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California has passed a law requiring state agencies that collect ancestry or ethnicity data to include a separate category for Jewish ancestry or ethnicity beginning in 2029. What changes when the state counts Jews as an ethnic group?

The panel brings together Ari Y. Kelman, director of the Berman Archive at Stanford; Keith Feldman, professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley; Aliya Saperstein, professor of sociology at Stanford; and David Bocarsly of Jewish California, who helped draft Senate Bill 1387. Asaf Elia-Shalev, editor in chief of J. The Jewish News of Northern California, moderates. After the panel, each table continues the conversation with a facilitator.

Presented with J. and cosponsored by Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies, the Berman Archive, and the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

Who this is for:

• Anyone curious how governments define and count Jewish identity
• Californians who want to know what SB 1387 does
• Anyone who would rather join a small-group conversation than listen to a lecture

What you'll leave with:

• A clear account of what SB 1387 changes in how California collects demographic data
• Several views on whether, and how, Jewishness works as an ethnic category

Monday, November 2, 5:30–7pm Pacific Time

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