(JNS) Jews make up about 2.4% of the American population, per some estimates. A new memorandum of understanding ensures that the U.S. Commerce Department will consider entities owned by Jews to be “minority business enterprises.”
“We’re going to be able to benefit from billions of dollars of these programs, contracts, some loans, grants, the hundreds of different programs that every single Jewish business is going to benefit from,” Duvi Honig, founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce, told JNS.
“This is something that impacts everyone—every single business in the Jewish world, in all 50 states,” Honig said. “We are officially a partner with the United States Department of Commerce and the government.”
The Orthodox chamber and the Minority Business Development Agency, which is part of the Commerce Department, signed the agreement on Monday in Washington during a ceremony attended by Don Graves, the outgoing deputy commerce secretary, and by Jewish business owners and leaders and politicians.
Graves said that the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce’s work is “so important,” because “if you have a hope, if you have a dream, if you have an idea and you’re willing to work hard, we should give you the opportunity to turn that into something special.”
Robert Singer, a New Jersey state senator and the body’s deputy Republican leader who represents the heavily-Jewish city of Lakewood, told JNS that of the roughly 10,000 yeshivah students in Lakewood’s Beth Medrash Govoha, just 5% or so become teachers or rabbis. (BMG is the largest U.S. yeshivah.)
“The other 95% go into business entrepreneurship. They become CPAs. They become doctors and lawyers and such,” Singer told JNS. “This will encourage them to stay in New Jersey, develop businesses and qualify for dollars and cents, which is so important.”
Singer, who is part of New Jersey’s science and technology commission, said that minority businesses have an automatic leg-up when they bid for state contracts.
“This will also tie into federal dollars and therefore small business, Jewish-based business, will be able to tie into both federal and state dollars to help them grow, to help them bring more people on and be part of that entrepreneurship you wish to have, being an American,” Singer said.
As part of the agreement, the federal government is creating a new application to become certified as a minority business enterprise. The details are being finalized, but the application will no longer ask applicants to list their specific minority background. Instead, verification will be done during the certification process.
It is unclear at this time how the government will verify if an applicant is Jewish.
Honig encouraged patience as the new application is being developed. It’s been about a 15-month process so far, leading up to Monday’s signing, as part of the chamber’s network building with communities across the country and with foreign governments, he told JNS.
Monday’s result is fair, given the discrimination that Jews have faced, especially since Oct. 7, while much larger minority communities are able to take advantage of benefits, according to Honig.
“They could beat us up. They could humiliate us. They tell us to go back to the concentration camp,” Honig said of antisemitic protests on U.S. college campuses. “We have a yellow star until today that we can’t be eligible to get minority dollars, minority grants or taxpayers, and it just didn’t make sense.”
The agreement will give Jewish-owned businesses greater public awareness through federal initiatives and potential invitations to workshops, seminars, conferences and other educational opportunities.
Honig gave credit to Graves and to Eric Morrissette, deputy U.S. under secretary of commerce for minority business development, and to Joann Hill, director of customer experience at the Minority Business Development Agency.
The event was likely the final one for Graves and Morrissette in their roles in the Biden administration. Madiha Latif, the incoming U.S. deputy secretary for commerce for minority business development, also participated in Monday’s event.
“It was a friendship that the chamber established on a personal level that gave us this last event they hosted before the transition,” Honig told JNS. “At the same time, they brought with them the new deputy secretary, and we just sat now and we made a list of what we’re going to start working on for the next four years with the new administration.”
Michael Chelst, who owns the kosher restaurant Char Bar in downtown Washington, D.C., told JNS at the event that businesses like his already face challenges, being closed on Shabbat and holidays.
“You’re struggling to be competitive in that environment, and the ability to possibly get grants as a restaurant, it’s very different from what you hear about, with synagogues and getting funding for security,” he told JNS.
“We’re not considered in that category, and now this helps to establish, finally, that Jewish businesses are minority-owned businesses,” Chelst added. “We can hopefully open up some grants and loans for myself and for other businesses that want to succeed.”
It took so long for Jewish-owned businesses to receive minority status, because Jews are considered successful and privileged, according to Chelst.
“They forget about the people that don’t always have the same advantages or talents, and so we get labeled, unfortunately, many times in antisemitic ways, as a group that doesn’t need help,” Chelst told JNS. “There are lots of people in our community that really do need help and are struggling to do that. So it’s good to finally happen.”
Pini Dunner, the rabbi of Young Israel of North Beverly Hills, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in California, talked to JNS as he exited the event early to fly back home, where his community faces wildfires.
Orthodox Jewish-owned businesses have other disadvantages, beyond being closed on holidays, according to Dunner, who chairs the Orthodox chamber’s West Coast and Beverly Hills division.
“Perhaps their English isn’t great, or their Orthodox way of life prevents them from being able to advance in a commercial environment,” he said.
He thinks that the agreement will “make America a better country, and we’re going to see great things come as a result of today’s signing.”
“There are many Jews who are successful, but for as many Jews as there are who are successful, there are many, many more who aren’t, who struggle,” Dunner told JNS. “This today is going to equal that playing field.”
