barrettPlaying Together Project is stepping up its game so it can more effectively combat rising antisemitism and anti-Black racism
I am thrilled to hear CNN commentator Van Jones, speak in alignment with what we are doing. As he says, once in the history of the United States of America, African Americans not long out of formal slavery held on to the cultural DNA of the ideal of justice and equality for all. American Jews not long out of Nazi genocide in Europe tightly gripped the cultural DNA of tikkun olam, repair of our broken world. Joined together these two strands of cultural DNA for a double helix of hope for us all, esecially in the United States of America. ~Barrett Holman Leak, founder, Playing Together Project
At the end of this month, I will begin working with CNN commentator Van Jones and a team of others to deepen Playing Together Project’s effectiveness and commitment. I will be strengthening my ability and the ability our organzation to facilitate this alliance. Later in the year another team member will participate in teh training. We are focused on leveraging the power of shared meals and structured conversations at Playing Together Project in order to build meaningful connections and reignite a powerful alliance between the African American and American Jewish communities for social justice.
Since it began in teh end of 2022, Playing Togeher Proect has brought rogether the Black and Jewish communities in San Diego over dinner and discussion, food and film to reignite the alliance for thebenefit of both Blacks and Jews. Through vewing educational documentaries like “Shared Legacies” and films like “White Lie” and “Blazing Saddles”, members of two communities that once collaborated to defeat discrimination then came apart, are coming together again.
Through annual Kwanzaa Shabbat dinner events and Juneteenth festival exhibition booths, Playing Together Project has reached out to both communties. Earlier in February 2025, the non-profit hosted a scholar-in-residence weekend featuring Pastor Dumisani Washington, the author of the book “Zionism and the Black Church”. Washington was the keynote speaker for San Diego’s inaugural Black-Jewish Clergy Breakfast, bringing together Black ministors and Jewish rabbis.
Playing Together Project’s mission is to center African American Jews and to unite African American and Jewish American San Diegans through a common love of food, film, music and art. It is a 501(c)(3) organization.