Canadian-Jamaican’s multimedia project explores multiethnic Jewish identity

The reckoning with racism in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd in the United States in May 2020, was also felt in Toronto, Canada. It resulted, a month later, in the establishment of ‘No Silence on Race’, a non-profit organisation dedicated to re-imagining Jewish life in Canada for multi-ethnic Jews through community activations and content creation.

Sara Yacobi-Harris, who is of Jamaican and Jewish ancestry, said she and co-founder Akilah Allen-Silverstein, who is Kittitian and Jewish, as black Jews, were being asked to speak on many panels.

“A lot of Jewish organisations were reaching out to start having conversations and to hear from black Jews about what this moment meant to us. It was a very bitter-sweet moment because it was one where our perspectives and our opinions were now valid but, why at such a devastating time were we now given a platform to speak?”

At the time, Yacobi-Harris, a documentary filmmaker, facilitator and learning designer, was also getting closely connected to Black Jewish solidarity spaces in the United States through online meetings and found community there during the pandemic.

She was also feeling frustration, sadness, and thinking about more concrete ways to address racism and in particular racism within Jewish spaces in Canada. There were similar sentiments being expressed in the United States.

While connecting with her US counterparts, she was inspired by a movement that was built there and decided to do the Canada version. This resulted in her assembling a few people and drafting an open letter which was published.

Yacobi-Harris said the response was “extremely, overwhelming positive” and people who were already committed to that work in the Jewish community were grateful. She and Allen-Silverstein were not connected to a large Jewish community and were on their own peripheries of it, but that soon changed.

Over the past four years, the filmmaker has been connected into the community more than she ever has in her entire life.

In partnership with the Ontario Jewish Archives, ‘No Silence on Race’ created ‘Periphery’, a photographic and film exhibition which explores multi-ethnic Jewish identity including black Jewish experiences.

Since November, the portrait exhibit has been on display at Beth Tzedec Congregation, a synagogue in Toronto, where a closing event titled ‘Black Jewish Legacies and Liberated Futures’, in honour of Black History Month, will be held on February 27. It will feature a screening of ‘Periphery’ followed by a story circle panel with Black Jewish individuals from Toronto and Montreal who are of Ethiopian, Caribbean and Brazilian Jewish identities.

Sharing narratives from individuals of multiracial and multiethnic backgrounds, the exhibition creates space to look, listen, and learn from participants as they share their experiences and explore ideas of representation, intersectionality, ethnicity, race, and sexuality.

“‘Periphery’ invites us to appreciate the richness of Jewish identity and cultural expression while illustrating the feeling of grappling to belong. The film and portraits draw our attention inwards and invite us to examine how we foster and support a broader and richer view of the Jewish community,” notes a description of it.

Since its creation in 2021, ‘Periphery’ has been showcased in over 20 film festivals, both Jewish and non-Jewish, across North America.

The film is shown in classrooms across Canada and the US to school audiences, grade 8 to 12, both Jewish and non-Jewish schools. And we’ve also been doing a lot of screenings of ‘Periphery’ across various sectors.

Yacobi-Harris said it is a travelling exhibition that people from around the world can request and showcase in their space. There are also curriculum packages for educational institutions.

‘No Silence on Race’ will also be hosting a community screening of ‘Periphery’ and a panel at Museum of Toronto on February 6, featuring black Jewish stories as part of the museum’s ‘Black Diasporas Tkaronto-Toronto’ exhibition which runs until February 23.

Their goal is to invite more black people outside of the Jewish community to explore black Jewish narratives as their work seeks to expand narratives and definitions about who Jewish people are.

Yacobi-Harris’ father, Clement Harris, 91, who is from Jamaica, is featured in the museum’s diaspora project.

“I interviewed him talking about his life and journey from Jamaica to the UK (United Kingdom) and then the UK to Canada and so it’s a special event for me,” she said, noting that there is a section of the museum’s exhibit that focuses on faith and spirituality and so ‘Periphery’ is making that connection, as well to the broader theme of the diasporic narratives.

The documentary filmmaker said there is a universality, a human experience that people connect to and it is always meaningful to make those connections and to bring the project to people.

editorial@gleanerjm.com