The common ground here is that the race of Jews is defined by hegemony culture. And since those who colonized the Americas came from Christendom, that is Europe, the predominant culture was thought of as white. Therefore, since Jews who colonized the Americas were not black, they were defined by their whiteness. However, in actuality, there are Jews of different races throughout the world since Judaism was proselytized until Constantine, and was spread as a religion by traveling merchants. It was brought to enslaved persons and other people of color in the Americas as well. 

In reality, Jews have never been only white. This matters because Jews of color are not counted when considering Jewish demographics, they are not usually talked about nor included when discussing Jews and Jewish history in general, and they are not actively welcomed into the larger Jewish community. Gordon argues that in order to learn Jewish history and study Jews, it is essential that we must learn about Jews of color and make an effort to bring them into mainstream contemporary Jewish life. 

One of  the strengths of Gordon’s article is his argument that Jews exist across the globe: instead of going out to see in which communities you might find Jews, go to any community and you will (likely) find a Jewish population within it. I also found Gordon’s personal relationship to the topic of the article to be a strength. He leverages his own identity as an Afro-Jew within the article. In particular, he shares his decision to name the department at Temple University the Afro-Jewish Studies Department in order to spark interest in the type of diversity he is referring to (as opposed to socio-economic or Sephardi/Ashkenazi). He explains to those who seek clarification that the studies relate to those like him who identify as both African AND Jewish, as opposed to the assumed focus on the relationship between African Americans and Jews.)

 While I agree with the author, it seems to me there might be a hole in his argument in the second to last paragraph of this article. Gordon argues that halakhically some descendents of enslaved people are Jewish, which I don’t think would make sense (only halakhically speaking) if they are descendents of a Jewish father/slave owner (unless Jewish women were being impregnated by non Jewish black men, which I assume was rarely the case). If what he meant was that the enslaved persons were Jewish because they identified with their owners, or because they were the descendents of Jewish fathers, that would not be halakhic (based on traditional Jewish belief in matriarchal descent). I also feel that the article would have been stronger had Gordon provided more hard evidence. While Gordon does a great job using anecdotal evidence, there aren’t very many statistics or actual research results presented to verify his claims. Of course, it is one of Gordon’s contentions that researchers have ignored collecting demographic data from Jews of color, so that might be why. However, without even some very rudimentary statistics, it might feel like Gordon’s assertions are not as significant as he claims.