The GatherDC blog strives to present a holistic portrait of the DMV’s Jewish community, sharing a wide variety of Jewish voices and perspectives. If you have a 20- or 30-something to nominate as our Jewish Person of the Week or for a Spotted in Jewish DMV feature, please email us!
Dee and I grab a booth at K Street’s Baker’s Daughter to chat about Dee’s work with Mosaic Visions, complexity in Jewishness, curiosity as a driving value, polarization, James Baldwin, and enduring through turbulent moments.
Samuel: What brought you to the DMV?
Dee: I came here after school. I was working in the music industry and came to Arlington. It’s become home. I’ve always been in the creative economy, and at the time that I moved, it was starting to boom, and it was nice to see [the creative scene] growing. The mayor’s office was giving that a lot of attention.
I trained vocally for a couple of years when I was younger and am self-taught on the piano, taking classes later, but was dissuaded from becoming a full-time musician because I was told: That’s not going to make you money! Even though it was something that I gravitated towards and still did later in my years.
Samuel: What’s feeling alive for you Jewishly right now?
Dee: It’s being able to hold tension and complexity. It’s something that we need, and I think it’s incredibly Jewish – being able to look at things in a layered way and struggle with it. It’s Jacob wrestling with the angels.
Being communal also feels alive. I think we’re in a global and communal reckoning. We’re faced with figuring out where we stand on things. What do you believe in? What are your values? What are you going to lean into? Are you going to be open? Are you going to be closed off?
Samuel: What does your Jewish community look like?
Dee: My Jewish community is unique, diverse, and eclectic. It’s reflective. It’s still evolving. I’m very traditional in some ways, but in other ways I’m more open-minded, and so my Jewishness and my community don’t fit in one box. That’s deeply Jewish. There’s a Talmudic principle, eilu v’eilu, that different approaches and perspectives can coexist in one space. The eilu v’eilu framing is about creating space where different perspectives can coexist with respect and curiosity, not about forcing engagement or debate. People can hold their views, you can hold yours, and the space allows for that without requiring argument or deep discussion.
We’re all human at the end of the day. That’s the spirit of humanity. I focus on our shared humanity and use arts and humanities for storytelling, artistic expression, and narrative upstream change. I’m intentional about building that community because it reflects who I want to be surrounded by, and also what I’m doing with Mosaic Visions.
Samuel: Yeah, tell me more about Mosaic Visions!
Dee: Mosaic Visions is where spirit, culture, ethnicity, art all collide. Those are the sort of micro-communities that I’m creating. We’re a nonprofit that uses art and humanities to center historically excluded voices. We’re artists, changemakers, and community leaders focused around diverse multicultural Jews, Jews of Color, but also beyond that. We include other local artists to continue elevating underrepresented artistic expression and voices. The work itself is inclusive – the grounding is Jewish.
Our signature program is Spirit of Humanity – named for Ein Sof, the infinite. We use art and artists to spread that vision while supporting underrepresented artists as we expand. We run intensive cohort programs, and have served 59 artists nationally over three years.
I grapple with terminology right now, because these labels aren’t universal. When you’re on a virtual platform, you’re reaching far more than you might with an in-person event. During our [2024] Spirit of Humanity Festival, I had Jews of different races and ethnicities from all over the world contact me and share their work and art. Some of them said: I don’t identify as a “Jew of Color” – even though they fit the definition of what that is here in the United States. When I got that pushback, I didn’t push back against them and say they were wrong; I was just curious. That’s what I want to bring more into my panels and workshops. Get outside your bubble and be curious, challenging, and thought-provoking.
I wanted to know why they said that, and they explained that they’d never heard the term. They said: I’m a Sephardic Jew, I’m a Mizrahi Jew. That’s how I describe myself. This journey with Mosaic Visions has not just been a labor of something that’s personal and dear to me with my own experience, but it’s something where I wanted to build a community of voices who feel like they can show up as themselves. You can say: I don’t have to put my Jewishness aside, or my Asian [identity] aside. I just show up. This is me, as a whole. I don’t have to guard who I am.
Samuel: We’re in a political and cultural moment where a lot of people feel comfortable denigrating some of the ideas – openness, inclusivity, highlighting overlooked or underserved voices – that seem to be at the heart of this work. How is that landing for you?
Dee: I don’t think it’s put us off our path. The struggle has been funding, as it is for many nonprofits; we’re a small organization operating with lean budgets and amazing volunteers. But in terms of being inclusive and challenging narratives, we need to embrace that. We’re creating a counter-narrative, one of acceptance and healing, as a way to stay committed to our mission of elevating diverse Jewish voices while also including other local diverse artists. We’re continuing to uplift underrepresented artistic expression and voices, to create positivity and community gathering beyond division.
There’s an opportunity for those who do the work; now is the time to really embrace it within your community and people, instead of going the opposite way. It’s not about having a binary opinion or polarized viewpoints. It’s about really practicing all the positive things that we’ve learned. We’re creating positive artistic community spaces that are inviting. I want diverse voices. I want us all to be together. We are committed to our mission and vision, and our commitment to representing them from when we started Mosaic Visions.
Samuel: Okay, a few quick ones to close. What are you feeling proud about right now?
Dee: Having Mosaic Visions and being in our fifth year…it’s been very challenging. Highs and lows, highs and lows. I don’t know if people understand what it is to start a nonprofit from the ground up – we’re not a legacy organization. It is a true grassroots effort with amazing volunteers and in-kind contributions.
But we’re not just surviving, we’re growing. We’ve secured meaningful grant support and some amazing individual donors who believe in our mission. We piloted the Builders Grassroots Fellowship, which was powered by the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington; it successfully ended in June. We’ve evolved from virtual COVID-era programming to intensive in-person artist cohorts. The fact that we’re here, thriving, and delivering impact. That’s the accomplishment. I was looking at the negative of that, but somebody said: What, are you kidding me? Look at what you’ve built!
Samuel: You can invite any three people to Shabbat dinner. Who are you bringing?
Dee: James Baldwin – he was multi-layered and had this ability to name what was going on, that he could see as an American looking back from Paris. These are things that I also think about, and he was just so eloquent and brilliant and thoughtful on the spot in speaking his truth. That’s another thing that’s important to me – being authentic and speaking your truth, but an educated truth, not a foolish truth. There’s a difference.
I would also bring Miriam. She was a prophet of her own time, a strong woman leader who led with the arts. She was a dancer, and everyone joined in celebrating, simcha, and dance. That’s the power of it, even then. She found joy, even in the Exodus.
Then, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. He taught that joy is essential, and that the whole world is a very narrow bridge. The main thing is not to be afraid. He led differently and followed his heart, led with joy, and got backlash for it, but his teachings have influenced so many. He comes from and leads with love in all his Torah interpretation. That’s what I aspire to, being respectful and curious, even when it’s hard. We’re all human; we all have internal work to do around staying respectful and curious, especially during the division in our world.
Samuel: Last one. Finish the sentence: When Jews of the DMV gather…
Dee: They’re creating diverse spaces – and staying the course of their Jewish values, despite the turbulence.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog and on this website are solely those of the original authors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the organization GatherDC, the GatherDC staff, the GatherDC board, and/or any/all contributors to this site.
