Raven Schwam-Curtis did not set out to be a voice for the Black and Jewish community but, since 2021, she has been cultivating an ever-growing following on TikTok. 

“People just couldn’t understand how it was possible to be Black and Jewish” she said. “I realised that, in the digital space, there is a profound need for more Jews of colour to have our voices heard and to debunk these misconceptions about our deeply diverse community.”

Schwam-Curtis, 24, is a content creator as well as a Black and Jewish educator who began her social media career at the encouragement of her mother in 2021. She was in the midst of a masters program in African American Studies at Northwestern University in the US, and her verve for discussing Black liberation and multi-culturalism overflowed into conversations outside the classroom. 

So she channeled it into content creation and, in November 2021, she posted the first video addressing her own background, a short clip of herself dancing underneath the text: “This is your annual reminder that Black Jews exist”. 

The video took off, much to her surprise.

(Photo: Raven Scwam-Curtis)

Having been “raised culturally Black” by her mother following a split from her Askhenazi Jewish father, Schwam-Curtis became curious about her Jewishness when she moved to New York for university.

But arriving into her Jewishness wasn't straightforward. Raven said she felt a sense of alienation in being a patrilineal Jew as well as one of the only nonwhite Jews in many of the Jewish spaces she entered.

“So many folks in our community feel like they can’t explore their Jewish identity or they’ve just been treated so poorly in Jewish spaces because they’re not ‘Jewish enough’ or Jewish in the right ways, and that just doesn’t sit right with me” she said. 

Through going on Birthright, socialising in the Hillel on campus, doing multiple Jewish learning fellowships, and meeting queer and female rabbis who defied the conventions she had presumed were sacrosanct, she's gradually found her footing as a Black and Jewish woman.

“If you're of community, you’re of community, however you arrive to it,” Schwam-Curtis said. 

And arrive to it, she did. Since sharing her experiences and knowledge about being Black and Jewish on social media, Raven has accrued almost 100,000 followers on TikTok, not to mention a handful of brand partnerships and professional opportunities.

As part of a White House social media initiative, she interviewed the second gentleman of the US, Doug Emhoff, the Jewish husband of Vice President Kamala Harris.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CrtWD3UAW0K/

The interview focused on the national rise in anti-semitism to raise awareness about the issue and, though it only lasted 15-20 minutes, the opportunity opened yet more doors. Not two weeks later, Schwam-Curtis was invited to the White House to celebrate the first ever Jewish American Heritage Month alongside numerous other movers and shakers in the Jewish community. 

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(Photo: Raven Schwam-Curtis)

But it hasn't been all White House invites and big interviews. Since she began posting about being Black and Jewish on TikTok, she's had to develop a thick skin. 

“When I first started posting on TikTok, I would get so much hate, especially when I was talking about things like colourism, or being multi-racial,” she said.

In recent posts, she has spoken about anti-black racism in the Jewish community, the fetishisation of light-skinned Black women, and the intersection of both Jewishness and blackness with LGBT+ identities. 

“It’s never just about one thing or the other, it’s always anti-Black racism and antisemitism folded into something, and somehow bouncing off of one another.” 

Internet trolls aside, the opportunities have continued to roll in, and social media is only one part of the career Schwam-Curtis envisions for herself. “I think [TikTok] is a powerful democratised tool to begin speaking on things that you care deeply about, and I want it to be the catalyst for more, beyond the digital space.”

What exactly does “more” look like for Schwam Curtis?

“Maybe that looks like television, or commentating on the news about hot-button issues from the position of someone who is Black, Jewish, queer, a woman, and politically savvy. Maybe that looks like being on a TV show, [or] maybe that looks like having my own TV show, like a Drew Barrymore style thing where I bring people in to have hard-hitting, academic, intellectual conversations,” she said. “I’m so open to all the possibilities.”