In her past life, our in-house matchmaker Danielle Selber was a Fellow in the inaugural class of the Tribe 12 Fellowship and went on to run the Fellowship program for four years. Here, she reflects on each of the incredible honorees for the Tribe 12 Hanukkah Celebration on Monday, December 19th, a night of food and fun open to everyone in the Tribe 12 community!
Jared Jackson is a force of nature. I know this because over the course of a few years, I literally saw Jared more often than I saw my own sister. We were Fellows in the inaugural class of the Tribe 12 Fellowship in 2011. We staffed a Birthright Israel trip together, leading a group of 40 or so harrowed 20somethings from Philadelphia through the desert and Tel Aviv nightclubs. We worked together for a year at a now-defunct Jewish organization here in Philly. And if all that was not enough, I was standing next to Jared when he met the woman who would become his wife, my college classmate Rebecca!
Jared founded Jews in ALL Hues because of his own multi-heritage experience as a Jewish black man. He is an expert in the anti-racism field and in Jewish education, and he is also a gifted storyteller, willing to share his own experiences to underline his teachings. I have a distinct memory of sitting in a Bedouin tent in southern Israel as he candidly shared stories about the racism he experienced from his own Jewish community growing up and watching the trip participants listen, spellbound, with tears in their eyes. That’s what Jared does. He tells it like it is and makes us all listen.
In the spring of 2020, George Floyd was murdered. While the whole world seemed to wake up and experience a reckoning, Jared was saying – what took you so long? Jews in ALL Hues was poised and ready to bring Jewish organizations up to speed. His work touches all levels of organizations from board development to hiring policies to dismantling white supremacy culture to anti-racism workshops for leaders.
As the world slowly evolves into a place where intersectionality and dignity reign, Jared deserves credit for his decades as a leader in this space. He also deserves a recent mazel tov – last year he earned his Master of Arts in Jewish Nonprofit Management from Hebrew Union College!
Please join me on December 19th at the beautiful Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History to celebrate these honorees and enjoy drinks, latkes and jelly donuts with the Tribe 12 community at large. You don’t want to miss it! Get details and RSVP at tribe12.org/hanukkahcelebration.
