The Fine Print

​First off:

In particular, the president’s national address about election interference by China in the “rigged” 2020 election—an election he lost—as part of his pitch for the SAVE America Act is classic misdirection: pointing the finger elsewhere while his administration tries to take away citizens' voting rights.

Now is not the time to bemoan how our votes don’t matter. It’s time to prove that they do, both by showing up just like we did in 2020 and fighting any attempt to stop us.

That's the spirit with which Martin Luther King III and the Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network are organizing March on Washington 2026: Defend the Vote on August 28, 63 years after the first one helped alter our nation’s future. 

We’re living the moment that will decide whether the United States of America will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. It’s up to us to answer the call.

Federal election monitoring in New England

By Samantha Robinson

I’m still learning how to stand in every part of who I am: a Black Jewish woman, raised by an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and a Black father.

Most of the time, these parts of my identity don’t feel fully integrated. Rather, they sit alongside each other, sometimes in tension, but rarely in a way that feels whole. At 25, I’m also still figuring out where I fit in the work of creating belonging. As a senior manager for Combined Jewish Philanthropies’ Center for Combating Antisemitism (CCA), I’m often among the youngest of voices in the room, navigating the balance between learning and leading.

It’s those very questions–about identity, belonging, and the work itself–that I packed with me last month when I traveled to Miami for the inaugural National Convening on Black-Jewish Alliance.

The gathering brought together more than 100 Black, Jewish, and Black-Jewish leaders from across the country to explore our shared challenges and imagine a more durable future for Black-Jewish partnership. On paper, it felt like the type of professional gathering I often find myself in: one focused on building relationships, strategy, and what comes next.

But once I arrived, I felt very quickly that this was different.

During an “Exodus Over Dinner”–our first formal sit-down of the convening–we were invited to give a eulogy for someone we had lost, sitting at tables with people who, for the most part, were still strangers. At my table, several of us spoke about our late fathers.

That intentional leap into vulnerability became the foundation for everything that followed. Once trust was established, we dove deep into the work: wedge-issue conversations, national strategy brainstorms, and moments of real disagreement without people pulling back from one another. The relational grounding and depth of those initial dinner conversations made it possible to stay present even when things got hard.

Early into the convening, CNN commentator Van Jones offered some guidance to the group: “When it gets hard to love, love harder.” His words didn’t feel like something said for effect. Rather, Jones’ call to action felt like something we were being asked to practice with each other, and in real time.

Over those next two days together, I worked to love harder, both in how I showed up for others and in how I showed up for myself.

Samantha Robinson (Photo: Castle/Samantha Robinson)

Too often, Black Jews are described as bridges between those two communities. I understand the intention; it’s meant to signal connection. But it has never quite sat right with me. A bridge is something people cross over. It exists to carry others between places. That framing suggests distance: two separate sides in need of connection.

That was certainly not the sentiment I experienced in those rooms.

During moments like our soulful Shabbat dinner Friday evening, co-hosted by Black church leaders and rabbis, I never felt the need to translate between communities, move back and forth between them, or stand in for one identity over the other. I was fully present, fully seen, as both Black and Jewish. The expectation wasn’t to connect two separate sides. It was simply to show up as we were.

One of the most powerful moments of the convening for me came in a dedicated space for Black leaders to come together, facilitated by Jones, where we spoke candidly about Black leadership, trauma, resilience, and joy over several hours. There have been times when I’ve felt unsure how fully I belonged in the Black community, times when I hesitated to fully lean into or express my Black identity, and times when that tension hasn’t always been easy to name, let alone navigate. But in that space, I felt pride as a Black woman and a sense of belonging like never before. That affirmation did not pull me away from Black-Jewish coalition work. In fact, it strengthened my commitment to it. The more rooted I felt in my own identity, the more clearly I understood why this work matters.

What I’m continuing to reflect on is how differently I was able to show up as my full self in that space compared to other moments in my life. I, like many, am still learning how to stand fully in every part of my identity.

So, I come back to Boston with a different understanding of what building meaningful and lasting Black-Jewish partnership asks of us. In my role at CCA, where our work focuses on strengthening civic engagement around Jewish life, I see more clearly that bringing people together is only part of the work. What matters just as much is whether those spaces allow people to show up fully, without feeling like they need to hold part of themselves back.

If we can build that here, then Boston has the chance to model something deeper than a partnership in name. Something real enough to hold us as we are, and strong enough to last because of it.

Samantha Robinson is a Senior Manager at the Center for Combating Antisemitism at Combined Jewish Philanthropies.