Jewish is White

How to Act Jewish to Raise a Jewish Child

The Intercultural Communications Approach Good morning! On today’s episode of “The Pretend Jew,” our heroine waivers on hosting the Hanukkah open house in her home because her Christmas tree is still up. And who doesn’t love her confused expression every time she’s in synagogue (she doesn’t speak Hebrew!) and has no idea when to sit down! And here’s your hostess…

I’ve taught him to be open to other cultures. Now he’s rejecting his own…

I could not be more proud that my son can watch Aladdin and immediately realize that the underlying stereotype when only the villain speaks with a Middle Eastern accent.  Or questioning the underlying bias of the positioning of modern African folk art as items of tribal ritual in an art museum.  After all, we’ve been…

What a Brazilian Child Gleaned from USAmerican Cartoons

I can’t tell you if this is a story about Really, have we met?  Finding out something totally surprising about my husband of 25 years that I never knew Duh—how did I never see something so obvious when seen through the eyes of another?  Or Deep, sensitive intercultural insight when seeing how USAmerican Culture is…

The Race Test: I am White

White Tim White talks a lot about White Privilege, White Peggy McIntosh is well-known for “Unpacking the White Knapsack” about what it means to be white, and most recently, White Mikhail Lyubansky, professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois, takes a stab at the notion in his article on psychologytoday.com, “Going Where Glenn Beck…

Bat Mitzvah’s and Adopted Babies from Korea: How We Learn and Pass-on Culture

Between a Bat Mitzvah (Jewish coming of age ceremony, Bat for girl, Bar for boy) on Saturday and a conversation at lunch yesterday that exposed multiple unconsicous assumptions of mine, I seem to have race, bias, and interculturalism on the brain, and in particular the idea of how culture is passed-on from one generation to the…