Bess Greenberg/New York TimesYosef Abrahamson, 16, right, with his mother, Dinah, and his sister, Sarah, near their home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
An recent article, “A Young Man From Omaha, Who May Perfectly Represent Brooklyn,” by Susan Dominus for the New York Times Big City section portrays an interesting picture of some Jews of Color in Brooklyn. The article follows 16-year-old Yosef Abrahamson and his family. They are new Hasidic transplants to Crown Heights Brooklyn. There are also Jews of Color of mixed German Jewish and more notably, the article points out of African (Egyptian) and Panamian descent. They find acceptance from both the Jewish and African-American communities that have always been at odds in that are of Brooklyn. An African-American passerby proclaimed, “Now, I’ve seen everything” after watching the family walk home from shul.
If Yosef represents Brooklyn, then perhaps, I, as a Dominican Jewess, represent Washington Heights?
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 
Well but if we are to survive as a people then Klal Yisrael must embrace diversity in its fullest. I look at my life. My wife is a georet of Native American extraction; my son is Hispanic adopted from Guatemala as an infant. I grew up in an assimilated Ashkenazic home, became a chozer b’teshuva as a teenager and took on Minhag Sefaradit as my personal way to do Torah. Diversity, reinvigorates all of us and brings into the Jewish family the best that humanity has to offer!
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haha. well, yes, i think that’s what it makes you. 😉
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