In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

xv Acknowledgments A book like this rests on the generosity of many. I thank all the people who shared with me their time, perspectives, and experience: (in alphabetical order) Ammiel Alcalay, Katya Gibel Azoulay (a.k.a. Mevorach), Beejhy Barhany, Naomi Braine, Jordan Elgrably, Rabbi Capers Funnye, Rachel Goldstein, Lewis Gordon, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Linda Holtzman, Esther Kaplan, Shira Katz, Joyce Maio, Yavilah McCoy, Navonah, Jane Ramsey, Vic Rosenthal, Emily Schnee, and Rabbi Susan Talve. A special thank you to Yavilah McCoy, who not only agreed to be interviewed but who created much of the discourse on the subject of Jewish diversity, and whose work has guided and deepened mine. I thank those writers and thinkers whose narratives and essays ground this book in experience, especially Ella Shohat, and Loolwa Khazzoom whose work on Jewish multiculturalism and whose anthology The Flying Camel have been so valuable. I am grateful for the information and connective tissue supplied by the amazing David Shasha’s weekly Sephardic Heritage Update, an incredible resource and labor of love (to receive Sephardic Heritage Update for free, e-mail Davidshasha@ aol.com). I thank Aurora Levins Morales, Julie Iny, Hilary Than, Angela Buchdale Wernick, Kyla Wazana Tompkins, Miri Hunter Haruach, and Ruth Behar for their words. Thanks also to Ruth Behar for sending me— with extreme graciousness—a copy of her gorgeous and inspiring film Adio Kerida about Jews and Cuba. A special thanks to Diane Tobin, Gary Tobin, and Scott Rubin for their infinitely useful book In Every Tongue. I thank Jenny Romaine for her immense theatrical talent and her generous appreciation of this manuscript. Hilary Gold, librarian extraordinaire in Phoenicia, New York, found everything I asked for, including some amazingly obscure texts. Temim Fruchter, activist musician and walking library, answered my peppering of e-mail questions at the last minute. Kate Crane and Tennessee Jones transcribed interviews with speed and accuracy. I thank my coworkers during the time I was writing, especially June Cumberbatch, for absorbing the slack so cheerfully, and for helping to protect my writing time. Sarah Swartz was an astute and kind editor . Yavilah McCoy, Esther Kaplan, and Leslie Cagan all read and offered useful critiques on part or all of the manuscript. Loie Hayes was incisive and helpful. I owe a special thanks to my editors at Indiana University xvi Press, Lee Sandweiss and Linda Oblack, for patience and competence in the face of a host of technical difficulties. I thank William Rukeyser for permission to quote his brilliant mother’s brilliant poem. A posthumous thanks to Gloria Anzaldúa, much missed, for her work and for her loving support of mine. Thanks to my sister Roni Natov—that paragon of sisterhood—who has always cheered me on. Thumbs up to my nephew Jonathan Natov, who picked up the Jewish ball in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and has been running with it ever since. In addition, there have been three profound sources I want to acknowledge : first, the opportunity I had in 1963–1965 as a teenager to work in the Harlem Education Project, part of the Northern Student Movement, which was “the Northern arm of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee” (SNCC). I got my left political values from my parents and the culture of working- and lower-middle-class Brooklyn Jews, but my political vision and sense of possibility came from the Harlem civil rights movement. Second—it must be said—the women’s liberation movement: I was a sturdy committed activist before the movement, but what women’s liberation released in me and in who knows how many millions of other women, is a power I will never imagine is mine alone. Third, in 1992 I was offered the extraordinary opportunity to come home to New York City and walk into a poorly paid, overworked dream job as the first director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice. I want to thank everyone who worked with JFREJ in those early years: members, activists, and allies, and the founders of JFREJ who had confidence in me, especially Donna Nevel and Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark, Alisa Solomon, Marlene Provizer, and the late and sorely missed Rabbi Marshall Meyer, Henry Schwartzchild and Gary Rubin. Most especially, I want to thank my comrade and sister Esther Kaplan, who came to work with me there in 1993, and who so splendidly became JFREJ’s next director. Esther’s commitment , street smarts, and the immense good will she brought to JFREJ from all the New York...

Share