Kai Mishlove Is the First Black Jewish Woman to lead a JSS Agency: Unity Through Service (Part 2 of 2)
Kai Yael Gardner Mishlove, the first Black Jewish woman to head a U.S. Jewish Social Service agency
by Jonathan Gramling
The life of Kai Yael Gardner Mishlove, who became the first Black Jewish woman to head a Jewish social service agency in the U.S. when she took the helm of Jewish Social Services, is a blending of the people and cultures that are infused in the Jewish Diaspora.
And the work of Jewish Social Services also reflects that blending, from specific services for the Jewish community to broader services designed to serve the greater Madison area.
“The agency started out providing resettlement and acclimation services to Jews fleeing the Holocaust, pogroms, collapsed democracies and antisemitism,” Mishlove said. “Today JSS provides services to seniors, families, persons dealing with challenges related to homelessness, addiction, behavioral health, refugees and immigrants. We serve refugees from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Central African Republic, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Honduras, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba, Ukraine, Somalia, Sudan, and Russia. We provide integrated services through our refugee resettlement, immigrant cultural programming, family and senior services and spiritual care departments. We have 23 staff from seven countries. We have 20 languages spoken among our staff. Our highly experienced and credentialed staff is diverse not only regarding ethnicity but also regarding religious affiliation. Since arriving at JSS, I made a space for a meditation reflection room that serves the needs of our Jewish, Muslim and Christian and non-affiliated staff and clients. Our staff potlucks are fabulous and celebrate the diversity and cultures of our staff.”
While most of the services are not related to the Jewish faith, there are JSS programs that serve the Jewish community.
“Rabbi Renee Bauer is our community rabbi,” Mishlove said. “Her peer support as rabbi is extended to the community. She specifically assists clients who may not be connected to a synagogue. Usually the way it works is if you are a member of a synagogue, your synagogue rabbi would handle all of the life cycle events that you need support for such as the naming of a child, funeral services, bar mitzvah, or marriage ceremonies. If you don’t belong to a synagogue, she is able to step in and provide that support to you. She also provides support to out-of-town families whose loved one may be in Madison and they have passed away and they
may not have the family support to organize a funeral or all of the things you need to do when someone passes away. She is able to step in and assist with that as are all of our social workers. We have even had cases of families who come to us who live here who have family members in another city that they need to support and they would like to find the JSS equivalent in whatever city that they have that family member. We’re working across the lines here in assisting people.”
As Madison and Dane County grow by leaps and bounds, it is attracting people whose roots are from all over the world as well as regions of the United States. It is a community on the move and Jewish Social Services is there to assist people on their journeys.
“We are providing support to folks who may need assistance with transitions,” Mishlove said. “That could be someone who is transitioning or trying to prevent them from being homeless. That might be someone who is transitioning from addiction, someone who is transitioning from moving from another country, such as a refugee to someone who is a senior who is transitioning to assisted living or moving from an independent to a more supportive living, someone who has unfortunately passed away and their family needs help with transitioning for that support. And I think we do a really good job of providing that support through our integrated system of social workers, case managers, spiritual advisor and volunteer network.”
And it tries to meet community needs as they pop up through that kineticism.
“What I am most excited about are three new programs at JSS: entrepreneurial pop ups that serve as business incubators and highlight and showcase the talents of our diverse refugee and immigrant client pool, Memory Cafe for dementia clients and their care givers and addictions support for Jewish community members,” Mishlove said. “JSS also hosts support groups for clients such as grief support group and an Afghan women’s and men’s group. We recently started a Shalom Neighbor project that connects mentors to support our various refugee clients.”
What facilitates Jewish Social Services’ diversified services is the diversity that is found within the Jewish Diaspora.
“The Jewish community has been very diverse from the times of Torah in the Bible,” Mishlove observed. “Currently, a recent study indicated that 20 percent of Jews are from communities of color. The Jewish community is extremely diverse. People are coming from all different countries, communities, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and I am one of those people. There is socio-economic and ethnic and linguistic and nationality diversity within the Jewish community. The Jewish people are a global people.”
And so within this large diaspora, while people adshere to Jewish law, how that observance occurs is often reflected in the diverse cultures and regions within which people live.
“The Jewish community is composed of people who are observant and not observant and also folks who consider themselves culturally Jews, but they don’t particularly practice any sort of religious practice,” Mishlove said. “There may be a practice of ritual regarding food. Food reflects a culture. And so Jewish food is very global. But there are certain things that might be in keeping with Jewish law. For example, people who adhere to Halakhah, which is Jewish dietary law. There may be a prohibition against mixing milk and meat. No matter what Jewish cuisine that you are experiencing from Ethiopia to Uganda to Persia to Russia to India, you will see those same prohibitions. Maybe in an Indian Jewish food, there is a substitution of coconut milk in some sort of dish so that you aren’t mixing dairy milk with meet. In Ethiopia, there is a different substitution. Even though someone might not necessarily be practicing ritual religiously as far as going to synagogue, they may be practicing ritual in the recipes of their food. There is a diversity in ingredients that are used, but the law is adhered to as well. Someone from the Russian Jewish community may not use coconut milk in a dish, but someone from the Indian Jewish community may use coconut milk in the preparation of a dish in a way that the recipe adheres to Jewish law.”
And yet in spite of this diversity that has been there almost since the beginning of time, antisemitism and Jewish stereotypes still persist.
“Antisemitism is very difficult for people at times to understand because it mutates to fit whatever social cultural more is of that community,” Mishlove said. “If you are looking at how antisemitism has morphed over the centuries, from Jews being blamed for the bubonic plague to Jews being blamed for the diversity of our community. It’s persistent and that is why it is so important for us to educate the community about what antisemitism is and isn’t and how the Jewish community is diverse.”
Jewish Social Services is everything that Kai Yael Gardner Mishlove had wanted in her professional career, a diverse environment that seeks to make a positive impact on the community in a way that reflects her core values and the tradition of social justice that runs deep in her family.
“My journey has been a life of service to the community,” Mishlove said. “I see community work that provides support and sets the stage for empowerment of the most vulnerable among us as the most important thing that we can do in life. It necessitates building bridges between communities.”
Mishlove has found her professional home.
