As society as a whole sought to examine racial diversity, the Board of Deputies became aware of moving and concerning testimonies of Black members of our own community about their experiences.
The Commission was launched to learn more about the experiences of Black Jews, Jews of Colour and Sephardi, Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews, to examine the issues and make recommendations for how our community can do better. Stephen Bush, an eminent journalist of Black and Jewish heritage, agreed to Chair the Commission.
The Commission considered 17 different areas of communal life, and the report makes 119 recommendations. Among them are the following:
- Representative bodies and organisations involved in rabbinic training should encourage members of under-represented ethnic groups to put themselves forward for communal roles
- Jewish schools should ensure that their secular curriculum engages with Black history, enslavement and the legacy of colonialism, and review their curriculum through a process led by students, particularly those who define as Black or of Colour
- Jewish studies departments should ensure that their teaching celebrates and engages with the racial and cultural diversity of the Jewish community worldwide, including Mizrahi, Sephardi and Yemenite tradition
- Communal institutions, particularly synagogues and schools, should commemorate key dates for diverse parts of the community, like the Ethiopian Jewish festival of Sigd and the official Day to Mark the Departure and Expulsion of Jews from the Arab Countries and Iran (30th November)
- Schools and youth movements should improve training for teachers and youth leaders on tackling racist incidents
- Communal bodies and Jewish schools should establish regular listening exercises that seek the concerns of their members or students
- Communal bodies should ensure that complaints processes are accessible, transparent, fair and robust, with all complaints related to racism handled according to the Macpherson principle, and specific new processes for handling complaints about security
- Communal venues should ensure that their security guards or volunteers desist from racial profiling
- Communal venues should consider instituting universal bag searches for every visitor, including regular attendees. If this is not feasible, they should consider the use of objective and proportionate criteria not based on race.
- A code of conduct should be developed for discourse on social media, making clear that attempts to delegitimise converts, calling people names such as ‘Kapo’, or using Yiddish terms such as ‘Shvartzer’ in a racist way, are completely unacceptable
- Batei Din should improve processes for conversion, including stricter vetting of teachers and host families, and a clearer process for complaints