Looking ahead, Mansour and Williams are optimistic about the future of JoC Cleveland and its role in shaping a more diverse and inclusive Jewish community. Through their efforts to bridge diversity and foster unity, they are paving the way for a more vibrant and resilient Jewish community in Cleveland
Since joining the JoCI Philanthropy Fellowship in May, 2023, our dedicated Fellows— Ilana Ybgi, Santy Barrera and Maya Katz-Ali— have gained extensive professional development rooted in essential learnings of the philanthropic sector, equity-based approaches to philanthropy, and the perspectives of JoC and communal leaders. As the rest of the JoCI team prepares for a bittersweet goodbye to our Fellows at the upcoming conclusion to their year-long program, we are awestruck by the accomplishments of this exceptional group of leaders.
“It took me [20 years] to map out the kind of broad boundaries of the different people who said that they were both Black and Jewish, and that long to decode what I was looking at,” Haynes explains. “I spent a lot of time trying to piece together the historical context that shaped the categories of Black and Jewish in the United States.”
