In a room abuzz with sounds of Spanish and English, filled with Mexican-American professionals in crisp dress suits, Nate Levine shared a childhood story of collecting coins for the poor.
His aim: To illustrate the concept of a tzedakah box and the Jewish tradition of charitable giving.
The event at the Mexican Consulate in San Francisco was officially a Jewish leadership training conference, but it also was part of a broader effort to build ties with the Latino community, particularly Mexican-Americans. Finding common ground, on topics ranging from charity to immigration to social movements, emerged as a conference theme.
“We know that they are in this process of political empowerment. How can we share our experience?” said Dina Siegel Vann, director of the Latino and Latin American Institute of the American Jewish Committee, based in Washington, D.C. “This is part of a vision that we have to be closer partners.”
The AJC initiated the Oct. 28-29 conference, which was attended by media professionals, activists, nonprofit directors and emerging political leaders.
Levine, former director of the JCC of San Francisco, co-led a session on the Jewish leadership model with Rabbi Doug Kahn, director of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Relations Council. Jonathan Carey of BlueStar, an Israel advocacy nonprofit, spoke about media strategies.
The presentations were as much about Jewish values and culture as they were about community organizing and combating stereotypes. Handouts offered definitions of Hebrew terms such as tikkun olam, or repairing the world.
Until recently, Siegel Vann said, the Jewish and Mexican-American communities in the Bay Area had few interactions. The conference was intended to help change that, giving the two groups an opportunity to share their experiences, explore commonalities and build relationships.
Comments during one session reflected the participants’ interest in better understanding each other.
“Why aren’t there more Jews?” one asked, which opened a conversation about the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish populations and the ongoing battle against assimilation. Participants noted that both communities grapple with the delicate balance between integration and assimilation.
Another attendee asked about the concept of the kibbutz. Kahns’ description may have had a familiar ring; like Israel, Mexico has a history of agriculture-based social movements.
The event at the consulate was the first of its kind in California. Other intercommunity leadership trainings have been held across the country since the AJC decided in 2005 that relationships between American Jews and Latinos were so important they deserved their own department.
Conferences held in Houston and in Washington, D.C., were so well received that the Jewish prime minister of Peru, Salomón Lerner Ghitis, recently visited the AJC’s offices in Washington to request leadership training for Peruvian diplomats and political leaders.
As a Mexican native herself, Siegel Vann is a firm believer that American Jewish cooperation with the growing Latino minority cannot be fully realized without including Latin America.
“We cannot look at the issues of domestic Latinos in the United States without the countries of origin, without looking at it from a hemispheric level,” she said.
“Mexico should be the number-one priority, not only because we share a border but because of the interdependence, among countries and among people, families living on both sides of the borders.”
As part of its outreach to Latino communities, the AJC has collaborated with public-opinion researchers to conduct the first nationwide metropolitan study of interactions and perceptions between Mexican-Americans and American Jews.
“It’s still very raw data, but what we see is a lot of ignorance,” Siegel Vann said. “Still, in terms of anti-Semitism, we’ve come a long way. The leadership in Mexico now publicly denounces anti-Semitic attacks. Mexican Jews today are able to participate in every endeavor.”
According to attendee Joaquín Torres, director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services in San Francisco, one lesson Mexican-American leaders can take from the Jewish community is a willingness to reach out, both to their own community and to other groups.
“We have to continue the conversation that we started at the conference,” Torres said. “There’s a need for us to reach out to one another, to respect each other as separate cultures that work together. We have a common desire to have the positive contributions our community makes to the overall society recognized. We share our common humanity.”