But you don't look Jewish. . .

A guest post by TikunOlam

I always know a person has had a limited amount of exposure to Jews when they comment to me, “but you don’t look Jewish.” In a day and age when according to Jewish Living magazine, 10% of Jews identify themselves as a race other than White, it is a wonder that anyone still holds stereotypes of what Jews are supposed to look like. So when the foster-care class trainer made this comment to me and said that she thinks of Jewish women as having dark curly hair, I knew that the wariness of Jews on her part, that I perceived the previous week, was not coming from an individual who had a whole lot of up close and personal experience with Jews.

As it happened, at the start of the class, a Black woman asked the trainer if there is an effort made by the State to place children with racially similar families. Was it possible, she wanted to know, that a White child might be placed in her home? The trainer said it was unlikely that a White child would be placed in her home, as most of the children in need of homes in our county are Black or Hispanic. This woman’s question gave me the opportunity to ask the question I had been thinking about all week. Was there any chance my family would be put on the bottom of some list because we are White and Jewish?

We were assured that this would never happen and that we were very much valued and needed as foster parents. In fact, soon after, the trainer approached my husband and asked him if it were okay that she kept bringing up the fact that we were Jewish. I guess she sensed my discomfort.

The trainer’s increased sensitivity toward us encouraged me to participate more in the discussions. And once I shared a bit of psychological knowledge, the trainer repeatedly asked me to comment and offered that it was really nice to have a participant who, because of being a psychologist, had some answers to share.

So even though in the end I spent my day off in psychologist mode (I ended up with the task of educating these fine church going folks about sexualized behaviors of children and how one would know when the behaviors may be indicative of sexual abuse) at least I am now feeling more comfortable participating in the conversation.