Tag: Shabbaton

Keshet hosted Keshet Neshamot / Rainbow Souls Shabbaton: a Retreat of Radiant Belonging February 16 through 18, 2024 at Pearlstone Retreat Center in Reistertown Maryland. Attendance was aspirationally capped at 30 participants in the planning stages. Ultimately, 90 people completed the form to attend. We came from across the country for a taste of community. This was the first Shabbaton for some, a reunion for others, and a beautiful opportunity for all to bring our full selves into Jewish space.

If you have not heard Keshet, a national group working for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life, has a new Jews of Color Programs Manager in Sage Cassell-Rosenberg who collaborated with other keshet neshamot to create the best Shabbaton I have EVER attended!

It began with baking challah, a precious way to ground us in ritual and meaning while literally making Shabbat together with collective hands. This opening was shephered by Harriette Wimms, founder of the Jews of the Jews of Color Mishpacha Project (which has been hosting an annual Shabbaton since 2020, the next one coming up July 12-14, 2024) and Kohenet serving on the board of Beit Kohenet.

Kabbalat Shabbat was led by Joshua Maxey, Executive Director of Bet Mishpacha of Washington DC using their amazing siddur from this egalitarian queer community founded in 1975. We used the Shabbat and Havdalah Guide for BIMPoC & BIMPoC LGBTQIA+ Jews on Shabbat morning, led by the guide’s creator, Kadijah Spence. Version 2 of the Shabbat and Havdalah Guide has been updated to include transliteration for Hebrew and the Hebrew alphabet.

Shabbat afternoon was filled with more activities of connection and belonging. Is Perlman, Keshet Youth Intern, led a powerful, rich, and inclusive Identity Mapping session to embrace the richness of our diverse intersectional identities. Enzi Tanner staff of Bend the Arc and somatic fellow with Mitsui Collective led a session focused on caring for ourselves and our communities, bridging Jewish text, wisdom, and tradition with modern physical and psychological well-being practices. Sage invited us into one-on-one engaged sichot (conversation) sessions with guided prompts.

Later, Sage wove in Jewish teachings as our hands made our own Havdalah candles which ignited our closing of Shabbat. Story District highlighted the importance of our stories through a group activity before featuring Stories For Liberation told by five of the Shabbaton participants: Sage Cassell-Rosenberg, Samiah Fulcher, Is Perlman, Kadijah Spence, and Harriette Wimms. We celebrated new and deepened connections late into the night. Our departing Sunday morning closing session, titled Shrugging Off Imposter Syndrome and Owning Your Badassery by Kiyomi Kowalski, was sadly cancelled due to illness. There are plans to reschedule this session virtually which can expand the Shabbaton community.

As we closed a sweet Shabbat of belonging, Brittany Maxson (participant and photographer) took the beautiful photograph that opens this article. Gathered together for the last time, Keshet announced the first ever research study to better understand queer Jewish people of color experiences within Jewish spaces. This will build on the groundbreaking 2021 Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Color study, the first of its kind by the Jews of Color Initiative who surveyed 1,118 respondents across the country. Itself, building on the 2019 Counting Inconsistencies: An Analysis of American Jewish Population Studies With a Focus on Jews of Color which estimates between 12-15% of our Jewish community identify as people of color, about twice as much as the 6-8% once thought by the Jewish community.

Jews of Color Sanctuary is proud to be a connected partner in the national Jewish people of color landscape, bringing a taste of the community we can have here in Cincinnati and the Midwest. We are just finishing the Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out, Midwest JoC affinity mussar va’ad, in collaboration with Kol Or of the Council on Jewish Affairs in Chicago and Edot in Milwaukee, with support from Jews of Color Cleveland. Jews of Color Sanctuary is considering launching an open in-person Cincinnati cohort or a virtual Ohio cohort and we’d love to talk with you about it. There is so much possibility and we get to chart our present into the future!