Modeling Authenticity: How Schools Can Integrate Diverse Jewish Voices

This week, I am honored to share an article I wrote for the Distinctions Journal published by JIMENA (Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa). For those of you who may not be familiar with the organization, I am also delighted to acquaint you with JIMENA, which I wish had been in existence when I was growing up in the Orthodox Jewish community in Los Angeles as a child of a Tunisian mother and an Iraqi father. Here's how Jimena describes its mission: "We remain dedicated to our mission of achieving universal recognition for the heritage and history of the 850,000 indigenous Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa. Our programs aim to ensure that the accurate history of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews is incorporated into mainstream Jewish and Middle Eastern narratives to create balance in attitudes, narratives, and discourse about Middle Eastern refugees and the modern Jewish experience." You can learn more about JIMENA's various resources and programs here.

I hope you enjoy my article, which explores how I (and we at Beit Rabban) think about addressing prejudiced misbehavior in schools and with children. And, I hope you enjoy learning a little more about my story, which informs my leadership at Beit Rabban and my relationship with each of our students.