Next Judah Touro program explores Jews and race

The second event of the 2025 Judah Touro Program Series will be presented via Zoom on Thursday, April 3, at 6:30 p.m., according to the Touro Synagogue Foundation. Guest speaker Rabbi Dan Judson will present a talk titled, “A Genuinely Candid Conversation: Jews & Race in Early 20th America.” In his lecture, Rabbi Judson will examine how Jews understood themselves as a race and interacted with the African-American community in the early 20th century. There is no fee to participate, but reservations are required to receive the Zoom login information.

In his classic 1967 essay on Black antisemitism and Jewish racism, James Baldwin writes, “A genuinely candid confrontation between American Negroes and American Jews would certainly prove of inestimable value.” Some of the texts to be explored in this talk, reading the Yiddish Forward on racism in the early 1900s, for example, will be inspiring. However, some of the material discussed will be less than ennobling as we attempt to understand the varied and complicated responses of the Jewish community to questions of race.

For the link to reserve, plus recordings of past programs, please visit the “Programs & Events” page at tourosynagogue.org. For more information, please write Meryle@tourosynagogue.org or phone 401-847-4794, ext. 207.

Submitted by the Touro Synagogue Foundation