From the Jewnited Nations website:

“A mutual friend informed a group of us that Yonah had passed away and that the funeral would be later that week in Brooklyn, they weren’t sure when yet. But they wanted to make sure that as many people–as many JOCs–as possible could attend so that Yonah’s mother didn’t have to be alone at her daughter’s funeral.”

So, what is a “JOC?”  Although the piece does little to explain Yonah’s ancestry, I guess she may have been of African origin because later on the author calls her a “Black girl (who) was Jewish.”  JOC stands for “Jew of Color.”

This raises a very different issue, how does one become a Jew?  All branches of Judaism accept a formal process of conversion .., that is. study and affirmation by a rabbi or rabbis that you are now a Jew.  In Yonah’s case she had, according to the piece, attended Chabad services.  But anyone, certainly including non Jews, can do that without converting.  In Roman times such people were called “God fearers” and while very respected by the Jewish community were not considered Jews.   Rabbi Capers Funnye has dealt with this and he has led his congregation of African Americans in Chicago to formally co9nvert to becoming Jews.,   As a God fearer, Yonah would have neither the obligations of the rights of a Jewish woman.   If Yonah did not convert. the Chabadniks would of course refuse her burial as a Jew with no relation whatsoever to her ancestry.

Why was Yonah being buried in New York? Because the Jewish community she had lived in, had prayed in, had interacted in, didn’t believe this Black girl was Jewish. They refused to sell her mother a burial plot. The Chassidic community whom she had prayed with for several months refused to claim her, vouch for her, or even send thechevra kadisha.

As anyone who has read Mein Kampf knows, the conflation of race with Jewishness is poisonous.  Here in the US, we have a new wrinkle ,, Jews are a not race, but er  are part of the “white race.”   Many liberal Jews now want to be called “white,” not out of Jewish pride but out of shame  for the doctrine of white supremacy.  As a Jew has always refused to accept the term “white,” I find this liberal attitude insulting to our heritage and pulpwood prefer to be called “honkey” rather than “white.”  On the other side of racism,  some Afrocentric African Americans who claim that the ancestral Jews were “black” and even make the racist claim that modern Jews are “white” and therefore not Jews at all.  A FACEBOOK friend has written books on this subject.     

Back to the story on the Jewnited Nations site:

“Anger and frustration couldn’t even begin to describe what I felt, and still feel.”

“Too often, the reaction to Jews of Color who relate their experiences are met with cries of “Wasn’t this an opportunity to educate them? When people don’t know, they don’t know. Just a thought…”. And when said Jew of Color retorts against such sentiment, the rebuttal of “Educating people on something they are unfamiliar with and justifying are two different things” comes soon after.”

“You–the ones who ask obnoxious questions or spew ignorant comments, and the apologetic ones who try to shelter people behind “teachable moments”–you are all part of the problem. One of you does not try or is not even interested in expanding your experience or knowledge outside of your insular box. And the other one of you absolves the first kind of having to take any initiative to do so, instead laying the burden of education on the being being offended or oppressed.”

“The both of you are the reason why Yonah is buried in New York and not at home, with her family, in Nevada.”

MaNishtana is an Orthodox Jewish blogger, author of “Thoughts From A Unicorn: 100% Black. 100% Jewish. 0% Safe”, and the Executive Director of The Shivtei Jeshurun Society for the Advancement of Jewish Racial & Ethnic Diversity (www.SJSociety.org). He blogs at http://www.manishtana.net. He drinks anywhere.