Israel and a a couple of hundred within the United States.

Indian Jewish communities have distinct cultures that result from living in a majority Hindu and Muslim society. Indian-American Jewish artist Zion BenjaminFor example, she creates art that mixes her American and Jewish identity together with her Indian childhood – “inspired by both Indian miniature paintings and Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts,” because the Brooklyn Museum says described her work. The figures in her paintings are sometimes blue and are paying homage to Hindu depictions Incarnations of Vishnuthey usually contain pictures of Lotus flowers.

Multiple heirs

Many other Asian American Jews are children of 1 Jewish parent and one non-Jewish Asian parent Angela Buchdahl, the Korean-American rabbi of the Central Synagogue in New York City. Buchdahl has an Ashkenazi Jewish father, meaning his ancestors got here from Central or Eastern Europe, and a Korean Buddhist mother.

Raised in a synagogue that her Jewish grandparents helped found, Buchdahl has written and spoken publicly in regards to the pain she experienced as a teen and young adult when she was the one Asian person in Jewish spaces. At other times she was not recognized as a Jew – for instance by the Chabad Rabbis on their undergraduate campus.

She also spoke about moments when her family mixed her heritage. During Passover, for instance, the normal plate for the Seder meal incorporates “maror”: bitter herbs meant to remind Jews of the pain of slavery. Many families use horseradish, but one 12 months, Buchdahl's mother swapped kimchee.

When the Rabbi appeared on the PBS program “Find your roots“She spoke in regards to the resonances she sees between Jewish and Korean Buddhist cultures, corresponding to respect for elders and education.

It is this type of experience – growing up as a baby of an interfaith, interracial marriage – that sociologists Helen Kim And Noah Leavitt focus of their 2016 book on “JewAsian“, the primary major study of Asian American Jews.

“You’re Jewish?”

Other Asian American Jews have been adopted into Jewish families, most of whom are white and Ashkenazi – an experience studied by the Adoption and Jewish Identity Project. Many families raising Asian American Jewish children face challenges that they share with other transracial adoptive families, corresponding to adoptive parents not knowing much about their child's culture of origin, at the least initially.

However, some challenges are more unique, corresponding to the proven fact that Hebrew School and Chinese School often run at the identical time. In fact, once I was growing up, they were in my hometown at the identical time and place, so there was a carpooling between the Hebrew school and the Chinese school – but additionally in order that nobody could fully take part in each programs.

Additionally, Asian Jewish adoptees and other Jews of color face the idea by many white Jews that they’re Jews of color are usually not Jews or are converts. Typically, children adopted into Jewish families undergo a proper conversion. They grow up in Jewish families and are only as familiar – or not – with Jewish traditions as individuals who were born into Judaism.

Conversion to Judaism

Some Asian American Jews are adult converts to Judaism, like SooJi Min-Maranda, the Korean American executive director of Aleph: the Alliance for Jewish Renewal, a movement that trains and ordains Jewish leaders from diverse Jewish backgrounds. Me too, half South Asian Scholar of American Jewish religious history.

I don't often look for tactics to mix my Indian heritage and my Jewish religious life, but from time to time I find myself doing so – like at Hanukkah, once I celebrated with fried Indian food, and through Sukkot- Celebration once I imagined making the vacation's signature booths out of Indian bedspreads.

Like all individuals who decide to live a Jewish life, Asian Americans convert to Judaism for a lot of reasons. After conversion, we frequently resist the idea that either we are usually not Jewish or that our conversions were motivated solely by marriage.

In fact, there are such a lot of Asian American Jews that several organizations serve them. For example the Lunar collective “cultivates connection, belonging, and visibility for Asian American Jews.” They host Seders and Friday Night Shabbat events for Asian American Jews, in addition to various other programs. Other organizations corresponding to the Mitsui collectivefounded by Chinese-American Jewish activist Yoshi Silverstein, is aimed toward a broader spectrum of the Jewish community but fastidiously incorporates and creates space for Asian Jewish experiences.

Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month occur each May. They give us a moment to do not forget that these two communities are rather more diverse than one might initially think, that they overlap, and that there is actually amazing diversity of their intersections.