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In our first videos together, Rabbi Blum and I have been talking about our shared scriptures. But in this video, we talk about something a little closer to home. The ways that Christians have unintentionally hurt

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our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters through anti Judaism. Listen. Now as we learn from Rabbi Blum, how we can be better attentive to the pain of our Jewish brothers and sisters. Rabbi. Thank you

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again for meeting with me. This has been such a treat to get to spend so much time with you. Um And I wanted to ask if you could share a story that I've heard you share once

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before about two people in a bar together. Uh Could you tell that story for sure. Uh So two people go to a bar and uh forgive the imagery, but they start enjoying themselves a little bit

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. And uh after a little while when they're uh good and comfortable with each other, one of the partners looks at the other one and says, hey , do you love me? I said, of

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course, you're my friend. Of course I love you. And then they go back to their drinking and a little bit later, the same guy says to the other one and says, um, do

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you love me? Said? Of course, I love you. Of course, I love you said , do you know what hurts me? Do you know what causes me pain? And the second person

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says, uh, no, I mean, I , we were not. No. How could I possibly know that? And the first person starts weeping and says, if you love me, if you're

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my friend, you would know what causes me pain . You would know it hurts me. And it's a way of beginning a conversation with not just throwing talking points or common interests at each other. But

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if I'm interested in exploring who you are and who we are together, I would wanna know what moves you and what confounds you. What brings you, what anxiety and what are you afraid of and what

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also gives you joy. So it's an important aspect of not imposing myself on someone, but rather allowing someone to describe themselves with their own agency and be able to uh to meet them where they are.

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Well, one of my joys in becoming your friend um has been uh not only learning about uh so much about Judaism. Um but it's also been in being able to grow as a person of faith.

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Uh and also to feel like I'm being given access to some of the things that hurt you and others in the Jewish community. And one of those things has been learning more about the history of anti Judaism

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and anti Semitism in the Christian tradition and trying to do what I can as a professor of preaching to help others not repeat the same mistakes or hurtful things that have been said. Um, and uh,

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one of the things that I've heard from you is a preference for using the word anti Judaism over the word anti Semitism. Um, can you say more about, um, your preference and, and why

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that term versus the other? I think they both get at something that I think is unfortunately a, a part of, or baked into, um, perhaps our culture or even our civilization. Anti Semitism

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is a term that was brought forward in the 19th century to speak more of, uh a sense of political malaise in Europe. However, I believe that , um, bias and prejudice actually predate that quite

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a bit. And before there was anti Semitism, whether with a hyphen or without a hyphen, uh there was anti Judaism which I think unfortunately, uh with respect can be found in uh writings of the

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church as well as other, um, places where uh a bias or a o a deliberate other of Jews and the Jewish people, uh whether real or imagined is fairly ubiquitous. It's, it's widespread and

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, and, and uh, and influences generations of people. And, you know, there was a time I was speaking at AAA parochial school and it was hundreds of kids and one kid who thought they

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were showing off and everybody was there and said, he actually said he goes, why does everybody hate the Jews when I asked her questions? And I was a little maybe younger then. And I just

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took a chance and said, because you're taught to by your teachers. And I think I'd say it differently now. But even unconsciously, uh we learn our biases, we learn our prejudices even in ways

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that we don't necessarily think about it. It's not only in perhaps the jokes we tell, but it's the images we see on television. It's the stereotypes that we see and it's the, it's the language

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even that we have. And I think once we pay attention to that, uh and are curious about that, not just in my case uh with uh Judaism, but around we can sort of see that

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we can again begin to make our own choices about the life and the language that we want to use and employ in doing research on uh on the history of anti Judaism. I was appalled at how much

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my own upbringing and my own seminary training. My own Christian education formation lacked any kind of reference to this long history of anti Jewish prejudice and oppression throughout the centuries uh in the last 2000 years. And

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uh things like the expulsion of the Jews from Coun countries, whole countries from England, from France, from Spain. Uh I mean, people live literally having to leave everything and just leave the country.

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Um And these things I, I felt like should have been taught, should have been part of my education. Um But I feel like they, they weren't and, or I just didn't remember them.

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But, um I was really shocked also at just kind of the, the hateful messages about the Jewish community that Christians had perpetuated. Um and the impact on whole Jewish communities that those hateful things um had

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and even one of our um big names and, you know, I, I'm Presbyterian. So the reform tradition, Martin Luther being a big reformer, uh had a track on, on the Jews and

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their lies uh in the middle of the 15 hundreds that um literally suggested doing things much as what Hitler eventually did in Germany. Uh And it, and it's horrifying to read those kinds of things from somebody

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that's a Christian leader in the reform tradition. Um And to think about the kind of impact that that has had. Uh And so that hurts me. Uh And I can't imagine the kind of pain that

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, that has actually caused people that are actually impacted by it. Um But would love to hear from you. Um What are some of the ways that you see um ways that people have been addressing anti

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Judaism that have been effective? You think in changing people's minds or opening people's perspectives? How do you think people can change rather than have a series of talking points that here you go, this will change

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everything. Uh It's, I think it's wherever you meet someone to nurture a sense of curiosity in them . And there's an idea too that you don't have to be wrong for me to be right that there

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can be cognitive dissonance, there can be disagreement and there can be a real sense of uh beyond the particular issue we're speaking out. Do we have respect for each other? Do we know what moves each

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other, whether through pain or joy or otherwise? And I think if we're dedicated to that and if we're interested, it's extremely and excruciatingly hard work. And yet I think it's important for teachers, for

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preachers, for church goers, for people of faith , for people of question to get involved in why they do what they do and why they have the attitudes or the bias or the uh understandings that they

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do of how the world works. And I think anything that can be very helpful can also be very dangerous as well. So I think diversifying where we receive our information, recognizing that it should all should

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be received with a grain of salt and not to be afraid to do our own work to not just uh copy somebody else's article or somebody else's opinion and make it ours. I think we should do the

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hard work of putting ourselves in the fragile and fraught conversations of maybe having people disagree with us but doing so from a place of love. And uh and I said it doesn't work all the time. But

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I think ultimately having a sense that the essential work that we do can in fact change the world uh is perhaps one of the things that gets me through most days. And what is that phrase about repairing

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the world? The Hebrew phrase? Uh So there's a concept in Judaism called Tikkun Olam, which is repairing or fixing the world. And our mystics would say that that's true. And it really has everything

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to do with uh investigating oneself as well, that there's the world out there that I need, I see an injustice and I wanna run towards it to make it better. But it also is about attuning

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oneself to a sense of wholeness within that. I'm not doing that to avoid seeing who I am and why I do what I do. It's beautiful and challenging both of those things for sure and not,

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it's not a zero sum game either. I'm not , I don't think we should be out to win . We should be out to live another day in peace. So, as I was doing some research

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about the history of anti Semitism, anti Judaism. Um the AD L or anti defamation league's website uh reported that um there's been a rise in anti Semitic Acts and um several years ago in maybe 2022 it

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was the greatest number of Anti Semitic Acts uh ever recorded since they started the recording in 1969 1970 something like that. And that was the third year in a row that had been the highest number ever recorded

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. Um Here in Austin, I know we've seen um several cases. Um, a few years ago we had uh synagogue, uh Beth Israel um arson uh set fire to it and Anderson High School had

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some graffiti uh Swastika painted. Um And so I know that has really impacted um the community, the Jewish community here. Um But I know also Christians who feel like, well, I'm not like that

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, I'm not going out and painting swastikas on, on things. I'm, you know, I'm not a Nazi, so I'm not part of the problem , right? Um And yet, when I've been

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doing this research and having these conversations, I feel that some of my fellow Christians can still say some things that are probably pretty problematic. Um And wanted to kind of get your read on that. Like

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, what do you hear uh from Christians that are well meaning. Um But really kind of feel as if it's part of a longer tradition that they might not even be aware of. Does that make sense

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to the question? For sure, for sure. You know, just uh again, meeting people where they are and having the patience to be able to have that conversation and the next conversation and the next

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conversation. It's not something that I need people to get on a certain place for me to talk with them. Uh, the idea that, uh, people, I, there's plenty that I, I

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certainly don't know. And I'd be embarrassed to have a conversation with you knowing what, I don't know that you don't know that, I don't know. You know what I mean? Uh, you know

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, we were talking about some interests, uh, that, that your family has regarding bird watching and , and birding. And I, you know, I could barely, I did happen to see a

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golden eagle this summer for the first time, but I couldn't tell you a robin from a ring. So I don't know. So we can still have conversations and we can still get into a place where

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, um, we can trust each other to be curious enough to want to learn why we do what we do. And, and that's important. Uh I think it's also important to show up for each

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other. Uh, when, uh there were uh uh pro well, when there were uh actions of hatred here in Austin, uh with banners and with the arson that happened as well. Uh We asked

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for people to show up for us after the tree of life shooting in 2018 in the synagogue in Pittsburgh when 11 Jews died, uh in uh acts of prayer when a gunman came into their Sabbath service and

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killed 11 people. We asked our community, we asked the larger community to show up for us and based on relationships and based on mutual respect, we , they did when others, whether God forbid,

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if there's a vandalism or burning of a mosque or of uh churches, whether African American or otherwise, or shootings that, that expose vulnerable people, no matter who they might be. We have to and

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we must show up for each other. Otherwise we're just living parallel lives is like ships passing in a night in the night. So I think it's incredibly hard work. It's not convenient because that's another night

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. I'm not gonna be home because I'm gonna go make sure that my friends are OK. But there's acts of love. So I don't need people just to imbibe or hear my story. I want people

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to hear my story in relationship to me hearing your story and to me that's how one neutralizes acts of hate. Are there ever gonna be times where there's not vandalism at a school with swastikas or otherwise?

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I hope so, but I can't say that I'm gonna uh be satisfied until that's the case. I grew up with it. I know many other people did and you have to keep going as difficult as

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it may be and not give up hope on the best days. On some of the worst days it's hard to go. Thank you. Then the doors are closed. Usually at the end of all of

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that. And uh we paid special attention to the doors. They are uh shaped like a calendar. And it's to be inspired by the work of uh Babylon like Jews in Babylon. That sounds like a

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weird, but Babylon is now known as Iraq. And back in the day, it was a golden age for Judaism. That's where many of the rabbinic texts were written called the Talmud. So we wanted

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to honor the Jews of Babylon who once uh flourished and gave us tremendous gifts which we still study today . And there are really no Jews left in Iraq . So that's a cautionary tale. These doors which

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are beautiful uh were fabricated, were made in Germany . We did that on purpose also because the Jews of Europe used to be very thriving and numerous and amazing. After the Holocaust, there's barely a remnant

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left and to the recognition that from Babylon to Europe . And here we are sitting in a beautiful space in Austin, Texas and who knows what tomorrow will bring. So we want to make sure that we

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recognize that this is not the way it always has been, in fact, in many ways, success of this congregation of Jews in America is an aberration and we recognize indeed that things can change at any

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time. So from Babylon to Europe to America and hopefully God willing with peace. One of my hopes for these videos is that they can inspire greater curiosity about our Jewish brothers and sisters. My hope is

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that pastors across the state of Texas with whom I'll be sharing these videos can reach out to their Jewish brothers and sisters in synagogues in their areas, in their small towns in their cities and learn more from

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one another because our world is better when we know one another better and when we learn how to care and support for each other during hard times. Hi , I may know K Y a day. Um