There are deeply entrenched historical linkages between anti-Black racism and what commentators sometimes call “Ashkenormativity” (the idea that Ashkenazi culture is the default Jewish culture) within American Jewish communal life.

Learn the processes through which the face of the American Jewish community emerged as white and Ashkenazi, why that public image has retained such staying power, and how it might be overthrown as American Judaism is “reconstructed” once again for the 21st century.