People of the Pod – Détails, épisodes et analyse

From New York to California, the 2025 elections carry important implications for the Jewish community. AJC New York Director Josh Kramer addresses concerns over New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who has questioned Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state and accused it of genocide. Kramer highlights fears over rising antisemitism in New York and outlines AJC's plan to engage the Mayor-elect on combating hate crimes while remaining vigilant against policies that could target Israel.

Looking beyond New York, AJC's Director of National Political Outreach, Rebecca Klein, provides an overview of broader election results, including the victories of Democratic governors in New Jersey and Virginia, as well as the political impact of California's Proposition 50 on redistricting. She explains what these outcomes could mean for Jewish communities and national advocacy efforts.

Key Resources:

• A Letter to Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani

• AJC's Efforts to Support the Hostages

Listen – AJC Podcasts:

• Architects of Peace

• The Forgotten Exodus

• People of the Pod

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Transcript of the Interview:

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

The first election season since last year's presidential elections is behind us, giving New York City a new mayor, New Jersey and Virginia new governors and California a green light to redraw its map of congressional districts. 

We asked Rebecca Klein, AJC's Director of National Political Outreach, to explain what the 2025 election results mean for the American Jewish community. 

But first we wanted to hear from Josh Kramer, regional director of AJC New York, about the election of Zohran Mamdani as the 111th mayor of New York City, the largest Jewish community outside the state of Israel. 

Josh, if you could please tell us why that matters, why it matters that the largest Jewish community outside Israel is in New York City, and why the prospect of Mr. Mamdani at the helm of City Hall is a concern. 

Josh Kramer: 

So as you noted, New York has the largest Jewish population in the country and outside of Israel as well. Jews in New York City are scratching their heads today. They're asking themselves, how could it have come to be that a candidate has been elected to the highest office in the land who espouses views that are contrary to so much of the bulk of the mainstream Jewish population in New York City. Views that isolate and demonize and hold Israel to a double standard. This is a challenging day for many in the Jewish community.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

If you could rewind, for listeners who have not been following the mayoral election in New York City, because it's sometimes hard for us here in the New York metropolitan area to remember we are not the center of the world. People are more concerned with issues in their own backyard. But if you could please just kind of fill those listeners in on why Mr. Mamdani was a concern and how he expressed those views that you just spoke of being contradictory to the mainstream Jewish community.

Josh Kramer:

Absolutely, but I will take issue with New York not being the center of the Jewish world, of course, as the director for the AJC New York Regional Office. So I'll say that we know a lot about mayor-elect Mamdani's views on Israel from his long track record, from his statements that he's made along the campaign trail, from bills that he had proposed as a member of the state legislature. 

And mayor-elect Mamdani has espoused strong views in support of the BDS movement to isolate and dismantle Israel. He's called into question the Jewish nature of the world's only Jewish state, and he has had a very difficult time consistently calling out and labeling Hamas as a terrorist organization, condemning their actions of holding hostages and otherwise. So it has been a concern that these issues have been at issue during this election. 

But of course, we know that this election wasn't about the issues that AJC cares most about. Most people who went to the polls were voting about affordability issues or about bread and butter issues or filling potholes. Some were voting in alignment with their views on Israel. Many in the Jewish community, many who supported the mayor elect were misaligned with the candidates views on Israel. But I think most people were going to the polls based on those affordability issues. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:

You answered my next question, which was, why did he win? And it sounds like you do not believe that it was necessarily a referendum on Israel. 

Josh Kramer: 

I think that there's been a lot of writing and a lot of discussion along the campaign trail about these issues. He has been, and other candidates have been asked about their support for the Jewish community and about what they would do to combat the rising tide of antisemitism, which has been a part of the campaign the entire time. 

But his non-support of the State of Israel has been a major issue in the campaign. It's just not the issue that I think that people were going to the polls and making their decisions based on. I think that there certainly were people who are motivated either by or repulsed by the now mayor-elect's views on Israel, but I don't think that it was their top issue. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So you actually penned a letter to the mayor elect after his victory was announced. What did you say in that letter? What did you tell him? 

Josh Kramer:  

So AJC will work with this new mayor where we can, and that's one of the two core messages, I think, of the letter. We will work with this mayor on his pledge to quadruple, or octuple, the funding to combat hate crimes in New York City. We want to make sure that that funding is spent wisely and appropriately in the city government. 

We will work with him on a number of issues where we can align. Modeling, Muslim-Jewish dialog, if that is an area where we can work with the mayor elect. But the second message, and perhaps the more important message, is we will be there to speak out where we need to and understanding that this mayor elect has espoused BDS views for years now, since his days in college, and perhaps before. That we will speak out where we need to, should BDS principles be attempted by the city government as a result of those views. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

You mentioned the funds that he has pledged for combating hate crimes, and I imagine that will require some input from community organizations, especially Jewish organizations, since the Jewish population is often targeted by hate crimes, do you worry that weighing in as much as you did during campaign season will harm your chances of being able to work with and and negotiate and yeah, work in harmony with this mayor. 

Josh Kramer: 

AJC did feel the need to be on record for this election. And in fact, even prior to the election, we felt we needed to be on record given some of the rhetoric we've seen from this candidate. At the same time, we have engaged with representatives of the mayor's team of the now mayor elects team, and we hope to continue that dialog, to hope to continue to work together where we can. I hope that we haven't harmed our chances to provide input to where hate crimes funding should be spent or could be spent. You're right. Hate Crimes against Jews in New York City, they differ from national statistics in that in New York City, we are the victims of the majority of hate crimes, not just the victims of the religiously motivated or just religious, religiously based hate crimes. 

And that means, on average, Jews in New York City are subject to hate crimes, on average, about once per day throughout the year, at least that was the case in 2024 and so we hope very much to be able to monitor and affect how this funding will be spent and make sure that it's spent appropriately in combating the majority of hate crimes, which comprise the Jewish hate crimes. 

In fact, there was a hate crime that took place earlier today, one of our on average, one hate crimes per day that we experience against the Jewish community in New York City, and it was a swastika spray painted on a yeshiva in Brooklyn. And just earlier today, mayor elect Mamdani tweeted out, this is a disgusting and heartbreaking act of antiSemitism. It has no place in our beautiful city, and as mayor, he will stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root out the scourge of antiSemitism from our city. So it's an area of interest for us to continue to engage and to see that kind of rhetoric from our leaders is very helpful. So that's, that's what we will continue to look for and also be vigilant at the same time. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

In fact, do you see that as being an entree into conversations and dialog that perhaps just did not, did not happen during the campaign season, for whatever reason, sometimes campaigns can get a little heated and the rhetoric can get a little fiery to fire up the base. Do you have hope? Are you optimistic that perhaps a more rational dialog will emerge during his tenure, and that perhaps this hate crime conversation will be part of it? 

Josh Kramer:

I do think that that can happen. It can be that strong relationships can be built out of open and very much public dialog, like the letter that was sent out, and it's happened before in New York, we've started very strong relationships with elected leaders in New York City by first starting with very public disagreements. Now that's not our typical way of advocating. Of course, our typical way is diplomatically and behind closed doors, holding very open and frank conversations, but in circumstances like these, perhaps this is the best way to start a conversation. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Well, Josh, thank you so much for sharing your views on the mayoral election, and now we'll turn to Rebecca Klein to talk about some of the other election results from this week. 

Rebecca, welcome to People of the Pod. 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein:

Thank you for having me.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

So now that was one major municipal election this week. We also had smaller municipal elections across the country. There was an election in a suburb of Boston where voters voted to divest from Israel. In this Boston suburb, were there other examples of that in elections across the country, and why did this happen? 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein:

So, you know, Boston has been sort of a challenge for us for some time now, and we as an organization have been addressing this. And I think this is a movement, the BDS movement, is one that we've been sort of countering for years now, and really had made a lot of progress, and it's coming back up again now you see sort of in the wake of 10/7 and in some of the concerns about the Israeli government. 

But I see this too as sort of these more symbolic gestures, right? And I think there is a movement out there. The Jewish community is paying attention. We are doing everything we can to counter these measures. I do think they are few and far between, and I think largely again, really, to get their messaging out there. These are sort of messaging points, but please know that we are doing everything we can to sort of quiet that noise, that these are not city issues, and we need to be sort of supportive of the Jewish community, especially now in the wake of rising antisemitism everywhere. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So we'll go up from municipal elections and look at some statewide elections, some gubernatorial votes. We had Mikie Sherril win in the state of New Jersey against Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli, and then we also had Abigail Spanberger in Virginia become governor. So two women as the head of states. What does this mean for the Jewish communities in those states and also across the country? 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

So it's some good news, because I think both these candidates, these governors-elect have been really pro-Israel, pro-support of the Jewish community. Have loudly spoken out and shared their support. Have condemned antisemitism, and have really made it a part of their campaign, a part of their statements. 

I'll also just note that I think the truth is, is that whoever had won both of these elections, we were going to have a friend in the Jewish community. And this is a really important thing to note, because it sometimes can feel like there's a partisan divide between support for the Jewish community right now on Israel and antisemitism. 

And I'll say, when I see these races, where I look at it and I say, You know what, whoever wins, regardless of what else is going on in the background, I know that we can have lines in, we can have communication, and I feel we can have trusted partners. I'll also say that the interesting thing about, you know, we go right from the New York mayor's race to these two gubernatorial races, and you see a real shift from, you know, a very far side of the party to really moderate, centrist Democrats, both winning their primaries and now winning these elections, which I think says a lot. 

It's something I'm going to be looking for absolutely going into these midterms. But I do think it's very loud, and I think it's a counterbalance. For people who are concerned about the extremes of the parties, and I am too as well. Of course, I'm concerned, especially as AJC, as a nonpartisan organization that strives to be bipartisan and bring people together, that we have these now very moderate, reasonable voices leading these two very important states.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

And in fact, in New Jersey, AJC hosted a candidates forum, and all of the candidates had an opportunity to share their views about combating antisemitism. Correct? 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Absolutely, they did, and it really is a testament not to AJC and our influence, but also to the way that these candidates felt that they did need to address our issues, that they wanted to come to our forum in order to really go on the record.

They felt that it was important to the population of the state of New Jersey that they had to be on the record for our issues. And absolutely, I think that's an important thing. And I'm glad to see that more and more candidates are taking these positions. They're not shying away from these positions, and they're creating important relationships within the Jewish community. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

And just speaking of these two candidates, Governor-elect Spanberger And Governor-elect Sherril, were they aware and alarmed by a rise of antisemitism in their states? 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Absolutely, and particularly some of the rhetoric so in the primary some of this antisemitism or anti-Israel rhetoric came up. And Abigail Spanberger really spoke to it. I think she spoke to it really nicely. She talked about, you know, it's okay to have differences of opinions, but ultimately, we can never cross the line into antisemitism. Mikie Sherril too really has been supportive of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Both really have addressed it. They understand that in a post 10/7 world, we really can't take these things for granted. And I know that both of these leaders, I think, will be good friends of the Jewish community and will absolutely be on the forefront of combating antisemitism in their states. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So I'm going to move over to the west coast and talk about the election in California. I know we have some listeners in California who care about this, about Prop 50, but should people in other states across the nation be looking at California's Prop 50 and thinking about how it might affect them? 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Look, I think it's an important conversation. I think it's a difficult conversation, especially for us as we think about what democratic values really mean, when we talk about that as an ideal. Are these major redistricting efforts really the way we want to be thinking about our elections from now on? There are cases to be made on both sides. I think to some degree, if this is going to be the state of the future, you have to level the playing field. 

I think that's what California's voters said. They said, We need a level playing field. We need those extra five seats. You know, again, my concern is, where are we going to see the ripple effects of this? Now some states are absolutely backing off these redistricting efforts immediately after this election, which I probably think is maybe the better or the safer way to go. 

Because, again, one of the things to keep in mind is, when you create these new seats, you have to think about who are going to be the people running in these seats, whether we're talking about California or Texas. Are we now inviting people from the more extreme parts of the party to be running for these offices, and are we going to like what we get when those people win? 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Could you go back and explain to listeners what prop 50 is?

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Absolutely. So basically, prop 50 was on the ballot and California voters got to vote for it yesterday in the election. Basically it allows California to now create a new map, and it'll be with five seats that likely, I should say, will heavily favor Democrats. It will change the map of California pretty drastically in the upcoming midterm elections.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

And it's similar to the redistricting that happened in Texas, for example, although it wasn't as drastic a change, correct? I believe that's true, yes, but other states are redistricting as well, or at least discussing redrawing their maps. 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Yeah, other states are now talking about it. But like I said, I'm seeing some early sort of signs from some of these states that they may be backing off of that conversation. Again, you don't really know how it's going to play out when you do these efforts. I'll also say that it seems like the campaign to run this prop 50, it seemed a little disorganized all around and so again, if you're going to do this sort of thing, you really want to know that you're going to win it, because it can have really detrimental effects from cycle to cycle, election to election. 

So we'll sort of see, when we look at them, at these elections, these off-year elections, they're signals. They're signals to the major parties, they're signals to state parties, they're signals to voters. 

And so I think everyone's sort of now doing the analysis in just the hours after this election to see, okay, what does it mean? You know, should we be pivoting our messaging? Are we pivoting the way that we're doing things? And I think we're going to see some shuffling. 

And you can, again, you can already sort of see it. You'll hear it in some commentary. You'll see it on Twitter. People are a little bit, there are nerves out there. There's a lot of spin. Every party is going to sort of present their case here. But again, I think there's a lot to learn from what happened yesterday, and we're going to see these effects in the days ahead, in the weeks ahead, and absolutely in the months ahead. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So where else should we be talking about? We mentioned Virginia, we mentioned New York and New Jersey and California. Were there any other elections of note? 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Yeah, there were some local Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania that went democratic, that could have gone either way. There was something in Maine, an absentee ballot measure that was a Republican-led measure that was voted down, and many viewed that as a way to sort of bring voter participation down. So that was considered, I'd say, a win from a democratic perspective. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Wonderful, well Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us and putting this week's election in perspective. 

Rebecca Yoskowitz Klein: 

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

If you missed last week's episode, be sure to tune in for my conversation with former White House speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz about her new book As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us.

"To me, that ark is: engaging deeply with our traditions. It's reclaiming some of what we lost when we were assimilating and trying to fit in. We have thousands of years of text that have such wisdom about the human condition, about how to be a good person, and lead a worthy life . . . What we can really do is, we can be Jews. And to be a Jew has always been to be different."

Sarah Hurwitz—former White House speechwriter and New York Times bestselling author of Here All Along—returns to People of the Pod to discuss her new book, As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us.

Hurwitz reflects on why antisemitism remains, in her words, "the least mysterious phenomenon," and how Jews can reclaim pride, wisdom, and purpose through Jewish text, practice, and community. Drawing from her work as a hospital chaplain and her conversations with Jewish students on campus, she makes a powerful case for reconnecting with the depth and resilience of Jewish tradition.

Key Resources:

• AJC's Translate Hate Glossary

• AJC's Efforts to Support the Hostages

Listen – AJC Podcasts:

• Architects of Peace

• The Forgotten Exodus

• People of the Pod

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Transcript of the Interview:

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

During the Obama administration, Sarah Hurwitz served as senior speech writer for President Barack Obama and chief speech writer for First Lady Michelle Obama. But after she left the White House, she did a little bit of soul searching, and in her mid 30s, reconnected with her Judaism. She wrote about it in a book titled Here All Along, and joined us at the time to talk about it. Sarah has returned with us this week to talk about the book that followed, titled As a Jew: Reclaiming Our Story from Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us. 

Sarah, welcome back to People of the Pod.

Sarah Hurwitz: 

Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

So your title has a very powerful accusation. So tell us who is blaming, shaming and trying to erase us?

Sarah Hurwitz:  

Yeah. So, you know, it's funny. My first book, as you know, was this love letter toJudaism. This, this journey of discovery of Jewish tradition, and I loved it so much, and I wanted to share it.

You know, as I was writing it, I was thinking, Oh, where has this been all my life. Kind of a lovely, almost rhetorical question. But after it came out, a few things kind of happened that made me actually ask that question more seriously. Like, Wait, why did I not see any of the 4000 years of Jewish wisdom growing up? 

The first thing was, I trained to be a volunteer hospital chaplain, and you know, chaplaincy is multifaith, open to chaplains of all backgrounds. But you know, the training was kind of weirdly Christian. You know, we would talk about our ministry and our theology. And I was told that prayer is God, please heal so and so who's right here in front of me, and I'm just making this prayer up spontaneously, and they can hear me, and that's prayer. And everyone prays that way, I was told. I said, You know that that's not really a common form of Jewish prayer. But I was told, No, no, as long as you don't say Jesus, it is universal. That's interesting. 

And then something else that happened is I visited a college campus probably a year before October 7, and I was talking to students there at the Hillel, talking to a bunch of Jewish students. And one of them asked me, What did you do to respond to antisemitism when you were in college? And I was so stunned, I didn't even understand the question at first. And then I said, I didn't, not once, never. Not a single time did I deal with antisemitism. 

And the kids just looked kind of shocked, like they didn't believe me. And they started sharing stories of the antisemitism they were facing on campus. And I thought, uh oh, something's going on here. And then I really began kind of taking a deep dive into my identity. 

Of like, wait, so why did I spend my whole life being like, oh, I'm just a cultural Jew. I knew nothing about Jewish culture. Which is a beautiful way to be Jewish, being a cultural Jew, but I knew nothing about history, language, anything like that. When I said I'm an ethnic Jew, but Jews are of every ethnicity, so that's nonsense. 

Or I'd say social justice is my Judaism, but I didn't know anything about what Judaism said about social justice. Unlike these wonderful Jews who do know about social justice and spend their lives acting out Jewish social justice. 

And so I took a deep dive into history, and what I discovered was 2000 years of antisemitism and anti-Judaism and 200 years of Jews in Western Europe in a very understandable attempt to escape that persecution, kind of erasing many of our traditions.

And I think that was kind of my answer to, where has this been all my life? And also my answer to, why did I have such an apologetic Jewish identity for so much of my life?

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

In my introduction, I left off half the title of your first book because it was very long, but I am curious, kind of, when did you realize . . . well, let me give the full title of your book, it's Here All Along: Finding Meaning, Spirituality, and a Deeper Connection to Life--in Judaism (After Finally Choosing to Look There). 

So I guess, how was that delayed connection to Judaism, can you elaborate a little bit more about how it was tied to these forces that you just talked about?

Sarah Hurwitz: 

Yeah, so, you know, something that I didn't really fully understand, I had intimations of this, but didn't really understand this, is that, you know, 2000 years ago, early Christianity very much defined itself against Judaism. There was actually a name for this, the Aversos Judeos tradition, which means against the Jews in Latin. 

And you know, early Church Fathers very much were defining Christianity against Judaism, because back then, both of these traditions had originated from Judaism. And you know they parted ways at some point, and the Church Fathers were really trying to distinguish Christianity from Judaism, and to get people to stop kind of practicing both traditions.

This tradition really continues with Judaism defined as unspiritual, legalistic, depraved, dead, spiritually superseded. A lot of very, very ugly tropes that kind of have common themes that say that Jews are diabolically powerful, so supernaturally powerful, you can't even believe it. They are also profoundly depraved, evil, bloodthirsty, perverse, and they're in a conspiracy to hurt you. So there may be very few of them, but man, they are working together to really do harm. 

And you see these three themes kind of making their way through history, unfortunately, all the way basically, until the Holocaust. And I based a lot of my writing on the work of a number of really distinguished Christian scholars who make this argument. It's actually a pretty common argument among Christian scholars. 

And, you know, in recent decades, the church has very much disavowed its historic anti-Judaism and has worked very hard to, you know, fight antisemitism in the church. But, you know, these things really did kind of continue on through the 20th century.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

So you do describe in your book moments when you got oddly defensive about your Judaism, or perhaps a bit revisionist about Jewish history and the origin of Jewish traditions, or the reason why they exist now in modern day. Can you elaborate on some of those moments for our listeners and explain how you've self-corrected thatdefense?

Sarah Hurwitz: 

You know, I think a lot of it took the form of, oh, I'm Jewish, but not that Jewish. It was just sort of this immediate, but I'm not one of those Jews. You know, those really Jewish Jews. Well, I'm sorry, would it be a problem if I were? What if social justice wasn't my Judaism, but Judaism was my Judaism? Would that be okay? You know, just beginning to notice, like, Why am I always kind of pushing it away, claiming that I'm not too Jewish?

That's a very strange way to announce someone's identity. I think, you know, Dara Horn has actually a really, quite an amazing essay called The Cool Kids, and she talks about these two different types of antisemitism. And one is this kind of eliminationist antisemitism which says the Jews are bad, there's nothing they can do to be good. We must kill them. And you know, that is the Holocaust, pogroms.

We learn about that kind of antisemitism in school. But there's another kind of antisemitism, which is conversionist, which says, yes, the Jews are bad, but there is something they can do to be okay and saved. And that is, they can disavow whatever we, the majority, find disgusting about Jewish civilization. 

So you know, back in the day, it was, reject Jewish religion and convert to Christianity, and you'll be saved, maybe. For some amount of time, possibly. In my parents and grandparents generation, it was, you know, reject your last name, get a nose job. Stop being so "Jewy", be a little bit more "waspy," and then maybe we'll let you into our club. Then maybe we'll accept you. 

And today, what you see is you have to reject your ancestral homeland, you know, reject Israel, and then you'll be okay. And, you know, I visited 27 college campuses, and I kind of saw how this sometimes takes on the format of almost like a Christian conversion narrative, where it goes something like, you know, growing up, my rabbi and my parents told me Israel was perfect and amazing and a utopia. And then I got to college, and I realized that actually it's a colonialist, Nazi, racist society, and I had an epiphany. I saw the light, and I took anti-Zionism and anti-colonialism into my heart, and now I'm saved. Now I'm a good Jew. And their classmates are like, now you're a good Jew. 

And as Dara Horn puts it, this kind of antisemitism involves the weaponization of shame. It involves really trying to convince Jews that there is something fundamentally shameful about some aspect of themselves, their identity, their tradition. And today, that thing is Israel. This idea that there's something fundamentally . . . it's like the original sin of the world.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

And you also talk about the tradition of circumcision, and how that came up, and you found yourself explaining this to someone. Can you elaborate on that for our listeners? Which I thought was really interesting. 

Sarah Hurwitz: 

This was during an encounter with a patient. I was doing a chaplaincy shift, and  usually I don't tell my patients my religious background, I'm very neutral, unless they're Jewish, in which case, I do tell them I'm Jewish. But, you know, I was finishing up a conversation with this very lovely lady. And she was very curious about my background. And so I told her, you know, I'm Jewish. And her eyes kind of lit up, and she said, Oh, you know, many of my neighbors are Jewish. I've actually been to two brisses in the past month. 

And she just, you know, and she was so lovely, like, she actually seemed to be just really happy to be included in this tradition of her neighbors. And I got weirdly defensive, and was like, Oh, well, you know, just so, you know, medical professionals, they say whether you circumcise or don't circumcise, it's really, it's equally safe either way. And you know, we often, you know, when we do brisses, they're often done by a medical provider. 

And I'm going on and on and like, this woman did not say the slightest negative thing about this tradition, but suddenly I am defensive. Suddenly it's like, Huh, interesting. You know, I think that it was an illustration to me of the way that we can sometimes really imbibe all of the kind of negative views about Jews and Jewish traditions that are around us, and become defensive, and sometimes we don't even realize that they're there. It's almost like they're the air that we breathe.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

But let me challenge that and push back a little bit. I mean, is it okay to not agree with some of the traditions of the Jewish faith and be open about your disagreement with that? I certainly know a lot of Christians who don't like things that emerge from their tradition or from their community. Is that okay? Or is it not when Judaism is threatened?

Sarah Hurwitz: 

So I actually do think that's okay. You know, I have no problem with that, but I think the problem in this situation was that I have no problem with circumcision, but I'm suddenly getting defensive and trying to convince this woman that it's not weird. And I'm thinking, why am I doing this? It was very interesting to me that I felt so suddenly defensive and anxious. You know, it was very surprising to me.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

And similarly, it's okay to criticize Israeli policy too, right? I mean, it's totally acceptable. 

Sarah Hurwitz: 

Absolutely. This is the thing that I'm so confused about. Where people are saying, well, you know, you're saying that it's not okay to criticize Israel. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Have you been to Israel? It's like the national pastime there to criticize the government. I criticize the Israeli government all the time, as do millions of American Jews. 

This idea that this is somehow… that we're somehow reacting to criticism of Israel, that's ridiculous. I think what we're reacting to is not criticism of Israel, but it's something else. You know, when you have students on a college campus saying from water to water, Palestine should be Arab, or Israelis are Nazis. I just, with all due respect, I don't see that as criticism.

Nor would I see it as criticism if, God forbid, a Jewish student ever said from water to water, Israel should be Jewish, or, Palestinians are terrorists. That is hateful, disgusting, racist, eliminationist language. And if I ever heard a Jewish student say that, I mean, let me tell you, I would have quite a talking to with that kid. 

So that's not criticism. Criticism is, I am vehemently opposed and abhor, this policy, this ideology, this action, for these reasons. That's criticism. And I think you can use real strong language to do that kind of criticism. But there's a difference between a criticism and slurs and baseless accusations. And I think we need to be just clear about that.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

All right, so you just use the term from water to water instead of from river to sea. Was that on purpose?

Sarah Hurwitz: 

Not necessarily. It's just a clearer illustration of what I think from the river to the sea really means, you know, I think  that is the Arabic that is used. Infrom the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. It's like, you can kind of make an argument that this is about Palestinian Liberation. And okay, fair enough. But I think when you get the from water to water, it shall be Arab, that's when I think there's less of an argument that it's about freedom, and it seems a little bit more eliminationist to me.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

Interesting. I've not heard that before. But I like that. So you call antisemitism the least mysterious phenomenon. Can you please explain what you mean by that?

Sarah Hurwitz: 

Yeah, you know, I think, like a lot of young people, my antisemitism education was mainly just Holocaust education. And I kind of walked away thinking like, huh, how wild that the civilized world just lost its mind in the mid-20th century and started killing Jews. That's so shocking and disturbing, you know, why is that? And the answer was kind of like, well, you know, the Germans lost World War I. They blamed the Jews. There was a depression. They blamed the Jews. 

And when you ask why the Jews, it's like, well, because of prejudice and scapegoating. I'm like, Okay, right. But again, why the Jews? Prejudice and scapegoating, that's the answer. It's like, well, actually, the answer really is because of 2000 years of Christian anti-Judaism that preceded that. It wasn't mysterious why the Jews were targeted. 

This was a 2000-year neural groove that had been worn into the Western world psyche. And this is not my argument. This is the argument of countless Christian scholars whose brilliant work I cite. And so I think that the unfortunate thing about some forms of Holocaust education is that it leaves you with the impression that, oh, this is so mysterious, it's just kind of eternal and kind of comes out of nowhere. Or even worse, you might even think maybe we did something to deserve this. But it's not mysterious. I can show you its path through history. 

And I think it's very important that Jews understand this history. And look, I think this is very hard to teach in an average American public school. Because, you know, we live in a country where, you know, saying Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas is very upsetting for some people. They feel very threatened and triggered by that. 

So for a teacher to say, like, Okay, kids today we're going to learn about how 2000 years of Christian anti-Judaism paved the way for the Holocaust . . . I don't think that's going to go well. Even if many mainstream Christian scholars would agree that that's true, this is a challenge that we face.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

So you have continued, as you said, to visit college campuses where antisemitism has been an issue since October 7, more of an issue than it even was beforehand. And yet, when you were at Harvard and Harvard Law, you've said you could have walked through Harvard Yard wrapped in an Israeli flag and no one would have said a word or reacted negatively. So what has changed, and does it signal a more general shift on campuses of kind of uncensored, unbridled speech? 

In other words, if black students support black lives matter, or gay students are marching for pride, do you feel like there's a sense that students who disagree with that from either the right or the left, have kind of claimed a license to criticize that too?

Sarah Hurwitz: 

No. I try to explain to college students when they say, Well, okay, my campus isn't that bad, you know, I can wear my Jewish star, and I won't get, you know, harassed or ostracized. And I say, like, okay, great, if it's not that bad, I'll just wear my Israel t-shirt and we'll see how it goes. They're like, No. 

And then I have to go through this long litany of like, okay, if your black classmate said to you, well, this campus isn't so bad for black students, but I can't wear my Black Lives Matter t-shirt or else I'll be harassed and ostracized. I hope you would say that's not okay, that's racism, pretty clear. Or if your queer classmate said, Well, this campus is pretty good for queer people, but I can't wear my pride t-shirt, I hope you would say, That's not pretty good. That's homophobia. 

You know, when the majority feels entitled to decide how the minority can embody and express their identity, I think we have a really serious problem. And  sometimes the kids will push back on me. Well, no, no, but the problem isn't being Jewish. It's Israel. I'm like, okay, but if your Chinese American classmate wore a t-shirt that said China, even if all your classmates knew that the Chinese government had been interning a million Muslim Uighurs in camps and subjecting them to horrific human rights violations, would they harass and ostracize her? 

And they're like, Well, probably not. Right, because they would assume that she has a relationship to China that maybe involves having heritage there, or maybe she studied abroad there, or maybe she's studying Chinese, maybe she has family there. I think they would assume that she has some connection to the country that doesn't involve agreeing with the policies of the Chinese government, and Jewish students on campus really aren't afforded that courtesy. 

And I'll tell you, most of the Jewish students I spoke with on campus, they, like me, are extremely critical of this current Israeli government. Extremely, extremely critical. They have all sorts of criticisms about what's happening in Gaza, of the occupation. 

You know, their views are quite nuanced and complex, but there is no room given for that. You know, I think on some college campuses, Israel has been put into the same bucket as the KKK and the Nazi party. So I can't say to you, look, you know, I'm a Nazi, but I'm a liberal Nazi. Or, oh, you know, I'm in the KKK, but I'm not racist. It's like, come on, right? 

These are vile entities with which no connection is acceptable, period. And I think once Israel ceases to be a country and instead becomes the representation of all evil in the world, there's really no relationship that you can have with it that's acceptable. And I think that is a pretty devastating place for it to be today. 

And I'll tell you, I think it's a really challenging moment right now where I, like a lot of American Jews, I'm a Zionist. I believe that Jews have a right to a safe and secure home state in their ancestral homeland. I believe we have the right to national independence and self determination, like Japanese people have in Japan and Latvians have in Latvia, and on and on. And you know, we've run that experiment of Jewish powerlessness for 2000 years, and it didn't go well. Even as late as the 20th century. It wasn't just that two thirds of Jews in Europe got wiped out because of the Holocaust. 

It's that nearly a million Jews who lived in Arab lands had to flee persecution, most of them to Israel. It's that 2 million Russian Jews had to flee persecution, half of them to Israel. It's that 10s of 1000s of Ethiopian Jews, I can go on and on. So we know, we've run that experiment of Jewish statelessness, and it doesn't go well. 

And at the same time, we are looking at this current Israeli government, and we are appalled. We're appalled by the ideology, we're appalled by many of the policies. And you know, for me as an American, this feels very familiar, because I love this country. I'm a proud, patriotic American, and I happen to very much disagree with the current president. I happen to be very much appalled by the current president's policies and ideology. And so, I think many people are able to hold that, but somehow it's harder with Israel, because of what is in the air right now.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

So, really you're saying that antisemitism has distorted history. Distorted people's understanding of Israel's history, their understanding of modern Israel's rebirth and existence. It spawned anti-Zionism. Correct? 

Sarah Hurwitz:  

Yes.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

Did you encounter that during your time in the Obama administration? Do you see it now, in hindsight or or is it a more recent emergence?

Sarah Hurwitz:  

I think this is more recent. I mean, you know, probably in some spaces it was, you know, I was in the administration from 2009 to 2017. I never once saw any kind of anti-Zionism or antisemitism. I mean, it was one of the best places to be a proud, passionate Jew. I knew my colleagues could not have been more supportive of my Jewish exploration. They were so proud when I wrote my first book. 

So I never saw any of this ever, once. And I think, you know, I think what is so confusing about this is that we often think about antisemitism as a kind of personal prejudice, like, oh, you know, Jews are fill in the blank, nasty thing. They are dirty, cheap, crass. I don't want my daughter to marry one. I don't want one in my country club. 

You don't really see that kind of antisemitism in the circles where I travel anymore. What you see instead is more of political antisemitism, which is antisemitism as a kind of conspiracy theory that says that we, the majority, are engaged in a grand moral project, and the only thing stopping us are these Jews. We the majority are Christianizing the Roman Empire. 

The only thing stopping us, these Jews who won't convert. We the majority are bringing about the brotherhood of man, the great communist revolution. The only thing stopping us, these capitalist Jews. We the Germans, are bringing about the great, racially pure Aryan fatherland. The only thing stopping us – these race-polluting Jews. 

And today in America, you see it on the right and the left. On the right, it's, you know, we white Christian Americans are bringing back white Christian civilization to America. And the only thing stopping us are these Jews who are importing black and brown immigrants to replace white people. That is the extremely racist and antisemitic theory known as the Great Replacement theory. It is an ugly, disgusting lie. 

On the left you have, you know, we this very moral group of people. we are bringing about the revolution of anti-colonialism, anti-Zionism. And the only thing stopping us are these colonialist Zionists, which is a polite way of saying Jews. And so, you know, I think it's very important to understand, as Yossi Klein Halevi, the journalist, puts it, you know, what you see again and again is whatever is the worst thing in a society, that is what the Jews are deemed to be. Whatever is the worst thing among a particular population, that is what the Jews are deemed to be. And I think we're kind of seeing that on both the right and the left today.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

If antisemitism defines so much, or has defined so much of Jewish identity, how do we reclaim that? How have you reclaimed that? And how have you found joy in your Jewish identity, especially after doing this book and immersing yourself and all of this extremely depressing perspective?

Sarah Hurwitz:  

I hear this kind of line among many Jews that breaks my heart. It's this sort of self-flagellation, of like, if we just had the right PR campaign, if we just had the right tweet, then we would fight antisemitism. It's our fault, we're doing such a bad job fighting antisemitism. And, you know, I love the ambition there. I think that is so sweet. 

But there are 16 million of us in the whole world. That's with an M, million, like the size of like, the fifth largest city in China. We are a Chinese city. There are billions of people who don't really love us out there. And the idea that we, this tiny group of people, is going to somehow change the minds of billions of people. I really respect the ambition, but I think that's a tough one. 

I think it's sort of like trying to bail out a tsunami with buckets. You know, if enough of us do it, I'm sure we can make a difference. And I have such respect for the people who are doing that work. I think it's very important. But I also would just suggest that maybe we should put a little more of our energy into building an ark to weather the storm. 

And you know, to me, that ark is, engaging deeply with our traditions. It's reclaiming, I think, some of what we lost when we were assimilating and trying to fit in. You know, we have thousands of years of text that have such wisdom about the human condition, about how to be a good person and lead a worthy life and find profound spiritual connection. We have just so many beautiful traditions. And so I think that what we can really do is, we can be Jews. And to be a Jew has always been to be different. 

That was kind of our value proposition thousands of years ago when we came along and said, hey guys, monotheism. Totally different way of thinking. We said, hey, every human being is created in the image of God, which is an idea that every human being is infinitely worthy. Which, again, this is the idea that underlies things like liberalism, democracy, human rights. These are really Earth-shatteringly different counter cultural ideas, and we have so many more of those that I still think the world needs today. 

So I think that rather than just being anti-anti-semites, that we can be proud Jews instead, and we can really focus on becoming more learned, more vibrant members of our communities, you know, engaging in more of our traditions and our rituals. 

I also think, you know, Dara Horn has been doing a lot of great work about educating kids about Jewish civilization. Rather than having young people only know about the Jews via the Holocaust, she really wants to teach young people about Jewish civilization, ideas, and people. I think that is a very, very powerful and very helpful idea.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

So how are you doing this? How do you spend each week? How do you reclaim some of these traditions and joy?

Sarah Hurwitz:   

For me, it's studying. That's really how I engage, you know, I have various chavrutas or I study Jewish texts. I love reading Jewish books, and I love participating in the Jewish community. You know, I love engaging with various Jewish organizations, you know, serving on various committees, and just trying to be part of this project of reclaiming Judaism, of making it more accessible to more Jews. This is what I love doing, and I'll be starting in January. I'm actually going to be starting a rabbinic program at the Hartman Institute. It's a part time program. 

And I'm not not planning to be a congregational rabbi, but I do want to keep writing books, and I am really grateful for this opportunity to get a much deeper, more thorough Jewish education than the one I've kind of given to myself, and, you know, kind of cobbled together. I think this is going to be a really extraordinary opportunity. So I'm very excited about that. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

Oh, wow. Well, congratulations. I look forward to welcoming you back to the podcast and calling you Rabbi. 

Sarah Hurwitz:

Thank you.

Manya Brachear Pashman:    

Thank you so much for joining us, Sarah.

Sarah Hurwitz: 

Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

As the school year kicks off, Adam Louis-Klein shares his unexpected journey from researching the Desano tribe in the Amazon to confronting rising antisemitism in academic circles after October 7. He discusses his academic work, which explores the parallels between indigenous identity and Jewish peoplehood, and unpacks the politics of historical narrative. 

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.

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Transcript of the Interview:

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Adam Louis-Klein is a PhD candidate in anthropology at McGill University, where he researches antisemitism, Zionism, Jewish peoplehood, and broader questions of indigeneity and historical narrative. His work bridges academic scholarship and public commentary, drawing on field work with indigenous communities in the Amazon and studies in philosophy at Yale, The New School and the University of Chicago. 

He writes on translation and the politics of peoplehood across traditions, and is committed to developing a Jewish intellectual voice grounded in historical depth and moral clarity. He blogs for The Times of Israel, and he's with us today to talk about his experience emerging from the Amazon, where he was doing research after October 7, 2023, and discovering what had happened in Israel.

Adam, welcome to People of the Pod.

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here on this podcast with the American Jewish community.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So tell us about the research that you are doing that took you into the depths of the Amazon rainforest.

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So I work with a group called the Desano people who live in the Vaupés region, which is a tributary of the upper Rio Negro. Part of it's in Brazil, part of it's in Colombia today. I went there because I was really interested in trying to understand how people were often seen at the margins of the world, the periphery of the global economy. See themselves and their own sort of role in the cosmos and in the world in general. 

And what I found actually is that these people see themselves at the center of it all, as a unique people, as a chosen people. And that was something that really inspired me, and later led me to rethink my own relationship to Jewish peoplehood and chosenness, and what it means to be a kind of indigenous people struggling for survival and recognition.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So were you raised Jewish? Did you have a Jewish upbringing?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Yeah, I was raised as kind of a cultural and reform Jew. I wouldn't say that Israel was super present in our lives, but we did travel there for my younger brother's Bar Mitzvah at the Kotel, and that did have an impression on me. And then later on, I wear a wristband of Brothers for Life, which is a charity for injured Israeli soldiers. But as time went on, I got involved in these radical academic scenes. 

And you know, my own field, anthropology, has fundamentally turned against Jewish peoplehood and Israel, unfortunately. But it was really in the Amazon, actually, that my journey of Teshuvah and rediscovering my Jewishness and the importance of Jewish peoplehood was really re-awoken for me.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You were involved in these radical circles. Did you ascribe to some of the beliefs that a lot of your academic colleagues were ascribing to? Did you start to question the legitimacy of Israel or the actions of the Israeli government? 

Adam Louis-Klein:  

I think I started to ascribe to them in a kind of background and passive way. In the way that I think that many people in these communities do. So I had actually learned about Israel. I did know something. But as I wanted to kind of ascribe to a broader social justice narrative, I sort of immediately assumed when people told me, that Israelis were the ones doing the oppression and the injustice, that that had to be true. And I didn't question it so much. 

So it's ironic that those spaces, I think, that are built around critical thought, have become spaces, in my opinion, that are not so critical today. And I think we really need a critical discourse around this kind of criticism, sort of to develop our own critical discourse of what anti-Zionism is today.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So what inspired the research? In other words, so you're involved in these radical circles, and then you go and immerse yourself with these tribes to do the research. What inspired you to do it, and was it your Jewishness?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So I think what led me to anthropology was probably a kind of diasporic Jewish sensibility. So I'd studied philosophy before, and I was very entrenched in the Western tradition. But I was kind of seeking to think across worlds and think in translation. I've always kind of moved between countries and cities, and I think that's always been an intuitive part of who I am as a Jew. 

And anthropology was founded by Jews, by Franz Boas, Emile Durkheim, Claude Lévi-Strauss, so I think that's kind of part of what brought me there. But I ended up rediscovering also the meaning of, you know, homeland as well, and what it means to be part of a people with a unique destiny and relationship to territory and land. And that made me understand Zionism in a completely new light.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

And did you understand it when you were there? Did you come to these realizations when you were there, or did you start to piece all of that together and connect the dots after you emerged?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So part of my research looks at how indigenous people engage with Christian missionaries who try and translate the Bible into indigenous languages. So when that encounter happens, it's actually quite common throughout the world, that a lot of indigenous people identify with the Jewish people quite strongly. So this might sound a little counterintuitive, especially if someone's used to certain activist networks in which indigeneity is highly associated with Palestinians, Jews are treated now as settler colonists, which is basically the opposite of indigeneity.

And that's become a kind of consensus in academia, even though it seems to fly in the face of both facts and our own self understanding as Jews. So I saw that in the Amazon, in the way people at the margins of the world who might not already be integrated in the academic, activist kind of scene, sort of organically identify with the Jewish people and Israel. 

And they admire the Jewish people and Israel, because they see in us, a people that's managed to maintain our cultural identity, our specific and distinct civilization, while also being able to use the tools of modernity and technology to benefit us and to benefit the world. So I think that also kind of disrupts some primitivist notions about indigenous people, that they should remain sort of technologically backwards, so to speak. I think that they have a more nuanced approach.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So I guess, what did you discover when you did emerge from the Amazon? In other words, October 7 had happened. When did you emerge and how did you find out?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So I'd been living in a remote Desano village without internet or a phone or any connection to the outside world for months. And then I returned a couple days after October 7 to a local town, so still in the Amazon, but I was signing onto my computer for the first time in months, and I remember signing onto Facebook and I saw the images of people running from the Nova Festival.

And that was the first thing that I saw in months from the world. So that was a very traumatic experience that sort of ruptured my sense of reality in many ways, but the most difficult thing was seeing my intellectual milieu immediately transform into a space of denial or justification or even just straightforward aggression and hate to anyone who showed any solidarity with Israelis in that moment, or who saw it as a moment to to say something positive and inspiring and helpful about the Jewish people. That was actually seen as an act of violence. 

So I went to Facebook, and I don't remember exactly what I said, I stand with the Jewish people, or with Israelis, or Am Yisrael Chai, or something like that. And many people in my circles, really interpreted that as an aggression. So at that point, it was really strange, because I'd been living in the Amazon, trying to help people with their own cultural survival, you know, their own struggle to reproduce their own civilization in the face of assimilation and surrounding society that refuses to validate their unique identity. And then I came back to the world, and I was seeing the exact same thing happening to my own people. 

And even stranger than that, it was happening to my own people, but in the language of critique and solidarity. So the very language I'd learned in anthropology, of how to support indigenous people and sort of to align myself with their struggles was now being weaponized against me in this kind of horrible inversion of reality.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Had you sensed this aggressive tone prior to your time in the Amazon and when you were involved with these circles?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

No, I'd never witnessed anything like this in my life, and so it took some real searching and going inward, and I was still in the jungle, but encountering all this anti-Zionist hate online from people I thought were my friends. And I had to really ask myself, you know, maybe I'm in the wrong, because I've never seen people act like . . .  people who are scholars, intellectuals who should be thinking critically about antisemitism. Because antisemitism, you know, we talk a lot about in the academy, critical race theory. So we look at ideologies, tropes, and symbols that are used to dehumanize minority groups, and we learn to be skeptical. 

So we learn that there are discourses that speak at times, in languages of reason, of justice, even that are actually biased, structurally biased, against minorities. So then I was deeply confused. Why did these same people not know how to apply those same analytics to Jews? And not only did they not know how, they seemed to think it was offensive to even try. So that was really strange, and I had to kind of think, well, you know, maybe I'm wrong, you know, I think there's a process of they've attempted to sort of stabilize this consensus at such a degree. That Israel is committing genocide, that Israel is a settler colonial entity that is fundamentally evil, basically. And Israelis are fundamentally oppressors. They've created a space it's almost impossible to question them. 

And it took me a long time to emerge and to come to that realization that I think anti-Zionism is really a discourse of libel, fundamentally.

And these accusations, I wouldn't say, are offered in good faith. And it's unfortunately, not much use to try and refute them. And so instead, I started writing, and I started trying to analyze anti-Zionism itself as an object of critique and as an ideology that we can deconstruct.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So did this change the course of your academic research? In other words, you said you started writing, are you writing academic articles, or is it more The Times of Israel blog and your more public writings?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So I've been writing publicly. I started writing on Facebook, and then the readership on Facebook started to grow, and then I sent it to the Times of Israel. And I do have some plans lined up to try and get this material out in the academic context as well. Because I think that's really important, that we build parallel academic spaces and our own language of academic legitimacy. Because I think that academic language, and as well, that kind of activist language, critique of oppression is valuable, but it's also culturally hegemonic today.

And so I think that as Jews, if we abandon that language, we will have trouble telling our story. So I think there are also projects like this. I'd like to mention the London Center for the Study of contemporary antisemitism. I think that's a great model. So they're doing serious academic work on contemporary antisemitism, not just classical antiSemitism, which we're all familiar with, Neo Nazis, etc. You know, what does it look like today? You know, red triangles, Hamas headbands. This is a new language of hate that I think we need to be on top of.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

In fact, you presented a paper recently, there, correct, at the London Center, or at a conference sponsored by the London Center?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Yeah, I did. I presented a paper. It was called the Dissolving the Denotational Account of Antisemitism. So denotational means, what words refer to. Because what I found very often is that it's a trope that's become really familiar now. Anti-Zionists, they say, we don't hate Jews, we only hate Zionists. We don't hate Judaism, we hate Zionism. We're not antisemitic, we're critical of Israel. 

So these distinctions that are made are all about saying, you can't point to us as attacking Jews, because our language is such that we are denoting we are referring to something else. So in my talk, I was trying to explain that I like look at anti-Zionism more like a symbolic anthropologist. So when an anthropologist goes and works with an indigenous culture, we look at the kinds of symbols that they use to articulate their vision of the world. The Jaguar, for example, becomes a symbol of certain kinds of potency or predation, for example.

So I look at anti-Zionism in the same way. It's not important to me whether they think they're referring to Israel or Jews. What's important to me is the use of conspiratorial symbols, or a symbol of child killing, for example. So we see that classical antisemitism accused Jews of killing children. Anti-Zionism today constructs Israelis as bloodthirsty and desiring to kill children. So when we see that, we see that even if they say not Jews, Zionists, they're using similar symbols that have mutated. So I think that's what I'm trying to track, is both the mutation of classical antisemitism into anti-Zionism, and also the continuities between the two.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Did you ever experience antisemitism from your academic circles or really anywhere in life through from childhood on?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Not particularly. So I went to a northeastern prep school, and we were, there were very few Jews, so I think we were sort of seen as another to the kind of traditional northeast New England aristocracy. But it wasn't something that overt, I would say. I think that antisemitism is something that occurs more so in cycles. So if you look at the 19th century, emancipation of Jews and integration of Jews into society, that was the up part of the cycle, and then the reaction to that came on the down part of the cycle. So unfortunately, I think we're in the same thing today. 

So Jews have very successfully assimilated into American society and became very successful and integrated into American society. But now we're seeing the backlash. And the backlash is taking a new form, which is anti-Zionism, which allows itself to evade what classical antisemitism looks like, and what we're used to identifying as classical antisemitism.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So I do want to talk about the word indigenous or indigeneity. Jews celebrate the creation of Israel as a return to their indigenous homeland, and Palestinians also consider it their indigenous homeland. So how are their definitions of indigeneity, how are those definitions different or distinct? I mean, how are their experiences distinct from each other's and from the people and the tribes with whom you immersed yourself in the Amazon?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So I think indigeneity, in its fundamental meaning, captures something very real that's common to tons of different groups across the world. Which is a certain conception of the way that one's genealogical ancestry is connected to a specific territory where one emerged as a people, and through which one's own peoplehood  is defined. So as Jews, our own peoplehood is connected to the land of Israel. It's the Promised Land, it's the place where our civilization first flourished, and it's the place we've always looked to return to. And so that is very similar to indigenous groups around the world. 

Now, at the same time, I think there's another concept of indigeneity that gets thrown in and sometimes confuses the issue a little bit, and that's that being indigenous relates to a specific history of dispossession, usually by European colonialism, starting in the 16th century. Now, in fact, there have been many colonialism throughout history. So there have been Islamic civilization practiced widespread colonialism. The Romans practiced colonialism. The Babylonians. But there is a tendency to only look at this form of colonialism. 

And now when we look at the Middle East, what we find then is these analytics are becoming confused and applied in strange ways. So we see that Palestinians, for example, their genealogical traditions, they understand themselves as tribally derived from tribes in Arabia that expanded with Muhammad's conquest, and that's very common. And Arabian culture and Arabic language is what they practice. 

And so at that level, from a factual perspective, Palestinians are not indigenous in the genealogical sense. However, there's a tendency to believe, since Jews have a state today, then since they appear not as dispossessed, because Jews have actually repossessed our ancestral land, that Jews can't be indigenous. But so I think that's a confusion. The basic understanding of what indigenous means, and largely what the UN definition is based on, is this notion of continuous identification with the territory. 

So I really think that this isn't so much a question of who can live where. I think Palestinians' right to live in the land has largely been recognized by the UN Partition Plan in 1947, or the Oslo Accords, and other peace deals, but it's a question of conceptual clarity and fact. And so at this level, I believe that the UN and other institutions should formally recognize Jews as indigenous to the land of Israel.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You have written, and I want to read this line, because it's so rich you have written that the recursive logic of an antiSemitic consensus builds upon itself, feeds on moral certainty, and shields its participants from having to ask whether what they are reproducing is not justice at all, but a new iteration of a very old lie. I. So are there other examples of that phenomenon in academia, either currently or in the past?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So what I was trying to grasp with that was my sense of despair in seeing that it was impossible to even point to people, point people to fact within academia, or debate these issues, or explain to non Jews who Jews even are. So I got the sense that people are talking quite a lot about Jews, but don't seem to really care about our voices. 

So some of that writing that you're quoting is an attempt to understand anti Zionism, not just not only as libel, but also as a kind of practice of exclusion, where Jews feel silenced in spaces. And where, where for all the talk of Academic Freedom versus antisemitism, which I think can sometimes be a tricky issue, I believe that Jews own academic freedom has fundamentally been violated by this discourse so that recursive logic is the way rumor and repeating slogans and repeating notions, regardless of their factual content, like the Jews or settler colonists, sort of builds on itself, as well as on social media, with this algorithmic escalation until it's almost impossible to talk back to it. 

So an example would be in 2024 the American Anthropological Association had its big conference, and the Gaza genocide was the main theme. But it wasn't a theme we were all going to go and debate. It was a theme that we assumed was true, and we were going to talk about it as a thing in the world, and then the Society for cultural anthropology released an issue with the exact same premise. 

It was glorifying Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and Nasrallah of Hezbollah. And then, interestingly enough, just the other day, they released another edition, which was about settler colonialism, and saying, We want to come back to this issue and and reaffirm that settler colonialism applies to Israel and Palestine against people who are attacking the concept, and we're against the exceptionalization of Israel in their terms. 

And so I searched through the document, but I couldn't find anywhere where Jews were talked about as indigenous, not even as a fact, but even as a claim. I couldn't find anywhere in this journal where Jew it was even acknowledged that Jews might believe that we are indigenous. So it's almost as if the very notion is just completely erased by consciousness within academia. Which is quite frightening.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

And do you feel able to push back on that. In other words, as a fellow anthropologist, are you able to ask, why is this omitted from this paper, from this journal?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

No, because they will simply ignore you. So that's why I believe these parallel spaces are so important and what I see my work trying to do is to help build a Jewish intellectual discourse. And unfortunately, I think we have to start a little bit internally. So we've been somewhat ghettoized. 

But if we build up that space, and construct these spaces where we have, where we can share the same premises and we don't have to argue from the bottom up every time. I think that will give us strength and also more clarity on our own understanding of what's happening. You know, both of the level of what is anti-Zionism, what is this new discourse? And at the level of, how can we speak from Jewish peoplehood as a legitimate place to even theorize from or build academic theories from.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You mentioned earlier that you held on to doubt. You kept open the possibility that Israel is in the wrong here, and you were watching for, looking for signs or evidence that your colleagues were correct. But as you've watched the horrors unfold, and wondered to yourself whether maybe Israel isn't really defending itself, why have you not concluded that that is indeed the case? Why have you reached the opposite conclusion?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Yeah, so I talked earlier about using, like a critical race theory analysis, so thinking about ideologies and the kind of tropes they're using and the way they're talking about Israelis, but I think that's only one part of the picture. So what I noticed is, one, they didn't want to do that kind of analysis, but two, they also weren't interested in empirical fact. So when I would sometimes try and do that analysis like this. This sounds like antisemitic, right? They would say, oh, but it's true. Israel is doing this stuff. Israel is intentionally killing Palestinian children. Israel is going completely beyond the laws of war. This is a genocide of unique proportions. Completely irrational and exaggerated statements. 

They also didn't want to engage with fact. I spent a lot of time digging up the sources of this material, given disinformation. For example, the Al-Ahli incident, where it was claimed by the Hamas health ministry that Israel had intentionally bombed the Al-Ahli hospital, killing 500 people. Al Jazeera promoted it. Western outlets also promoted it, and I had people all over my wall attacking me, saying that I'm justifying this by standing with Israel. And I saw what happened after, which was that they looked into it. The casualty count was tragic, but it was far lower than reported. It was about 50 people, and it was an Islamic Jihad rocket, so Israel was not even responsible. 

So I think that any rational person who sees what happened in that incident becomes skeptical of everything else they're being told and of the information circuits. And so when I also saw that the people who were talking about the Gaza genocide, weren't seemed completely unfazed by that. That made me have to rethink also what they were doing, because if they're unfazed by something like that, that suggests this isn't a truth that they're being forced to acknowledge, it sounds a bit more like a truth that has its own sort of incentive to believe in despite fact, rather than being pushed towards it because of fact.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So I'm curious, if you went back to the people that you had been immersed with and had been studying for the matter of months before October 7, did you go back to them and tell them what had happened, or did they somehow know what had happened? And I'm just curious if there was any kind of response from them?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Interesting. Yeah, I speak with them regularly, on a regular basis. They don't know exactly what's happened. I think they see sometimes news, but it's largely their understanding, is that there's a lot of wars in the Western world. And they ask why? Why is there so much war? Why is there so much suffering? 

I mean, they were particularly interested in in the Ukraine war, because they couldn't wrap their head around why Putin was doing this, which I think is pretty similar to a lot of people, but they do see, some of them see Israel as kind of, you know, a figure of strength, and compare Israel almost to their own notions of ancestral, sort of potency or power. So they have a very different understanding of the relationship between, let's say, power and victimhood. They don't necessarily fetishize being powerless.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Tell me a little bit about this tribe, these people that you spent time with. 

Adam Louis-Klein:

So the Desano there, they're one of a number of many ethnicities who inhabit the Northwest Amazonian region in northwest Brazil and southeast Columbia. They live in an extremely complex world in which there are over 25 languages in the region. And they have a very unique form of marriage, where you have to marry someone who speaks a different language than you. And so any community has a kind of nucleus of people who speak the same language, and they're from the same tribe. But the women in the community all speak different languages and come from different tribes. 

So I think it's a kind of space where you have to think across difference. You're constantly confronted with people who are other than you, who are from different tribes and different communities, as well as the relationship between the Western world and the indigenous world itself. And I think that's really part of the promise of anthropology, like coming back to what I was saying earlier about a diasporic Jewish sensibility, I think it's also just a Jewish sensibility. Part of being a distinct people is that we need to think with other people, and I think that includes Muslims and Arabs and Christians as well.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

That is such an enlightened approach that they have taken to marriage. Isn't that what marriage is all about, crossing those differences and figuring out and they just do it from the very beginning. And I'm also curious, though, are they also mixing with Western cultures. In other words, have they broadened that, or do they keep it within those villages?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Yeah, so they've taken on a lot of features of the surrounding, Colombian Spanish language culture, and that is the struggle today. Because there's a lot of economic pressures to move to the towns and the cities in order to get work and employment. And that can pose problems to the reproduction of the traditional village community. 

And so that's part of what we've been struggling with and part of the project with them. So we're currently translating an old book about anthropology, about them into their language, so they have the Bible, which was translated into the language by missionaries. And now we also want to translate their own cultural material into their language so that can help them preserve the language and preserve their own cultural knowledge.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So what's next for you, Adam?

Adam Louis-Klein:  

So I'm hoping to continue writing and to continue getting out this work. I'm hoping to also work with grassroots organizers to try to put some activist meat onto this opposition to anti-Zionism. So I believe that, as I was talking about parallel academic spaces are really important, I also think it's important to be able to speak back to anti-Zionism with activist language.

Not only the academic side, but the activist side. So I'm working with the group now, a decentralized group, developing infographics, memes, things that can circulate to educate people about anti-Zionism as the new form of antisemitism today.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Thank you for taking on this work and for sharing your story.

Adam Louis-Klein:  

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

In the aftermath of the slaughter of 11 Jews inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, American Jewish Committee (AJC) drew up a plan to galvanize Jewish communities and their allies across the world in an expression of unity and defiance: #ShowUpForShabbat. The campaign, which reached hundreds of millions of people, urged those of all faiths to attend synagogue services during the Shabbat following the attack to show solidarity with the Jewish community.

In this third episode of our Remembering Pittsburgh series, hear from some of those who showed up to that Shabbat five years ago on what the experience meant to them and how the events of that week altered their perspective on antisemitism in America.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Belle Yoeli, Anne Jolly, Rachel Ain, Sharif Street, Jennifer Mendelsohn

Show Notes:

Listen:

• Remembering Pittsburgh Part 1: Behind the Scenes at the Reimagined Tree of Life

• Remembering Pittsburgh Part 2: What the Family of Tree of Life Victim Joyce Fienberg Wants You to Know About Her Legacy

Take Action:

• Urge Congress to Stand Against Rising Antisemitism

Music credits:

• Shloime Balsam - Lo Lefached

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Episode Transcript:

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

This month, AJC set out to mark the five-year anniversary of the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting at the Tree of Life with a series of episodes exploring this turning point for the American Jewish community. Our first installment aired October 5. Two days later, the Jewish people faced another unprecedented deadly antisemitic attack, this time in Israel. Synagogues stepped up security and families tamped down their fears to take their children to Hebrew school or attend Shabbat services. In the second episode of our series, we sat down with Howard and Marnie Fienberg, who paid tribute to their mother Joyce. In this third installment, we look back at how horror drew people to solidarity. May we see that same solidarity today. 

Belle Yoeli: We saw hundreds of thousands of people show up. And we saw pictures later, after the fact, and videos, and people making speeches, and just so much solidarity. This was captured on the news. I think it really stands out as one of the most amazing responses to antisemitism that we've seen in modern history.

Manya Brachear Pashman: On October 27, 2018, Americans witnessed the deadliest antisemitic attack in this nation's history. Eleven worshipers inside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh were murdered just for being Jewish. The senseless slaughter inside a house of worship devastated and shocked American senses because it was simply unAmerican. But the aftermath of the atrocity became an American moment when so many people showed up – showed up with hugs, showed up with flowers, showed up with prayers for their Jewish neighbors. 

The most visible expression of this came a week after the massacre with the unprecedented turnout of people of all faiths at synagogues across the nation as part of AJC's #ShowUpForShabbat campaign. Together, Americans sent a message that hate will not prevail.

Belle Yoeli: Everyone wanted to do something, and the entire Jewish community mobilized to make this happen with the understanding that as AJC has always said that antisemitism is not just about the Jewish community. It starts with the Jewish community, but it's a threat to democracy, and the murder of Jews in their religious institution is such a breaking, a fracturing of everything that the United States stands for, everything that democratic society stands for.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Today, Belle Yoeli is the chief advocacy officer for AJC. In 2018, she worked as the chief of staff for then AJC CEO David Harris. David had spent nearly 20 years counseling European leaders on the rise of antisemitism in their midst, calling their attention to violent crimes against Jews when conflict erupted between Israel and their Arab neighbors.

Belle was on her way to a nephew's birthday party when she got the call on October 27 about what had happened in Pittsburgh. She remembers sobbing in the car on the phone with colleagues as they all grappled with the reality that whether they were regular shul-goers or had just happened to go to synagogue to celebrate a friend's bar mitzvah that day – it just as easily could've been them. For many, what they needed now was to go to shul and not be afraid, and to see others, not just their own community, but others of all faiths in the pews alongside them. What they needed most now was to know they were not alone. So they drew up a plan.

Belle Yoeli: A couple members of our staff actually kind of simultaneously came up with a similar idea, which was that we need to, more than anything, rally non-Jews to come and support the Jewish community at this time, and what better time to do that than the following Shabbat.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Dubbed #ShowUpForShabbat, the social media-based campaign called on both Jews and those of other faiths to flock to synagogues that coming Shabbat on the weekend of November 2 in support of the Pittsburgh Jewish community and all of American Jewry. The response across 80 countries was astounding.

More than 250 million people spread the message on social media, including celebrities Andy Cohen, Itzhak Perlman, and Mayim Bialik, and politicians Paul Ryan, Kamala Harris, and Sadiq Kahn.

And hundreds of synagogues across the country and around the world, from Tokyo to Santiago to London to San Francisco, welcomed people of all faiths into their sanctuaries. Those who walked through the doors included diplomats from dozens of countries, federal, state, and local elected officials, and Christian, Muslim, Hindu clergy. Synagogues across the country reported massive crowds rivaling or exceeding those seen at High Holy Day services.

Belle Yoeli: There are some times, I think before Pittsburgh, and before Tree of Life and after, where the Jewish community doesn't always feel like we are seen, and that we need defense too. When it comes to antisemitism, because Jews are viewed as white or for other reasons, or when it comes to us attacks against Israel, we don't feel like our partners are necessarily always there for us, although many are. Seeing with such clarity how people were showing up for the Jewish community, we all really needed that. And honestly, society needed that and to see that. That we will not let this stand.

I think it shook everyone to their core and not just the Jewish community. That's what struck a chord with people that could have been me, that could have been hatred towards African Americans, that could have been hatred towards the Muslim community. Every single community who has a piece of them, an identity that's so strong resonated with that.

Manya Brachear Pashman: We connected with people who showed up that Shabbat five years ago, and asked them what the experience meant to them, whether the events of that week altered their perspective on antisemitism in America, or changed how they show support to their Jewish neighbors.

Anne Jolly: An important part of what we proclaim is love God, love your neighbor, change the world. And so we believe that means we show up for each other. We can't love each other without being present with each other. So we have to be together. You have to show up.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Episcopal Bishop of Ohio Anne Jolly was serving as the rector of St. Gregory Episcopal Church in Deerfield, Illinois in October 2018. A former hospital chaplain, she was sitting in her office when she heard the news break that Saturday morning. Her first call was to her friend and colleague Rabbi Karyn Kedar down the road at the Reform temple commonly known as Congregation BJBE. Rabbi Kedar had recently preached at St. Gregory and then-Pastor Jolly was scheduled to deliver the guest sermon at BJBE the following Friday night.

Anne Jolly: I called her and we talked and we prayed. And I said to Karyn, I think probably you need to preach on the Shabbat following the shooting at your temple and she said, 'I want you to do it.' She said 'I think I think we need to hear your voice and that the congregation needs to hear you.

Rabbi Kedar I think thought that to hear a voice of someone who is not Jewish saying aloud, We love you, we care for you. We believe we are all created in God's image together. And that means we need to show up for each other. It means we need to be present with each other, that to hear that from someone who was not part of their community might be more powerful, more impactful, and more important for the community here at that time.

Manya Brachear Pashman: When Bishop Jolly arrived that following Friday she did not expect her sudden sense of fear when she encountered armed guards.

Anne Jolly: I didn't realize I was afraid until I walked in the door. And I stopped and had to take a deep breath and realize that I was afraid because I was entering into a space of people who have long been afraid. And that I had never had to experience that before in that way. And I wasn't really afraid for my congregation the same way I was for my beloveds in the synagogue, that they had more of a reason to be afraid than I did. And that was all the more reason for me to be there, and to be present with them.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Bishop Jolly credits that night at BJBE for the deep connection that formed with the congregation. In fact, she returned to BJBE many more times to celebrate Shabbat. Precisely a year later, the members of the Jewish congregation showed up at her door after a pumpkin patch at St. Gregory had been destroyed by vandals.

Anne Jolly: There were a bunch of them that came to our patch and we were talking about it and they said, 'We just wanted to show you that we are supporting you. And they were worried that that vandalism had been an act of aggression against us. And I just thought it was kids. And that was a really clear distinction of how our worldviews are different. For them, a vandalism thing would, of course, of course, be something hateful against them. In this case, it was children, it was just teenagers being dumb. But it reinforced that understanding that for them, fear is always in the background because of the violence perpetrated to them – again and again and again.

Rabbi Rachel Ain: It was not a wake-up call that hate existed and already the hate was being felt. And at the same time, the love with my neighbors was being felt. So I was able to hold on to both emotions. But really, as I look back at these five years. Pittsburgh to Poway to Colleyville to Jersey City. I mean, I can sort of think back to all of these moments. It's here. And we need to both be proudly Jewish, and strongly protected.

Manya Brachear Pashman: For Rabbi Rachel Ain, the spiritual leader of Sutton Place Synagogue, a conservative synagogue in New York City, the massacre at Tree of Life was not her first encounter with antisemitism. She knew it was simmering. A year earlier, almost to the day, vandals had spray painted swastikas across the entrance of her synagogue on the East Side of Manhattan. She knew how powerful it had been to have members of the wider community come support the congregation after that incident. Whether to invite members of the community to #ShowUpForShabbat was never a question in her mind.

Rabbi Rachel Ain: It's not only that I felt supported by my neighbors, especially those that weren't Jewish. But more than anything, it was that so many of our congregation members who were not, let's say Shabbat regulars, felt the importance and the value of showing up for Shabbat and they knew that they had an address to come to both physically and spiritually to place their pain and their needs.

Manya Brachear Pashman: That same weekend marked the bar mitzvah celebration of a young man in the congregation. Rabbi Ain wrestled with how to balance the sadness and shock of the prior weekend with the joy and celebration of his milestone. And a few years later, that same young man and his brother stepped up to lead the synagogue's Holocaust Remembrance event, in which teens interviewed the children of Holocaust survivors and shared the stories that have been passed down to them. She wonders if that moving show of solidarity when he was 13 and the formational years that followed had an impact.

Rabbi Rachel Ain: What I really keep thinking about is how some of our teenagers who at that point, were in sixth grade or seventh grade. And now here they are seniors in high school and freshmen in college, how their teen experience has been shaped by showing up for Shabbat and showing up for shul when bad things have happened. So what I've also tried to do is, how do we ensure that our young people's experiences aren't only about the challenges of being Jewish, but the joys of being Jewish?

Sharif Street: I just remember the massive amount of people that showed up and the diversity of the folks. I mean, I don't think I'd seen that many people show up for an evening Shabbat at Rodef Shalom in, well, maybe ever."

Manya Brachear Pashman: Pennsylvania State Sen. Sharif Street had been in Pittsburgh the day before the shooting at the Tree of Life building. When he heard the news that Saturday morning, he scrambled to find out if his friends and colleagues were OK. He was not oblivious to hatred and its potential to lead to violence. His father had been active in the civil rights movement and Sen. Street had sponsored legislation to curb hate crimes, but he had hoped to get ahead of the trend. This seemed unfathomable.

Sharif Street: I didn't really contemplate that in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it was within the realm of reasonable possibility that someone was gonna walk into a synagogue, and commit such a vicious, horrible act of hate. I didn't see that."

I thought we had moved beyond that stage of antisemitism and bigotry. And I was reminded of what my friends, older folks, and black and Jewish community always said, which is, we have to remain constantly vigilant. Because these things have a way of coming back.

It took on a new air, a new level of seriousness to me. Because this is not the idea that people could be killed because of antisemitism in America. It's not just something of a bygone era. But I realized we were living in that era today.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Sen. Street accompanied a friend to Temple Rodef Sholom in Philadelphia a week later and he has a few indelible memories from that night. 

Sharif Street: People from every walk of life. Some people who were obviously maybe were not Jewish, who just wanted to express their support and their solidarity. And the look on the faces of people who are members, who were just, who felt so troubled, so shaken. And to see all the support from people, I think, made people feel like even in this world that seems so cruel in that moment that there were many people who are good, who stood with them. And I think a lot of times, folks who are doing these kinds of acts of hate and terror want to make folks, in this case Jewish people, feel isolated and alone. And I think that the service allow people to recognize you're not alone. And that people from all walks of life stand with you and stand against these horrible acts of hate.

I think those of us who were, I would say the under-50 crowd and the younger you got, the more there was a level of shock, found it more disturbing because I guess we were further removed from an era when things like this when vicious acts of violence against people for antisemitism, racism and other forms of bigotry were more commonplace. People were wanting to make sure that this is not the beginning of a new chapter. Hopefully in our lifetimes we'll remember this as a disturbing outlier, not the beginning of an era.

Jennifer Mendelsohn: What really struck me about it was how simple it was, all we asked people to do was quite literally show up. You didn't have to wave a protest flag. You didn't have to donate money somewhere. You didn't have to go on a march. It was literally just saying, 'Come be with us this evening. We're hurting. And to have that answered so resoundingly was incredibly inspiring.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Jennifer Mendelsohn helped create the DNA reunion project at the Center for Jewish History, which uses the power of genetic genealogy to reconnect Holocaust survivors and their children to relatives from whom they were separated. While she did not regularly attend Shabbat services, she and her husband thought it was important to show up at Fulton Street Synagogue in Baltimore on November 2, 2018. 

Jennifer Mendelsohn: I walked in, and there's just no way to express what it was like. There were probably 300 people there. And you know, we normally do a potluck dinner. And I looked and there was, you know, there was no room to put down all the food, there was no prayer books, there were people, you know, just packed in. And I remember seeing the faces of neighbors of ours, non Jewish neighbors, and I immediately just got so overcome, and they just sort of smiled at me. And just to know that they had taken the time on a Friday night just to say, we care, and we're here with you. It was unbelievably powerful.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Clergy and congregants from across different religious traditions helped light memorial candles for the 11 victims in Pittsburgh and the congregation sang "We Shall Overcome."

Jennifer Mendelsohn: I feel like every time I go back, I remember how nice it feels to be at synagogue. You always think like, Oh, it's so much easier to just, you know, sit on your couch with your fuzzy slippers. But it's, you know, it's always nice to be there. And all of the rituals are so familiar, you know, lighting candles, and, you know, welcoming the Sabbath bride and all of that, and the songs and it just reminded me that, you know, I'm not a particularly religious person in terms of practice or ritual. But it reminded me that, you know, that's where I come from, those are my people. And it was just very comforting to be in that environment at a time of such tragedy to just be around familiar sounds and smells and sights and all of that."

Manya Brachear Pashman: For Mendelsohn, 2018 had already been fraught and eye-opening, as she had become the target of online antisemitism because of a political project on Twitter. As someone who deals with the Holocaust on a daily basis, her shock surprised her.

Jennifer Mendelsohn: This event sort of crystallized the sense that, you know, antisemitism was still around and perhaps, you know, coming back with a new fearsome edge… It was very hard to fathom. You know you you spend this much time thinking about the Holocaust and dealing with families shattered by genocide that was, you know, spurred by just hatred. And you think, 'Well, surely this will never happen again, because everyone understands, and clearly people don't. So it was a very sobering experience to feel threatened again, as an American Jew.

Manya Brachear Pashman: But #ShowUpForShabbat also crystallized that regardless of ideology, color or creed, most of America stood beside the Jewish community in this moment.

Jennifer Mendelsohn: The crowd inside that synagogue was exactly the America that my ancestors came to the U.S. to be a part of, you know, they escaped political discrimination in Eastern Europe, and that's really for me what it was all about and to reinforce that that America exists that helping, kind, inclusive America, in the face of this horrific act of violence and hatred was just really the balm that my soul needed at that moment.

Join us in a tribute to the memory of Joyce Fienberg, one of the 11 victims of the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. In this touching second installment of our series on the events of 10/27 , we sit down with Joyce's son, Howard Fienberg, and his wife, Marnie, as they share their  journey of mourning and resilience. Joyce was not only a dedicated member of the Tree of Life synagogue but also a retired university researcher, a devoted mother, and grandmother.

Howard and Marnie open up about their extended period of mourning due to trial delays, offering a glimpse into the emotional toll of such a traumatic event. Marnie details how she turned her grief into 2 for Seder, an initiative to honor Joyce and push back against the hate that creates antisemitism.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Howard Fienberg, Marnie Fienberg

Show Notes:

Listen:

• Remembering Pittsburgh Part 1: Behind the Scenes at the Reimagined Tree of Life

Take Action:

• Urge Congress to Stand Against Rising Antisemitism

Music credits:

• Tree of Life by Nefesh Mountain

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Episode Transcript:

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

After her husband and mother died in 2016, Joyce Fienberg started each day at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, to recite Kaddish, the mourner's prayer. Even when she was no longer officially considered a mourner as Jewish tradition prescribes, 11 months, she continued to attend services each morning at the synagogue. 

That's why Howard Feinberg knew his mother Joyce was at Tree of Life when he heard there had been a shooting there on the morning of October 27, 2018. It would be more than 12 hours before he learned she was among the 11 killed that day. 

Howard and his wife Marnie are with us now from their home in Northern Virginia to talk about their prolonged mourning period and how they have held onto and channeled that grief. Howard, Marnie, thank you so much for joining us.

Howard Fienberg:  

Thanks for having us.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Howard, you followed your mother's example and recited kaddish for 11 months. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience? That experience of saying Kaddish and mourning for your mother, and also can you share with our listeners why it felt like the mourning period was extended?

Howard Fienberg:  

I felt a huge amount of support everywhere I went, in order to be able to say Kaddish every day. Which for someone who was not the most observant of Jews, it was a big lift to be able to do that every day. In fact, even when traveling in disparate places, that I could always find, somehow, be able to pull together 10 people to be able to say Kaddish was a big deal. And I wanted to make sure that no one would struggle in similar circumstances as well. 

Obviously, initially, in Pittsburgh putting together 10 people was not a particularly big lift. Because the community support in that first week of Shiva was phenomenal. But it's not an easy thing in many congregations, and I think we are fortunate in mine that we always seem to pull it out every day. But I want to make sure that it happens. So in practice wise, that's one of the biggest things, my involvement with the synagogue, and prayer. 

The broader extension of the mourning period, in a way, was a result of the constant delay of the trial for the monster that committed the massacre. And that was a result of both just the general usual procedural delays that you would expect, combined with COVID excuses that dragged things out during the trial. And once a new judge took over responsibility for this case, things suddenly snapped into gear and it moved forward. And we're particularly grateful for the judge in this case, just for his very no-nonsense approach moving forward.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Can you talk about whether the guilty verdict once it did take place, and a verdict was delivered, how that verdict changed anything for you and your family?

Howard Fienberg:  

It was a matter of relief, to a great extent. I sat through almost the entirety of the trial, heard and saw all of the evidence. A lot more than I expected to and ever wanted to, but I felt duty to do so. From an outside perspective, looking at it all, you would say this is a slam dunk case, lined up for all the federal hate crimes that were involved. And at the same time, I was in doubt until the jury came back and said, all said guilty. It's just the nature of things. I was on pins and needles. Massive relief afterwards and the same thing with the final verdict and sentencing. Massive relief for us and our families. 

And that did allow…nothing's ever closed. You don't finish feeling the loss of somebody, especially when they're taken in, you know, horribly violent terrorist circumstances. But you move from segment to segment. So the same as we do in the year of mourning, you're moving from shiva, which is one kind of thing, to the 30 days, and then to the end of the mourning period. And this was moving to yet another period. And what exactly this is and how long it will be, I don't know. But we're figuring that out as we go. I certainly feel a lot more relaxed.

Marnie Fienberg:

Feels a little lighter.

Howard Fienberg:  

Yes, definitely lighter.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

That's good to hear. That's good to hear. I am curious, you said you felt a duty to listen to those details, even though you didn't want to. Can you explain why you felt that sense of obligation?

Howard Fienberg:  

Part of it is, somebody in our family needed to. And it wasn't something that I wanted everybody to sit and hear and see. And I specifically told friends and family as much as I could, to stay far away and said, as much as you want to know, I'll let you know. But otherwise, it's horrific. And it wasn't anything that I would wish for anybody to see and hear. But at the same time, it's the reality of how my mom died. And what the circumstances were, what was going on with the antisemitic conspiracy theories that drove the monster that killed her. And what did he have in mind, and what was his intention, what did he plan, what did he do? These were important things. 

And the bigger picture, which I didn't even know going in, was the extent to which the police in Pittsburgh were so heroic. And while they were not able to save my mom, they saved other people, including friends of ours, and people who are now friends, who would not be alive if those cops had not tried to charge at the front door trying to charge the building and getting shot. And then the SWAT teams going into the building, and in a couple cases getting almost murdered themselves, trying to rescue the people that were inside. And they did rescue some people. And those people would most likely be dead if the SWAT had not rushed in. Equipment wise, they were not ready ordinarily for this sort of situation. But they went in anyways because they knew they needed to, and they didn't hesitate. And that's the kind of thing that you can only understand, having gone to the trial and learned what went on. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Marnie, I want to turn to you. You quit your job as a federal contractor and started a nonprofit initiative called 2 For Seder. What prompted this sudden shift in your career?

Marnie Fienberg:

Well, I think that I was so upset about what happened with my mother-in-law, I did take a leave of absence initially. And I wanted to volunteer. Being a Jewish woman, and having all this anger and grief and all the support that we had received from people, literally all over the world. I just couldn't sit back and do nothing. So I wanted to do something that was really in honor of Joyce, but also something that would help every single Jewish individual if they so chose to be able to take some small tikun-olam-style action, and push back against the hate that creates antisemitism. And I think 2 For Seder really accomplished that, especially that first year. And we were really on track to grow quite enormously, except for COVID. COVID stopped us in our tracks, because it is about inviting 2 people into your home, who have never been to a Seder before and really educating them and immersing them in that Jewish joy and intimacy that you create every year at Passover. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So I'm really curious about the seder connection. Was Joyce known for putting together really elaborate Seders? Was she just always at the Seder table? Why Seders?

Marnie Fienberg:

So this is a two part sort of explanation. So one is the sort of graduation to being allowed to hold the Seder. So my mother-in-law, really for 15 years we actually had done where we started at her house, and I helped her and I learned as we went and then we flipped it. And we came to our house and she would help me and make sure that I was doing things the right way and guiding me the right way. And there's, I mean, there's so much to do, putting on a Seder and trying to of course fit, you know, 30-35 people into a house that really should only have about 20 people in it is, of course, part of the tradition. And she never blinked an eye, it was never too much. 

It was really mostly about making everyone at the table, regardless of their background–she always had students over, she always had people who had no place to go–every single person needed to feel like they were home. So if you had some sort of dietary restrictions, or any sort of an allergy or anything, my mother-in-law would bend over backwards, she bend herself into pretzels to make you feel 100% comfortable. And every single person who ever graced her table felt like they had never been more comfortable before. They felt like they were at their mother's house. And they commented on that many times. It was a wonderful thing. And I have to tell you, it's very hard to live up to. She was one of a kind.

Howard Fienberg:  

If I might add in, part of this comes from looking at photo evidence. I've been going through all of the family photos, last five years, trying to digitize and you can see the progression. So early on, there are pictures of Passover seders that clearly they've invited friends and other professors at the universities, students that were Jewish, they'd invite to Passover on a regular basis. And I think there's a turn somewhere in the early 80s, my brother and I would start inviting our non-Jewish friends to the Passover Seder. 

And probably around about the late 80s was when it became not just bringing in Jews and my brother's friends and my friends who had never been to a Seder, it was their friends and fellow faculty, visiting graduate students from far-flung countries who knew absolutely nothing about Judaism. Certainly nothing about Passover. It was a way for them to have a comfortable introduction to what we're all about. And in all the context that my mother wanted to provide of it being a welcoming taste of being at home.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

We talked about how the Jewish tradition provides the process of formula, you know, the shiva and the 30 day mourning period. But this, the length of time that families have been mourning has been extended, delayed, slowed down. And I'm curious if on top of the Jewish traditions that guide people through the mourning process, if the Jewish community helped fill in some of what was missing, helped comfort you in certain ways?

Marnie Fienberg:

We live in two Jewish communities right now. We live in Northern Virginia, and we have our community here. And then we live in Pittsburgh, in a sense, and we have the community there. And we have been back and forth many times. The community in Pittsburgh, regardless if you were a family member, if you were a member of one of the three synagogues, or if you were a member of the greater community. There were so many ways that there were supports. And even from here we were always invited to participate in them. And some of them were done virtually actually when COVID hit which actually was very helpful for us.

I don't know if the larger Jewish community is aware, but the FBI actually has a whole series of people, an entire division that's just there to support families and the communities that are affected from mass shootings, which also includes a grant to stand up an actual group that that is going to help the community at large. And that's the 10.27 Center for Healing in the Pittsburgh case, and that group is still standing and still running, still helping everyone. 

So there's the Jewish side, where we all still pray together, where we get together for our commemoration once a year, the families always get together in Pittsburgh. And then here in Northern Virginia, there have been a variety of commemorations, but mostly our own local community at our synagogue is extremely supportive. They're, of course, another family to us. And this has only really brought us all closer, which has been wonderful.

Howard Fienberg:  

We've had a lot of different kinds of support structures, I wouldn't identify anything as where there was a failing, other than the broader problem that people thought it was over. The presumption on the part of everyone, when they found out that there was a trial for the monster that killed my mom, was: wasn't that done already?

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

I want to ask you both this question, what has given you hope in the last five years?

Howard Fienberg:  

I haven't had the time and strength to go through all of the letters and cards that we received in the month or two after mom was killed. But some of the ones that really impacted me the most, outside of people that we knew, or that knew my parents, I mean, I think we have a whole box of correspondence and cards from people who never met my mother or us. And a lot of those were from non-Jews, who were deeply impacted by this, and were moved. 

I mean, it's one thing that we had large groups of Jews that came to our Shiva, for example, that wanted to be there to support and during the Shiva period. There were groups of students that came from universities outside of Pittsburgh, like Ohio, and from Massachusetts, they wanted to come and be a part of it, and they weren't Jewish. They just, they felt a need to support. And that's the kind of thing that gives me great hope. Part of why we look at projects like 2 For Seder as so important, that it's not just that we're Jewish, and we're other. So I see a great load of hope there. 

But at the same time, the fact that, you know, trailing back to the trial, the fact that the Justice Department was willing to pursue the trial, and not just take a plea bargain, but actually present evidence and pursue a case involving such rampant antisemitism, and lay out the facts and prosecute them. That gives me great hope as well. It's not something that is an easy thing. The most reasonable response on their part probably would have been to, no matter what we wanted, would have been to pursue a plea bargain and make it all go away. Because it's expensive, and it doesn't make anybody feel good. Why would you do it?

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So I have to ask, if the trial had happened a century ago, do you think the jury would have reached a guilty verdict? Do you think the prosecution would have pursued the hate crime charges as they did?

Marnie Fienberg:

So there would never have been any hate crime charges. Hate crimes did not enter the American laws until 1964, which is when the Civil Rights Act was enacted. This is why I think that we always need to be so thankful for Martin Luther King Jr. and to be proud that we were part of that. So a century ago, would this have even been considered an anti-Jewish crime, an antisemitic crime? No. 

I think that you can look at Dreyfuss' case and you can say very clearly, this country, this part of the world was not ready for something like that. And they would have looked the other way. Would they have convicted as just a general murder? I don't know, there's a lot of those murders that just disappeared 100 years ago. But would it have been because it was antisemitism? Absolutely not. I would be very, very interested to learn of some other way that that would have happened. But we're very grateful that the same laws under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that is what this was all held under.

Howard Fienberg:  

And the other angle is that the monster that killed everybody, he killed 11 people, he was not an upstanding part of the community, he did not have a whole segment of the community cheering him on, helping him, encouraging him, protecting him. That's not the way it worked.

And the reactions and the killing of my mom was part of the demonstration of that, that people were horrified and they were supportive of us. And, you know, the Justice Department pursuing the case to the fullest extent of the law, as they should, would that have happened 100 years ago? No, but again, not just because of the lack of statute, but you know, our place in society was not what it is today. And society was not the same. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

I know we've sprinkled details about your mother throughout this conversation, but is there anything in particular in there anything in particular that you want listeners to know about Joyce?

Howard Fienberg:  

She twisted herself into knots and did whatever she could to help others, that starts with the rest of the family, and the amount of time and energy that she put toward helping us and helping my brother and sister in law and all of her grandkids, which were a huge focus of her life. The fact that she was able to also shoehorn in a lot of volunteer time at multiple different projects in Pittsburgh, as well as being the connector of our family and multiple sets of families, both email and letters and phone calls on a regular basis. It's an amazing thing that she was able to do that on a daily basis and still sleep and function. Not to mention, make sure that she was at minyan at Tree of Life early every morning. It was an amazing balancing act, y'know, it's a hard thing to pull off.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

And she picked up someone each day for minyan as well, right?

Howard Fienberg:  

Yes, so unfortunately, he passed away. Late, late last year. 

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

May his memory be for a blessing. You know, I should ask, what does that mean to you, when this phrase, May her memory be for a blessing. What does that mean to you when someone says that about your mother? 

Howard Fienberg:  

I generally have an appreciation. Because, not just of what she meant to me, but the recognition from other people of the loss. And for some of them, they understand what that loss means. For others, they don't really, but they're trying to support. I do take comfort in that. I'm not certain that I did, certainly in the first week, I was too shell shocked to be able to appreciate all the people that were saying it to me. But, you know, over time, it makes a big difference. And I appreciate being able to do that for others, even complete strangers. If I'm supporting a minyan at someone's shiva, I like to be able to do that.

Marnie Fienberg:

Joyce was such a gentle, loving and caring person and to have her loss be through such an act of hate is where I think we all struggle. And I think whenever anyone talks to Howard or myself or any of the families about their losses, that they can feel that, that they can feel the shock that these people who just wanted to make the world a little bit better, a little bit of a better place, that they would be taken in such an act of hate, for no reason. I think that being able to say May their memory be a blessing really emphasizes the loss that we feel and the hope that we can fill in this space.

Howard Fienberg:  

And I will say it's very awkward to talk to somebody who's in mourning. Just the nature of it. The fact that we have what almost a rote saying that carries so much weight is a huge benefit. And I deploy it regularly with non-Jews. They're partially taken aback, and they're very touched, because they're used to getting the awkward, Oh, I'm so sorry for your loss, which doesn't make anybody feel particularly good. We can argue about the way Judaism approaches all sorts of things. I happen to think the Jewish way of death, you know, as depressing as it may be to think about, is very practical in a lot of ways. And it's designed to be helpful.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Has the rest of your family embraced that? Have they turned to the Jewish faith to cope with this, to try to make sense of it? 

Howard Fienberg:  

My brother was already what is called traditional in France, traditional Judaism, he embraced that much more fully, and is much more on the Orthodox range than he was before. And that was a huge part for him as well in coping, and coming to grips with our new life, after my mom died. And that is a piece of it for all of the family in different ways. 

One of the positive things along these lines, my brother dedicated a Torah in memory of my parents. And by weird twist of fate, or God's hand, in choosing a date to dedicate that Torah in Pittsburgh, the date happened to land a couple of days before the final sentencing in the Tree of Life trial. So we had just a few days before, this whole ceremony and huge celebration that my brother orchestrated, to not only involve the local community and a huge celebration and things that I've heard about, but never seen. 

People marching in a parade down the street, not far from Tree of Life, to introduce the new Torah to its new synagogue, but also in the final writing of the letters, finishing off the Torah, to be able to include some of the law enforcement officers that were injured in trying to rescue people at Tree of Life, as well as all of the families of the victims and the survivors. That everyone was able to participate from our family and our extended family. It was an amazing sight to behold and the simple fact that it landed right before the sentencing was kind of amazing, because there's this amazing positive outgrowth that you might not have expected. And the fact that it perfectly coincided with the darkness of the trial. It's an amazing thing.

Marnie Fienberg:

He had been planning this for three years. When Howard says that it was an amazing coincidence to bring them both together, to bring the one of the most Jewish things you could possibly do, dedicating a new Torah, creating and dedicating the Torah, right before the sentencing. There was never a plan for that. It just, it just happened.

And it was very healing to the community. But it was also, I mean, the message of the shooter was to stop Judaism, to make us so afraid that we would never go back into the shuls, that we would never go back and be Jewish. And not only in the days right afterwards, where people flocked to go to shul. But this was just one more incredibly powerful expression, that each of the families has done so many different things, to focus on Judaism, focus on making the world a better place in memory of their loved ones. But this is just one more extraordinarily powerful example about how just being Jewish, just doing what we do best, it keeps us going.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Marnie, Howard, thank you so much for joining us and sharing part of your journey with our listeners, it's really a valuable conversation to have.

Marnie Fienberg:

Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. 

Nefesh Mountain, from the song Tree of Life [singing]:

O sweet friends, come and dry your eyes

And hold each other by this Tree of Life

I'm angry and tired of this great divide

But I sing, nonetheless, with love on our side

Manya Brachear Pashman:

This episode is brought to you by AJC. Our producer is Atara Lakritz. Our sound engineer is TK Broderick. You can follow People of the Pod on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod. The views and opinions of our guests don't necessarily reflect the positions of AJC. 

You can reach us at peopleofthepod@ajc.org. If you appreciated this episode, please share it with friends and family and write a review on Apple Podcasts.

At 6:30 a.m on October 7, 2023, Renana Gomeh's life changed forever when Iran-backed Hamas terrorists stormed her home in Kibbutz Nir Oz and took her two sons, Yagil and Or Yaakov, ages 12 and 16, hostage. She has not heard from them since, knows nothing about the conditions they're held in, or whether they're still alive. Listen to Renana's painful account, how she is coping, and her mission to bring them home. 

American Jewish Committee (AJC) and more than 110 Jewish organizations have urged the United Nations and all governments to secure the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages.

Update: This conversation was recorded on October 19. On November 27, Yagil and Or Yaakov were released as part of a temporary pause in fighting. Take action to bring their father, Yair Yaakov, and all remaining hostages home now.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) 

Show Notes:

Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War:

• What Biden's Wartime Visit to Israel Signals to Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah
• Mai Gutman Was Supposed to Be at the Music Festival: IDF Lone Soldier Recounts Harrowing Week
• Responding to Hamas Terror: IsraAID CEO on How You Can Help Israelis Right Now

Learn:

• What is Known About Israeli Hostages Taken by Hamas

• AJC.org/AttackonIsrael 

Donate:

• AJC.org/SupportIsrael

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

___

Transcript of Interview with Renana Gomeh:

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Over 200 hostages are being held by the Iran backed terror group Hamas after its terrorist attack against Israel and the massacre of over 1400 Israelis on October 7. American Jewish Committee and more than 110 Jewish organizations from more than 40 countries have urged the United Nations and all governments to secure the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages. The condition of many of the hostages remains unknown, yet we know some are in dire need of urgent medical care. With me to discuss her efforts to bring back her 12 year old and 16 year old sons is Renana Gomeh. Renana, thank you for joining us. 

Renana Gomeh:  

Thank you so much for having me.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Now, your two sons were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas terrorists on October 7. You were on the phone with your sons, as Hamas terrorists were breaking into your home. I cannot imagine what you've been going through over the past 2 weeks. Could you please tell listeners what happened that morning at 6:30am?

Renana Gomeh:  

Yes, I was on another kibbutz that Saturday morning, with my spouse. I have a partner living on another kibbutz in another community near the Gaza border, which is 15 minutes drive away. And I'm divorced, and my ex-husband lives 400 meters away from me. He's also a member of my kibbutz, of my community. And the boys just usually sleep at my place. You know, this is how they prefer it. And since they're not very young children anymore, we let them choose. So they were alone at home. 

And he was at his place with his girlfriend, with his partner, who I love to bits. And about 6:30 in the morning, we all woke up to the red alert, which is unfortunately something which became a routine and we're used to. Since I was also on our kibbutz on the Gaza border, all communities at the Gaza border had red alerts and rockets flying over, hundreds of rockets flying over on a completely surprise attack. We just didn't see it coming whatsoever. I called my boys as I was running to the safe room at the place I was in to make sure that they're in the safe room at my place. And as the safe room is the eldest son's bedroom, he was there but he made sure that his little brother was also there. So they were in the safe room. And every couple of minutes I spoke to them to see that they were okay. 

At a certain point they said they're starting hearing gunshots outside the house and I could hear gunshots outside the house I was in. Again, it was a completely well-planned and well-executed attack on all communities at the same time. So no one could go outside. 

And I told them it was probably the army defending them. You know, they're keeping us safe. 30 minutes later or so I can't remember. I've lost track of time to be honest, of that morning. We started getting text messages from other members of the community saying terrorists are walking outside freely, breaking into houses, trying to get people out. I was begging neighbors and people from the community to go and see, to go and see them, go and be with them. You know, try and help them. But no one could go outside. And there were probably over 100 terrorists walking around, getting into houses. So there was not a chance that anyone could help. 

At a certain point I asked my elder brother, who's also a member of the community, to call my eldest [son] and tell him how to lock the door. The doors don't lock in a safe room because the safe rooms were planned against missiles and rocket attacks and against earthquakes. So they actually want you to have the door been able to open from the outside, so they can take you out. So they don't lock. But you know, there's certain technical ways to try and keep them locked. So I asked him to call my eldest and tell him how to do it. And then I later found out that he held the door like hell. And he fought for that door. But it didn't make it. And about an hour later, about two hours after the attack started, they called me and said, they hear someone breaking in. Breaking the door, breaking in, walking in the house. 

And a couple of minutes later, I could hear Arabic speaking outside. The door opens. And my youngest said, Please don't take me, I'm too young. He was always good at manipulation. This time it didn't work. And they took them. That was the last I've heard from them. It's almost two weeks now. And I've nothing, I've heard nothing. I know nothing of their whereabouts. I know nothing about the conditions they're held in, whether they eat, whether they sleep, and whether they're still alive.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

I'm so sorry to make you relive that. But I also know that it's important that you share your story with the wider world. 

Renana Gomeh

It is, it is. I know. This is all I can do at the moment, you know. And so it means a lot to me that you're actually giving me the platform. Because what I need your audience to do is to enlist to the effort to get them released now. To get my boys home alive now. They shouldn't be there. They take children hostage, 80 people out of our small community, which only is about 400 people. 80 people were taken hostage from the age of six months to the age of 86. People who need medicine, people who need medical care. It's just plain children that need a mother. 

I later found out that my ex-husband and his girlfriend were also taken hostage from their house. My hope is that they've met and they're together. As 80 people were taken my hope is that someone that they know is with them, to support them and to help them.

That's the story you know. As a mother to other mothers, just trying to imagine it was your child being kept there. Just for one hour, let alone 13 days. My heart goes out to every mother even in the Gaza Strip. You sometimes get in the news in Israel, you sometimes get news like a 14 year old terrorist was killed tonight at a terror attack and I always my heart goes out to them and I say you know he's 14, he's someone's child. But what kind of a mother raises such monsters?

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Of course, listeners who are hearing this can go to AJC.org/BringThemHome to send a letter to the United Nations, send a letter to Congress to demand swift action to release the hostages. I know that you are pushing for swift action to release your sons and the other hostages. Who have you met with, who have you talked to about bringing your sons home and what can be done? 

Renana Gomeh:  

Well I've met anyone who was willing to meet me. I was mainly trying to get the media, international media to hear my voice and to get people around the world to hear us. I think the international community has a lot of tools and there's many ways you can help by just by putting pressure, as you just suggested, by putting the right pressure in the right places, in order to release them. Obviously I want all of them to be released, there's over 200 people kept in the Gaza Strip, as far as we know, I think there's more. But, you know, it's not for me to say.

What we need you to do is to approach your governments. And ask them to release those civilians that are held. We don't even know, again, in what conditions and especially released those 40 or so children. Children under the age of 18, from babies to teenagers. They're not part of this game. I'm sorry. They are not bargain chips in the war game. Get them free now without any conditions whatsoever. I can't see how anyone can think otherwise. It's just plain and simple.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Renana, are you getting any explanations or theories from diplomats, people that you're speaking with, on why they're holding your sons and other children like this?

Renana Gomeh:  

To be honest, until two weeks ago, I saw us as neighbors. And I thought there was mutuality between us, you know, that we could have a future together. Those two people have a mutual economy, have mutual relations, even have mutual cultures. But I don't think we do. I can't even try and get into these terrorists' heads and the way they think, because what they did is not just taking soldiers hostages in order to bargain them, to trade them, for prisoners. What they did was to rape and decapitate and murder, just for the sake of fun. 

They came in, had cameras, to have this horror filmed, and put on Facebook and on TikTok. So I can't even begin to try and understand but I reckon they probably want to bargain them for the prisoners, which as far as I'm concerned…I don't care. I think the actions they took cannot be justified in normal rules of war. I can't, I can't explain. It's not for bargaining. It's for fun. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Are you being told there are limits to what diplomats can do or is anyone telling you their hands are tied, or are you getting unequivocal unbridled assurance that everything is being done?

Renana Gomeh:  

I'm not really told anything at the moment, but I'm not an expert. I understand that not everything can be told. If there are efforts being done, which I hope there are, they can't share it with 200 families. My hopes are that anyone with the right mind understands that this situation can not go on. And the children cannot stay held by terrorists for not even one hour, let alone a day or a month. And that has to be over, no matter what. I don't care if the war still goes on after. I don't believe there's any other way to get them released, but diplomatic pressure. I think this is the way to do it. But I'm not sure there's anyone to negotiate with. So you know, the other side is so different to us. And their morales are so different from ours, apparently.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Are you traveling places to meet with government officials, and do those government officials include Israel, America, beyond that?

Renana Gomeh:  

I'm willing to do anything to get my kids back home. And to get everyone's kids back home. I have another daughter, my eldest, who's 21, who was also in Nir Oz at that horrible, horror day. And who's traumatized. Thank God, her boyfriend was around and held the door. And luckily, they got out alive but very, very deeply scarred. And I have to take that into consideration while making decisions about traveling far away. But I'm doing my best by Zoom. I'm trying to get my voice heard in any way I can, under those conditions. And I still have her to think of, she's all I have at the moment. So she deserves her mother to be around. Even [if] she's willing for me to do anything to get her father and her brothers back.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Where are you staying now?

Renana Gomeh:  

We've been evacuated to a beautiful hotel suite in Eilat. My boys love Eilat. I was here with them two months ago on summer vacation. It took me years after I got divorced to get to this point where I can take them to a summer holiday on my own. So it was very meaningful also. So I'm finding it very very hard to walk around in Eilat. But everyone from my–what's left of my community of what was Nir Oz–everyone were evacuated to this hotel and we found it very important to be together. 

This community, you know, it's like a big family to us. This is why we decided to stay here with them. It's very hard because it's very far away from everywhere in Israel. I know for people in the States internal flights seem like a normal bus. But for us, it's not. But at least it feels safe-ish. I don't think anyone who's now staying here could bear even one more alarm. 

People ran for their lives, people fought terrorists. People jumped out of burning houses, people fell out of windows, people were hiding in bushes, people were faking themselves dead. There's not even a… I can't even start to describe, you know, for me, the horror was the fact that my children were taken away. But other people experienced horrors themselves. So we're here with our big family, the kibbutz, trying to recover from ashes.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Much of the world's attention is on what's going on now in Gaza. What do you have to say to journalists who are covering this war?

Renana Gomeh:  

The last thing I want, as a human being, as a mother, as a woman–if we were to run the world, it wouldn't happen. Just saying. But the last thing I would have wanted is war. You know, we've had so many in the last few years. This is the last thing we need. This is the last thing the Gaza people need. People in Gaza are used as human shields, even their children, like I said, terrorists who are 14. Terrorists, they're children, why are they carrying guns? Why are their summer camps, teaching them how to use guns and to become terrorists?

My heart goes out to every mother there. And I wish we didn't have to have a war. And I wish we could live a better life. And I think the people in Gaza had that chance. We walked out of the Gaza Strip 20 years ago, took villages, complete villages out. And it was a very difficult action to do in Israel. Which, you know, we still bleed on it nowadays, politically and socially. 

And we gave them the opportunity to become an independent state. And they gave the keys to a terrorist organization, which uses all the money that the EU and whoever is giving them in order to weaponize themselves and in order to become terrorists and to educate their children to become terrorists. 

I used to tell my children all the time: your life is so much better than children in Gaza. You have education, you have running water, you have electricity. And you have the morals that the Jewish world gives to their children: of equality, of mutuality, of giving away from yourself and no wish to get something in return. 

The other side does the opposite. We treasure life as Jews and they treasure death. So I'm sorry, but my sympathy is gone. I want my children back home, now, alive. Afterwards, we can speak about having a war or not having a war, the conditions they're in, the humanitarian solutions. But the world should know that what happens there is not an independent state. It's a terrorist organization, holding civilians, hostages. Their own civilians. My heart goes out to every child and every mother there. It's not their fault.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Thank you so much for sharing your perspective, sharing your family's story. And I am praying and we are all doing everything we can to help you get your sons and the other hostages home. And I pray that that happens very soon. Thank you so much for joining us.

Renana Gomeh:  

I just want them–I just want my boys back home alive now and I want you to help us do it in any way you can. Thank you so much for having me.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

If you would like to help make a difference, go to AJC.org/BringThemHome. There you can urge the United Nations and members of Congress to secure the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages being held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Jason Isaacson, AJC's Chief Policy and Political Affairs Officer, joins us to break down U.S. President Joe Biden's historic wartime visit to Israel and his message to Iran and its terror proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. Jason also shares his take on the fast-moving situation, including the fallout from the explosion at the Gaza hospital, the announcement of humanitarian aid to Gaza, and the growing antisemitic attacks in the Middle East and Europe. 

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Jason Isaacson

Show Notes:

Listen – People of the Pod on the Israel-Hamas War:

• Mai Gutman Was Supposed to Be at the Music Festival: IDF Lone Soldier Recounts Harrowing Week
• Responding to Hamas Terror: IsraAID CEO on How You Can Help Israelis Right Now

Learn:

• What Everyone Needs to Know About Hamas' Lie About a Rocket Strike on a Gaza Hospital

• AJC.org/AttackonIsrael 

Donate:

• AJC.org/SupportIsrael

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Transcript of Interview with Jason Isaacson:

President Joe Biden:

October 7th, which was a sacred Jewish holiday, became the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.  It has brought to the surface painful memories and scars left by a millennia of antisemitism and the genocide of the Jewish people.

The world watched then, it knew, and the world did nothing.  We will not stand by and do nothing again.  Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

To those who are living in limbo waiting desperately to learn the fate of a loved one, especially to families of the hostages: You're not alone.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

On October 18th, 2023, President Joe Biden became the first American President to visit Israel during wartime, demonstrating his unequivocal support for the Israeli government. Here to talk about President Biden's visit is Jason Isaacson, AJC's chief policy and political affairs officer, joining us from Berlin where he's witnessed some of the European response to the crisis. Jason, welcome back to People of the Pod.

Jason Isaacson:  

Thank you, Manya. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

I am always shocked when the President goes to a war zone like he did go to Ukraine in February, or in this case, Israel. What did President Biden's visit signal about his support for Israel during this time?

Jason Isaacson:  

This is a president who has long identified himself as a strong supporter of Israel, who has spoken again and again, throughout his political career, from the time that he was a young man serving in the US Senate, of his support for, his identification with Israel. 

But to hear him speak, as he spoke on Wednesday, in Tel Aviv, after meeting with the Israeli war cabinet that Prime Minister Netanyahu assembled, after other meetings that took place as well, to hear him speak with such passion, such conviction about the priority for the United States, of standing by Israel, of identifying with the struggle that Israel now faces against Hamas terror. 

To hear him talk about "the nations of conscience," as he referred to the US and Israel together. The struggle that the Jewish people have had over the centuries, the fight against antisemitism, his references to the Holocaust.

All of that, and to say that the United States was standing by Israel, in the fullest possible way, the deployment of an aircraft carrier battle group to the eastern Mediterranean. Another aircraft carrier battle group, steaming to the eastern Mediterranean as well to provide additional support. The package of additional military assistance. He described it as an unprecedented package of military assistance that he is asking Congress to approve, to help Israel through this difficult time. 

All of these statements and his just physical presence in Israel, in the midst of war, spoke volumes of the support that the United States has for Israel. And he also spoke frankly, about the tragedy that occurred the night before he arrived, at a hospital in Gaza. And the fact that all the indications are that this was caused by the fire of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the rocket that misfired. It wasn't, as so much of the media and so much of the region, frankly, has alleged that it was somehow the work of Israel. 

Very clearly from the evidence that has been accumulated by U.S. surveillance and other means of data collection. This was something that was a misfire from the Palestinian side. All of that, packaged into a single presentation by the president at the old American Embassy in Tel Aviv, just spoke volumes of the support that the United States has for Israel, that the US is standing by Israel in this very difficult time.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Let's talk about people who immediately assumed that it was an Israeli airstrike that caused that explosion at that hospital. Many did jump on board with that argument, including Jordan and Egypt. And those are countries with whom Israel has had peace agreements for quite some time, but they seem to embrace that story right away. What is going on with the the Arab nations? What has their response been to this violence?

Jason Isaacson:  

It's profoundly disappointing. Lies have velocity and in the age of social media, enormous power, and circulation that really just can't be turned back without a huge effort to introduce the truth into the narrative. The lies that have been told about Israel for decades, have saturated the region and frankly, the world, and a lot of the international media as well, quite regrettably. Even in our own country. 

So it's easy to believe that if you've been told for decades, that Israel is a colonizer, Israel is an oppressor, Israel is heartless in its treatment of its Palestinian neighbors, then you see pictures of people carrying wounded people or bodies strewn about a courtyard in Gaza, knowing that Israel is attacking Gaza, because it's trying to root out the Hamas terrorists have attacked Israel just a few days before. It's easy to believe if you've got that background, and you've been hearing this and been raised on this kind of media saturation, that Israel is to blame. 

And it is only later that the facts come out, that the imagery that we have been now seeing on social media from a few sources, highly credible sources, what the United States government has now found through its own quite formidable means of data collection, that that this was not Israel, targeting a hospital or firing on a hospital. It was a Palestinian rocket that fell on this hospital while they were sending a barrage of rockets into Israel. There have been hundreds of Palestinian rockets and missiles that have fallen in Gaza and have killed Palestinians. This was the latest incident. It's horrible. 

The people of Gaza are suffering. The Palestinians are suffering because of the rule of Hamas. And the more that the region talks about that openly–instead of talking about it privately. 

AJC knows from our many years, including recently, of traveling across the Arab world and speaking to Arab leaders who know better, know the reality: that Israel is fighting ruthless terrorists, funded by, supported by, armed by Iran. And waging this war that is really their war, against these kinds of extremists who are hijacking a great faith and fighting in the name of a great faith when they are actually doing everything they possibly can to damage the reputation of and the standing and the principles of a great faith. 

And Israel is fighting this fight not only for itself and for its people, but frankly, for the possibility of peace and stability and prosperity in that region. I'm hopeful that at some point, it will be possible for the leaders of that region to step forward and say publicly what they have said so many times privately that they know that Israel's struggle is their struggle. And there have been a few assertions of this, I have to point out, in the last week and a half, there have been some statements that have identified by name, Hamas. 

I was struck by a statement made by the UAE ambassador to the UN. Statements that were issued on Twitter, by the Kingdom of Bahrain and by the United Arab Emirates a few days after the October 7 atrocities in Israel. But so many of the statements that we've seen in the last week, have been profoundly disappointing and hypocritical. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You mentioned the actual threat of Iran to Arab nations. I'm curious what message Biden's visit sends to Iran and its terror proxies on the border with Lebanon?

Jason Isaacson:  

Well, I very much hope that having the USS Gerald R. Ford in the eastern Mediterranean, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower on its way as well. There was also, I believe, a fighter squadron that was being repositioned to the region. There are enormous military assets that were already in the region. 

But the US has made it very clear, President Biden, Secretary Blinken and Secretary Austin, in their visits to the region as well, have made it very clear that the US is telling the region as President Biden said, again and again, you know, my message to the region is: don't. Don't even think about the possibility of adding to this fight against Israel of joining this fight against Israel. The US will step forward. 

Whether the US will not only provide additional military hardware, as the President has offered, and there of course are many friends in Congress who are stepping forward right now to provide for that as well. But the US could also enter this fight, depending on the circumstance, on the possibility of a widening of the war. Should Iran make the tragic blunder of deciding to somehow enter into this fight in a more direct way, there would be a powerful response. I think the President has made that quite clear.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Do you think Biden's visit will deter Hezbollah? Or are Iran and Hezbollah one in the same?

Jason Isaacson:  

Closely connected, maybe not exactly one of the same, but clearly, Iran would like to see Hezbollah take a more, it appears, take a more aggressive posture. There have been some incursions that have been conducted by Hezbollah, or by people from the Hezbollah controlled territory of southern Lebanon into northern Israel, there have been the firings of certain missiles and mortars. Some of them are not the full scale kind of attack that Israel would need to respond to forcefully and that and that would actually represent a second front that hasn't happened. As of the time that you and I are speaking, let's hope that that doesn't happen. 

Let's hope that the messages that have been sent by the President, clearly messages sent by Israel, that it is prepared for any fight and will not allow its citizens of the North and the country as a whole to be invaded by by Hezbollah, it will resist powerfully and it will punish any incursion, any attack in a way that Israel has had to do in the past–at great cost. But Israel will defend itself, Israel will stand strong. And the United States will have its back as the President has said repeatedly and demonstrated by his latest visit, and the announcement that he made when he was in Israel this week.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You know speaking of Iran, I want to go back to that, they have called for an oil embargo on Israel, how likely is that to happen?

Jason Isaacson:

I'd say pretty unlikely. I think that Iran's threats are hollow, and will be met by the oil suppliers from not only the region but from elsewhere, including Europe, including Azerbaijan. There are energy supplies that Israel produces, as you know, on its own through an abundant supply of natural gas in the Eastern Mediterranean. I'm not concerned about a cut off of energy to Israel. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

In Tel Aviv, President Biden announced that humanitarian aid – food, water, medical supplies – would start to flow to Gaza from Egypt. Prime Minister Netanyahu then added that Israel would prevent any aid from reaching Hamas. Why this turn of events, Jason? 

Jason Isaacson:  

My assumption is, in the early days of the fight against Hamas, there was a sense that by putting pressure on Gaza as a whole, Hamas could be induced to release the hostages, some 200 hostages that it is holding, that the Palestinian people would put pressure on Hamas, to do so, to save themselves. I believe that there was also a concern that providing anything, allowing anything to flow into Gaza, would provide the wherewithal for Hamas to continue to build the rockets and missiles and make other preparations, build out its infrastructure, and fuel its fight against Israel. So I think the idea was, as in many war situations, you know, cut them off, then move in and try to surgically, as surgically as possible, take out the leadership and, and dismantle the infrastructure of terror. But as the situation evolves, and as it's clear that the Palestinians are, are suffering from a lack of, of food or water power, I think the thinking has shifted with, with the United States and other countries offering to provide additional assistance. I think it's very clear that Israel feels also that their intention is not to harm the Palestinian people, their intention is to eliminate Hamas. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So, Jason, I am speaking to you, actually, you are in Berlin right now. Can you tell me a little bit, tell our listeners a little bit about what you're hearing, what you're seeing there on that side of the ocean.

Jason Isaacson:  

Of course, Manya. Before I came to Berlin, I was in Paris, briefly as well. And I know the Jewish communities in Paris and Berlin, elsewhere in Europe, are on edge. There have been large street demonstrations in London and Brussels, in Paris and elsewhere. There was a firebombing the night before you and I are having this conversation at a synagogue in Berlin. There was a teacher who was stabbed to death outside of Paris, a couple of days ago. There were two people who were shot to death in Brussels, as well. There have been other acts of violence. Also within a day of our conversation, Manya, there was a firebombing of a synagogue in Tunisia, which has a small Jewish community that's been, in that country for 2000 years. 

So there are Jewish communities that are feeling the fallout, the impact of the propaganda that has raced across the world, about Israel being responsible for the suffering of Palestinians. And supporters of the Palestinian cause have come to the streets. And some of them have come to the streets with knives and Molotov cocktails, and have expressed their anger, and targets have been Jews, not just Israelis. 

And this is dangerous, and it needs to be confronted, extremely directly and forcefully as it has been, for the most part, I would say, by police authorities, by federal authorities as well across Europe. AJC is very concerned about the well-being of Jewish communities in the diaspora as a result of what's happening in Israel and Gaza. 

We were seeing in the first hours and days of the attacks of October 7, expressions of sympathy from across the planet, striking expressions, powerful expressions. I will not forget the statements by Prime Minister Modi, for instance of India, the most populous nation on earth, expressing solidarity with Israel. But then in the days following that, really attention has shifted entirely, the narratives have changed. And now, what we're seeing more, are demonstrations in the street. There were demonstrations in the streets of solidarity with Israel in the first day or two, including here in Berlin. But, now we're seeing a very different and a very ugly, and a completely misplaced set of priorities and angers and prejudices against Jewish communities. So we need to do what we can, working with Jewish communities, with governments to provide protection to Jewish communities that are vulnerable. And we need to hear expressions of support, solidarity, and truth from governments around the world: what really is happening, what the threats really are, and standing by Jewish communities as we stand by the State of Israel as it recovers from the trauma of October 7.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

Thank you so much Jason, for joining us.

Jason Isaacson:  

Thank you. Always a pleasure, Manya. Take care.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

If you missed last week's episodes – listen to: Yotam Polizer, the CEO of IsraAID, on how Israel's leading international humanitarian organization is responding to the immediate and long-term needs on the ground. 

And Mai Gutman, a 28 year old graduate student and member of AJC's Campus Global Board, who planned to join her friends at the Supernova music festival near Israel's border with Gaza on Saturday, October 7. But when relatives came to visit, she decided to celebrate Shabbat and Simchat Torah in Jerusalem instead—a change of plans that saved her life. 

Mai Gutman, 28, a graduate student and member of AJC's Campus Global Board, had planned to join her friends at the Supernova music festival near Israel's border with Gaza on Saturday, October 7. But when relatives came to visit, she decided to celebrate Shabbat and Simchat Torah in Jerusalem instead—a change of plans that saved her life. At least 260 young Israelis and people from all over the world were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists at the festival. Mai, an IDF reservist who was just recently called up, joins us from her base to talk about waking up in Jerusalem the morning of October 7, the harrowing messages that she received from friends, and the four days since.  

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Mai Gutman

Show Notes:

Donate:

• AJC.org/SupportIsrael

Learn:

• AJC.org/AttackonIsrael 

• AJC.org/CampusBoard

• AJC.org/CampusLibrary

Song credits: 

Pond5: 

• "Hatikvah (National Anthem Of Israel, Electric Guitar)"; Composer: Composer: Eli Sibony; ID#122561081

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

___

Transcript of Interview with Mai Gutman:

Manya Brachear Pashman:

The techno music festival near Israel's border with Gaza was billed as the essence of unity and love in a breathtaking location. At least 260 people were brutally killed by Hamas terrorists there on Saturday morning, October 7th. 28-year-old Mai Gutman was supposed to be there and had already joined the WhatsApp groups of friends and fellow concert goers to keep in touch. But she did not go. Mai, a member of AJC's Campus Global Board and a reservist who was just recently called up, joins us from her IDF base to talk about waking up in Jerusalem the morning of October 7th and the four days since. 

Mai, welcome. 

Where are you now?

Mai Gutman:  

I live in Herzeliya. Currently, located in a place that I can't exactly disclose, but I am in the north of Israel.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Are you able to share what you're seeing and hearing all around you?

Mai Gutman:  

Currently where I am I mean, we can hear the news, we can hear what's going on around us in the South as well. Even though we are stationed in the north. Today [October 11, 2023] was a pretty hectic day in terms of developments on the northern border. We had a day pretty much full of running to the bomb shelters and staying there, which indicated some sort of an escalation. I can't go into too many details, obviously. But we can feel the escalation coming and we're prepared for it.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So you were born in Israel but grew up mostly in Melbourne, Australia. How did you end up back in Israel?

Mai Gutman:  

I moved to Australia with my parents when I was only 18 months old, and I had grown up in Australia. But I had always felt a very strong connection to Israel. Something that really I couldn't put into words, I couldn't explain, it was just an inherent feeling. And when I was 18, I just decided that I'm going to go to Israel, I'm going to make Aliya and I'm going to draft into the army just because I think, you know, for me, it was important, if I'm going to live there, then I definitely need to carry the burden and be a part of society in that way and contribute. Because I find it difficult to comprehend living here, and not being a part of that very fundamental part of people's lives. It's a very crucial part of people's lives around here. And I feel like I wouldn't really be able to fit in and understand, you know, Israeli society, and also the Israeli mentality without having that experience. And I also just think that it's important, all in all, just to contribute. And that's I guess, how I got into the army. And I served for almost three years in a combat unit in search and rescue.

For me, at the time, when I first drafted it was really the first years of women going into combat units. So it was a very kind of still a new idea. And I was really eager to jump on that and see how I go.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

So with no immediate family there, does that qualify you as a lone soldier?

Mai Gutman:  

Yes, absolutely. So I enlisted with Garin Tzabar, which is a program that brings young adults from all around the world who want to make Aliyah and specifically to draft into the IDF, but don't have any immediate family with them. So Garin Tzabar provides that network of family and support, I guess, to deal with, first of all, all the bureaucracy that comes with moving to another country and drafting into the military. But also, you know, you get put on a kibbutz and you get given a host family, which is really nice. And it's just nice to have that initial support network because it might feel a little bit lonely when we first arrive. But now we're really like a one big family and we still keep in touch to this day, even though it was I think, 10 years ago, almost that we were all together on the kibbutz.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

So where were you when this escalation first began on October 7?

Mai Gutman:  

I want to preface this by saying I was in Jerusalem on October 7, I was celebrating the chag of Simchat Torah, and the Sabbath with my family with my cousins. And also I had cousins that actually came from America, to join us in Jerusalem was a very big occasion. And that's really, I think, the only reason why I decided to come to Jerusalem and spend time with family because there was a very big music festival happening that weekend. And I was very keen initially, to go to that music festival. I had initially planned to go with my friend. And I joined, you know, the WhatsApp groups to try and find a good crew to go up with and find a means of transportation and all that. And then yeah, literally, you know, I think it was a couple of days later that my aunt had called me and she said, Hey, listen, you know, your cousins are coming. We're all going to be in Jerusalem at the same time. Like, let's, let's all do hog together, we really want you to come and be with us. And I said, Well, obviously, I mean, I'd rather be with family on such a unique occasion, I can go to a music festival any other time. 

So you know, I just kind of dropped those plans and ended up doing it in Jerusalem and ended up spent spending that weekend in Jerusalem, which was, I think the decision that ended up saving my life. And the morning of October 7, I had woken up to the sound of sirens, of Red Alert sirens, which is the sirens that go off when there's a rocket that's approaching an area in Israel, which was quite confusing to me. It was about 8am. And it was quite confusing to me, because in order for rocket sirens to be going off in Jerusalem, for me, I had to put quickly two and two in my head and say, well, that means that there's a lot more going on down south. 

So I you know, being a Sabbath day being a chag day as well in my family being, you know, Orthodox and observant of that day, we didn't have our phones at the ready. We didn't have the news on or anything like that. So I had decided to quickly jump on and see what was going on. Because obviously it was a lot more serious than what I thought. 

And I opened my phone and I'm reading the headlines in absolute disbelief, in shock. Terrorists had infiltrated into Israeli territory, they had massacred people on the streets, innocent civilians. They had burned houses, they'd gone into bomb shelters and literally just gunned people down.

I think the most shocking part, though, was when my phone started pinging with those WhatsApp groups that I was saying earlier that I was part of a music festival. And the messages started coming through saying Help us help us You have no idea that here they're gunning us down. They're shooting at us. I'm bleeding, I'm hurt. Can someone call the police, call the army. My friend's dead. I think someone help me, someone help me. And other people are texting like you know some people went some people did it's pretty big Whatsapp group. What's going on? Who do we call? No one at the police station is answering. Nobody in the army bases are answering–why? Because terrorists had already commandeered their bases. They had murdered everyone. Almost everyone in those bases in order to get through. And they've made their way to this music festival of peace and love where people were celebrating. Young people my age, young people, my friend's age, my friends as well, who were there who came to have a good time. And you see them in this footage that they're sending through in the early hours of the morning, sending through footage of, of running of bullets, and they're dressed in their costumes, their beautiful faces made with colorful face paint. 

And you can see that they were just having a good time and tears streaming and screaming and running and shooting in the background. And it's like a war zone.  It was like a scene from Armageddon. It looks apocalyptic. And I was just shaking, holding my phone shaking. What do I do? How do I feel helpless, I have nothing that I can do. And in the meanwhile, there are sirens going off in the background rocket rocket attacks on Jerusalem, rocket attacks down south. And you just feel like, Oh, my God. And you've just woken up just so you understand. Like you've just woken up. It's so overwhelming.

Manya Brachear Pashman:

Oh, Mai. I can't imagine your struggle in those moments to really distinguish between nightmare or reality.  What did you do to try to make sense of things? 

Mai Gutman:

I turned on the news. And on the news, they're saying, Oh, we think that, you know, there are rocket sirens. And we think that there might be something going on in the South that maybe terrorists have entered. We're not sure. And nothing about the music festival. The music festival, I think was only broadcasted the news about the music festival. In the late afternoon. It started being broadcasted. And I from the morning, I've already known about this, the people are literally bleeding out people are dying, as we speak while we're hiding in bomb shelters, people are dying. And and what do you do? What do you do? What do you do in that situation? You feel completely hopeless. And that is, I think, until now, the feeling that most Israeli civilians, if not all, are feeling we are feeling helpless, almost betrayed by a colossal failure on the part of the Israeli military on the part of the Israeli intelligence, that how could this happen? Without you know, we brag we say, you know, we've got the strongest military? And how could this possibly happen, with the most deaths–the most Jewish deaths to occur in a single day, since the Holocaust? Unfathomable.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

How has your IDF service impacted your connection to Judaism and your connection to Israel?

Mai Gutman:  

It definitely changed me, it definitely strengthened I think, my Jewish identity and my Zionist identity. It gave me immense purpose. Also, as the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, especially one of the largest families of Holocaust survivors, in Melbourne, that really, I think established the community in terms of, you know, our schools, our shows, our youth movements, we had a very family has a very big part to play, and I'm very privileged to be part of that family. 

But for me, it was, you know, to draft into the army. It's something that I felt as something of an obligation almost because I knew, and we can really take this situation as an example. But I knew that if I don't do something, if I'm not part of the solution, or the help, I guess, then we might not have a country, which means that we may have a Holocaust again.

Ad we saw the effects today, of the very real existential crisis and threat that we face in Israel, along our borders. And if anything was to happen, if we let our guard down for even a second, this is the result. We don't have an alternative. We don't. We have a purpose. 

And my purpose, I feel everyone has a purpose, but my purpose that I genuinely feel, and I this was really strengthened in the army was when I swore allegiance to the army and to the state. I felt within myself that this is something that I won't only interpret in terms of my service and my physical military service, but I'll take with me to my grave I will do this in any capacity that I can. 

I work in Hasbara. It's my passion to defend the state because I just know that we have no other alternative without it, the alternative that we have is persecution, as the Jewish nation has faced for many years. And that's not an alternative we can accept.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Do you feel like you're at home right now? 

Mai Gutman:  

Absolutely. I feel at home. I've never felt more at home than I have in Israel. When I come to Israel, it's an immediate relief, a sense of relief in my heart. It's like something when I live abroad, or when I'm abroad, there's a constant sense of yearning, that I can never shake, doesn't matter what I try, it doesn't matter how many good people are surrounding me and my loving family, as much as I love them so much. It'll never fill that void that I have that's really only filled when I'm in Israel, and I can't explain it sounds–I don't know, spiritual, I guess, but that it is what it is. And I feel very comfortable here. Despite the chaos that's going on around us this is I know that I am where I need to be.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

But you're not just living in Israel. You're serving your nation, you're now defending it during one of its most dire moments in modern history.

Mai Gutman:  

I mean, until I got called up, I was sitting on shpilkes, I couldn't even imagine like I was just what can I do, I went to go to the supermarket and I bought a bunch of like a huge carton worth of stuff, for the soldiers that were already serving that were already called up.  I went to go help pack boxes, I felt so helpless, though I really was just waiting for the call. I had been on standby already from Saturday. Standby, obviously is just when your bags have to be packed, don't know when you're gonna be called. And it could be at any time, it could be never at all. 

So I am happy to just be part of a very strong nation, a very strong military. Despite what's happened recently, I do still believe that our nation is strong and our military is strong. And we will get through this, we will overcome this. Because as we can see, I mean, you know, this whole year, we've been crying over internal division over the judicial reforms in Israel. And it just goes to show you know, what  tragedy, unfortunately, that it has to come to tragedy and to bring us together. 

But at the end of the day, when it comes to real stuff, when it comes to the existential threats and the the things that affect us all, it shows that we are bound together and we are strong together. And everybody doesn't matter what your religious political affiliations are. We are all in this together. And everybody's banding with us together. And it's so special to see and it's only in Israel that we can see such a special and unique form of unity.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Is there anything else that you want Americans or Australians to know, people who are outside of Israel– anything that you want them to know about what's happening there?

Mai Gutman:

I just want you guys to know, whoever's listening here. I know that it's, it seems very, it is very hard, doesn't just seem, it's very hard. The situation is unlike anything that we've seen before. We've never experienced anything like this, especially not in, in our recent history. But I want you to know, and I know it feels difficult being so far away, because I've been there. It's difficult to report on things so far away, but your support, and your raising awareness, your hasbara, your social media engagement. It means a lot. Your thoughts and prayers mean a lot. 

We feel your prayers, we feel your presence with us, we feel you standing behind us and it's like a whole other army standing behind us. It might feel like you're not doing enough or you're not doing anything at all, really. But honestly, it's more than what you think, it's more than what you believe. So just stand by us. And don't give up hope because we certainly aren't. And we can't, we don't have that luxury of giving up hope. 

Our entire nation is built on hope. And that's where our resilience comes from. So be strong. We will win this, we will get through this. By hook or by crook. We'll make it through as long as we all stick together as long as we make sure that we count what's important. We remember what's important, who's important to us, hug your loved ones. Because currently there are so many there are over 1300 families around Israel that are currently grieving and mourning and they don't get that opportunity. 

So make sure to tell your parents you love them. Tell your kids you love them, your sisters, your brothers, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your friends, because not everybody has that luxury. And, and yeah, we'll do what we can over here so you do what you can over there.

Manya Brachear Pashman: 

Mai, thank you so much. Stay safe. Thank you for your service, and we will certainly be praying for you. 

Mai Gutman:  

Thank you.Manya Brachear Pashman: 

American Jewish Committee's Israel Emergency Campaign has already raised more than $1.5 million. Funds that have already gone to Israeli hospitals, efforts to evacuate the elderly, NGOs such as IsraAID, providing support for children, and friends of the Israel Defense Forces. If you would like to donate, go to AJC.org/support Israel.

We're joined by Yotam Politzer, CEO of IsraAID, to discuss how Israel's leading international humanitarian organization is responding to the immediate and long-term needs on the ground in the wake of Iran-backed Hamas's barbaric terrorist attack in Israel. Politzer shares how American Jews can step up to support Israelis through this incredibly difficult time.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) has launched an Israel Emergency Campaign to support Israeli relief organizations. Their first grantee will be IsraAID, AJC's longtime partner, which has responded to emergencies worldwide, but never before in Israel. Until now. 

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Yotam Politzer 

Show Notes:

Donate:

• AJC.org/SupportIsrael

Learn:

• AJC.org/AttackonIsrael 

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

 ___

Transcript of Interview with Yotam Politzer:

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

On the morning of October 7th, Hamas, the terror group governing Gaza and backed by Iran's regime, launched a brutal assault against Israel, invading towns and cities across the southern border aiming to kill as many people as possible and taking more than 100 captives to Gaza. By the time of this recording, the death toll had reached 900. Thousands more are wounded. 

In response to this atrocity, American Jewish Committee has launched an Israel Emergency Campaign to support Israeli relief organizations. The first recipient money raised will be AJC's longtime partner IsraAID, which has responded to emergencies in more than 50 countries around the world, but never before in Israel– until now. 

Yotam Polizer, CEO Of IsraAID, joined us in Tel Aviv earlier this summer. He is joining us again now from New York, where he was visiting when the war broke out. While Yotam is unable to return home at the moment due to lack of flights to Israel, he is working hard to coordinate emergency response from here and is with us to discuss the efforts underway. Yotam, welcome back to People of the Pod. 

Yotam Politzer:  

Thanks for having me. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

It must be so difficult not to be there with your team. 

Yotam Politzer:  

Thankfully, our headquarters and our emergency response team is already in full speed. So I think it's also important for me to be here for two reasons, one, to coordinate the support, and not less importantly, to communicate to people here, both in the Jewish community and in the general community, what we're seeing and hearing in terms of the humanitarian needs on the ground.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So what are you hearing from your people on the ground there? What are they reporting?

Yotam Politzer:  

I don't think I need to elaborate on the horrors because I think we've all been following the news and saw all the horrific images. But for us, as Israel's leading international humanitarian organization, we have never had a full-scale humanitarian response in Israel. This is the first time we're actually doing it. And we're doing it because the situation is indeed dire and extreme. The biggest need that we identify right now is related to mental health. And because, of course, we are not a humanitarian organization, we're not involved in the security and the military operation. And of course, there are many needs related to the operation that's going on. From a humanitarian perspective, the whole country is traumatized. 

I don't know of a single person who doesn't know anyone who either was murdered or kidnapped or both. And the number of people who have an immediate family member, or neighbor, who was murdered, or unaccounted for and probably kidnapped by Hamas is so high, talking about hundreds of 1000s of people. Specifically, what we consider the most vulnerable are obviously the people who lived on the frontline, the villages, the moshavim, and the kibbutzim surrounding Gaza.

They have lost on average 10-20% of their population in each of these villages. In Kibbutz Be'eri, just an hour ago, it was published that they found 108 bodies– that's probably much more than 10% of the population there. And many more again, are kidnapped. So these communities who suffered the worst atrocities a person could think of are now in different shelters around the country. So supporting them in these shelters in any shape or form is the most important humanitarian mission of our time. 

Many of them have been evacuated specifically from this kibbutz to the Dead Sea, to the Dead Sea hotels, because it's one of the safest places in Israel. If God forbid, we will have another frontline on the north border, that's still safe enough for these people. And these hotels are now operating as shelters and evacuation centers. And the government and the local regional council and the hotel owners are currently providing the food and shelter. So there are less needs on that front. But again, when it comes to mental health support for everyone there, this is crucial. So that's what our team has been focusing on. 

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

You're also operating what are called Child Safe Spaces, which you describe as "a place for the kids to be kids." Tell us more about that. 

Yotam Politzer:  

We can't imagine what these kids went through. And we just want to give them some sense of normalcy. And let them be kids again, and let them play and let them express themselves and let them release their stress and allow their parents or whoever is left from their families a chance to finally maybe get some sleep, try to reorganize, regroup and deal with everything else that they need to deal with. Try to, you know, start thinking about rebuilding their life after these horrors, which again, will obviously take years. So when we look at the humanitarian needs, I think we need to look at the immediate needs. But even more important, we need to understand that there will be long term needs for these people, and for everyone that is related to them. And so as IsraAID it's very important for us to be first on the ground, wherever it is, in Israel, or in anywhere else in the world. In fact, our team who was responding to the earthquake in Morocco, is now on its way back to Israel to join our team that's already responding in Israel. So that's in short.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

In fact, some of the services that you are describing, I believe, you described to me when we spoke earlier this summer, regarding the war in Ukraine, right, many of these similar services were provided there as well, as well as other places around the world. Can you elaborate a little bit about where else around the world you have offered the same services that you're now offering everywhere?

Yotam Politzer:  

I mean, I started my humanitarian career in Japan, again, another developed country, following the earthquake and tsunami in 2011, that killed more than 20,000 people. And they're there, the local government, the local community was very well equipped to support with infrastructure, but they didn't have any kind of emotional mental health support and trauma care. So we actually brought therapists from Sderot, who was working with children who are traumatized in Sderot and develop these models. We brought them to Japan, and we worked with the Syrian refugees with Arabic speaking therapist from Israel. We worked we work in Ukraine in partnership with the First Lady doing mental health and trauma and resilience. And, now we're in Israel. And yes, there are many great professionals doing that in Israel, but many of them were affected. And the level of trauma is so big, that we have to do it in Israel, too.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

So what can people here do Yotam? How can they help? Because there's certainly a feeling of helplessness as we watch these images from abroad. 

Yotam Politzer:  

Yeah and I totally understand and I think being in a position of doing is very important. Look, I think the two main things to do right now, from here from the other side of the world, which is what I'm trying to do as well, while I'm here, is supporting initiatives like IsraAID, like many other organizations who are responding, and they are great organizations, from Magen David Adom, MDA, that people know, and United Hatzalah, and many are focusing on medical services, some of the hospitals, which is very important. 

The other thing, which is very, very important, and I think each and every one of us can do, even if we don't have the financial resources, is to be ambassadors for the people of Israel. And we need it more than ever. And it means to do it in the Jewish community, outside the Jewish community, on social media, in synagogues, in schools, in the supermarket, everywhere, there are so many ways to become ambassadors for Israel. And this is something we can all do using our phone. And, and it's very, very important. 

And for the people of Israel, and especially the people who are worst affected. There's so much anger, so much frustration, so much fear, and anxiety. And showing our solidarity, in every shape or form, has a huge mental health impact on Israel. I mean, these pictures of cities, the Eiffel Tower or the Brandenburg Gate. In Kyiv. More than 20 places were displaying the Israeli flag as solidarity. I saw it shared so widely in Israel. I mean, knowing hat we have friends. And a lot of them have a huge impact, not only on the Hasbara, and advocacy, which is important, I'm not against it, but also for the mental health and well being of the people of Israel. So it's very, very important. 

What is less helpful at the moment, I'm not against it in general. I don't think we need to send supplies from here to Israel. I know a lot of people want to send supplies, but we can purchase supplies in Israel and support the local economy. And there's also a lot of donations going on or so I think that's less helpful. In terms of volunteers, people who want to go from here to volunteer in Israel, that may be needed in the long run. At this very specific moment. I don't think that's a big need. I think supporting organizations on the ground is more important. If you only have limited resources, rather than paying on a very expensive flight, that may or may not go, I think it's important to support organizations who are on the ground and are based there. But it may be needed in the near future, especially as this become a more long term operation. And then we will need people with specific skills and expertise.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

In terms of the response, what are you seeing that is giving you hope? What are you seeing that is discouraging? 

Yotam Politzer:  

I see a lot of things that are reassuring. I see the tremendous support we're getting from many, so many. Not all of them are our typical friends. And, you know, whether it's mainstream media or political leaders, political leaders. I also see some people who are not supporting or trying to paint it, you know, try to be diplomatic on both sides. I don't think at the moment that that makes any sense, to be honest. So that is disturbing. But I also don't hear enough focus on humanitarian needs. I mean, again, I'm not I think the political consequences, the security and safety are very important, but the people there and how to help them and what their needs are, are not being highlighted enough. 

Because maybe it's less sexy in the news, I mean, we do hear a lot of horror stories, but the people who are alive and survived and lost their loved ones and went through the worst trauma a person could think of are not being highlighted. Also the incredible story of resilience and heroism from so many people. I have seen some of these in the Israeli media, but not enough in the foreign media and not enough on social media here. So I also think we need to celebrate the resilience of the people there that have been the most resilient people before this crisis. But considering what they're going through, we need to celebrate these people, these heroes, these communities, we need to support them in whatever way we can, we need to be there for them. We need to so I don't see enough of that.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Is there a particular story that comes to mind that you would like to share with our listeners of such heroism?

Yotam Politzer:  

There are so many actually, but personally, again, and I've been following this news of so many. So many actually, not one person, hundreds of people who were you know, pulled out their sleeves and went in and pulled out people under fire. And these are people who are not in active duty. And they went in and risked their lives in these first 24 hours and pulled out people and some of them lost their lives who are doing that. I was also very touched by stories of Arab nurses and doctors who came in at even higher percentage than they are, to volunteer and to support in the hospitals. I just heard a story of this woman who was not young. But when terrorists came into her house she was so resilient, and she was able to offer – she was so smart and sharp and resilient. And she was able to offer the Hamas terrorist cookies. And to set them down until her rescuers actually came and were able to rescue her. So you know, it's unbelievable. Among the horrors, there are so many of these heroism and resilience stories and I think we should talk about them more.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

Yotam, thank you to IsraAID for all you're doing on the ground. AJC has been so proud to call you a partner and is so grateful that we can rely on you to help us channel our heartbreak, constructively.  

Yotam Politzer:  

Thank you so much, first of all, and we're so grateful for AJC. For everything we do together, especially now. AJC has supported us in more than 20 countries. So we have never imagined that we will need AJC to support us in Israel. But here we are. So that's number one. Number two, I do think that myself and all of us here in this part of the world have an important role to play to be the voice for the voiceless and to bring more support. Thank you very much.

Manya Brachear Pashman:  

In less than 24 hours, AJC's Israel Emergency Campaign has raised more than one million dollars. 100 percent of which will be distributed to hospitals, trauma centers, and frontline Israeli NGOs starting with IsraAID. If you would like to donate, go to AJC.org/supportisrael.

This month, we mark the five-year anniversary of the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting at the Tree of Life. On October 27, 2018, 11 worshipers were murdered solely for being Jewish, in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

As the first installment in a four-part series, we take you inside the Tree of Life building before it is demolished in the coming months to make way for a new complex dedicated to Jewish life and combating antisemitism. Hear from Carole Zawatsky, the CEO behind the reimagined Tree of Life, and Eric Lidji, director of the Rauh Jewish Archive, as they explain their mission: to preserve artifacts and memories so that the story is preserved forever. Carole shares her commitment to honoring the victims, and Eric discusses the challenges of documenting an ongoing tragedy. Together, they emphasize the power of bearing witness to history and the healing strength of remembrance.

*The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. 

Episode Lineup: 

• (0:40) Eric Lidji, Carole Zawatsky

Show Notes:

Music credits:

• Relent by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com),  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
• Virtual Violin Virtuoso by techtheist is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License
• Fire Tree (Violin Version) by Axletree is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License.
• Al Kol Eleh (backing track), with Yisrael Lutnick

Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod

You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org

If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

Eric Lidji: Pittsburgh definitely is not forgetting. It's ever present here. There are people who are healing and doing so in ways that, at least from the outside, are remarkable and very inspiring. And there are people who I'm sure have not fully reckoned with it yet.

Carole Zawatsky: It's all too easy to walk away from what's ugly. And we have to remember. We can't walk away.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Five years have gone by since the horrific Shabbat morning at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue, when eleven congregants were gunned down during prayer – volunteers, scholars, neighbors, doing what they always did: joining their Jewish community at shul. 

This is the first installment of a series of episodes throughout the month of October devoted to remembering and honoring the lives lost that day and reflecting on how the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history changed those families, changed us, and changed our country. 

Today, we take you to the Tree of Life building that stands on the corner of Shady and Wilkins Avenues in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood to hear from two people in charge of preserving the artifacts and memories of the vibrant Jewish life that unfolded inside those walls until October 27, 2018.

In early September, our producer Atara Lakritz and I visited the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood. Squirrel Hill, where Jews have settled since the 1920s, is quite literally Mister Rogers' neighborhood. We were there to interview those touched by the events of October 27. But it didn't take us long to figure out that everyone there had been affected in some way. 

All along Murray Avenue, in 61C Cafe, at Pinsker's Judaica Shoppe, at the Giant Eagle supermarket, when we told people why we were there, they all had a story, an acquaintance, a connection. 

Later, walking through the glass doors of the synagogue felt like we were stepping through a portal, traveling back five years, when life stopped, and the reality of the hatred and terror that unfolded there began to haunt every step. 

Atara and I were invited to accompany a final group tour of the building before it closed in order for preparations to begin for the building's demolition. The tour was painful, but we felt it necessary to share with our listeners. 

As we left the lobby, we were told to take the stairs to the left. The stairs to the right were off limits. Someone had been shot there. 

We were led to a small, dark storage room where chairs had been stacked for guests. A handful of people had hidden there as the shooter continued his rampage, but one man walked out too soon, thinking it was safe. When first responders later came to get the others, they had to step over his body. 

In the kitchen, there were still marks on the wall where the bullets ricocheted when he shot two women hiding underneath a metal cabinet. The calendar on the wall there was still turned to October 2018 with a list of activities that were happening that week posted alongside it. 

And in the Pervin Chapel where seven people died, pews punctured with bullet holes and carpet squares stained with blood were no longer there. No ark either. 

But remarkably, the stained glass windows remained with images and symbols of Jewish contributions to America, the land to which the ancestors of so many worshipers once inside that synagogue had fled to and found safety. Those windows will be carefully removed by the son of the man who first installed them 70 years ago. And they will return, when the reimagined Tree of Life rises again.  

Carole Zawatsky: The tragedy is a Pittsburgh experience. But it's also every Jew's experience. It shattered for so many of us our sense of security in America. This is our safe haven. This is where we came to.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Carole Zawatsky is the inaugural CEO of the reimagined Tree of Life. Since November 2022, she has overseen the development of a new complex on the hallowed ground: an education center dedicated to ending antisemitism, including a new home for the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh; a memorial to the lives lost that Shabbat morning; a dedicated synagogue space where the Tree of Life congregation can return.

Carole Zawatsky: What can we build to enrich Jewish life, to remember this tragedy, and to show the world that we as Jews should not be known only by our killers and our haters, we should be known by our joy, our celebrations, our rituals, our resilience.

Manya Brachear Pashman: The founding director of the Maltz Museum in northeast Ohio, Carole has spent the last 30 years developing programs and education around the Holocaust and genocide, and overseeing projects that explore Jewish heritage from a national perspective and through a local lens. She led our tour.

On October 27, 2018, the congregations of Tree of Life, New Light, and Dor Hadash, which all met in separate areas of the large, multi-story building, had just ushered in the new Hebrew year of 5779. Young students at the Hebrew school had written their own personal Ten Commandments that the teachers had hung on the walls of an upstairs classroom.

Carole Zawatsky: Don't egg your neighbor's house, respect your parent. Every one of them said: Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not kill. And those 10 commandments that they wrote in their little student handwriting were thumbtacked up on the wall in the very classroom where the gunman was apprehended.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Before the rebuilding of Tree of Life begins, Carole's no. 1 priority has been preserving the artifacts and remnants that bear witness to what happened. Artifacts include the ark, damaged by bullets, the Torah scrolls, which were remarkably unscathed but for the handles. The list of whose Yahrzeits fell on that day, still on the podium; and, of course, the children's artwork and the wall behind it.

Carole Zawatsky: In the work happening here, and in my role as the CEO, I constantly ask: 'Am I doing it right? Am I doing enough?' And preserving the evidentiary material was incredibly important to me, that we have the physical evidence to bear witness. And as that drywall in the classroom in which the gunman, the murderer, was apprehended, was coming down, I found myself asking: 'Have I saved enough? Will this story be preserved forever? Have we done everything we can?'

Manya Brachear Pashman: Helping Carole with this Herculean effort, is Eric Lidji, the director of the Rauh Jewish Archive at the Senator John Heinz History Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Museum, in downtown Pittsburgh. Eric has been collecting documentation and evidence for the archive since October 28, 2018. 

Painted stones left in memory of the victims, hand-made signs, pamphlets, and prayers from vigils, sermons from interfaith services. But also a pair of tennis shoes, a guitar, a framed leaf from the Raoul Wallenberg Tree planted in Israel, a cross affixed with Stars of David -- all individual expressions of a community-wide anguish.

Eric Lidji: Even before I entered the building, we knew that there were going to be pieces of the building that had historic value. Since late 2018, I've been in the building numerous times, dozens of times, doing work there. And it sort of culminated in this opportunity in early June, where we were allowed to go in and identify pieces of the building that became historic that day, and figure out how to get them out.

Manya Brachear Pashman: This is no simple job for anyone involved, no less for Eric, who is accustomed to handling archival materials from generations past, not the present.

Eric Lidji: It's hard for me to disentangle the work of pulling these things out of the building with the knowledge that these families that I've come to know and love, that this is sort of directly related to their loved ones passing.

Pittsburgh definitely is not forgetting, it's ever present here. There are people who are healing and doing so in ways that, at least from the outside, are remarkable and very inspiring. And there are people who, I'm sure, have not fully reckoned with it yet. 

The stories that we're used to telling at the archive, they move much slower. You know, when you get records from 75 or 100 years ago, that's in motion too, but it's moving very slowly. And you can kind of sit there and watch it, and understand it. And get some sense of what it might mean. But when you're living through something, it's changing constantly, all around you. And it's responding to things in the world. And it's responding to people's internal resilience and their ability to grow.

When I look out at the community, I see a lot of different stories. People are in a lot of different places. And it's going to be different on a month like this, where we're saying Yizkor. And it's going to be different in the early stages of the trial versus the late stages of the trial. It's assimilated into our lives now, it's a part of our lives.

Manya Brachear Pashman: In 2019, Eric and journalist Beth Kissileff assembled an anthology of raw reflections by local writers about the Tree of Life massacre. It included only one essay by someone inside the building that day: Beth's husband, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light. Eric also contributed his own essay. He wrote: "I have no special insight into why this attack happened, or why it happened here. I don't know what would have prevented it from happening here or what would prevent it from happening again somewhere else. I don't understand the depth of my sorrow or the vast sorrow of others.

I asked him if four years later he would still write those words.

Eric Lidji: I feel the same way. You know, there's a second half to that paragraph, which is that, I do have the materials and I can describe those. The premise of an archive is that at some point, we'll all be gone. And when we're all gone, our things are what speak for us. And at the moment, there's a lot of witnesses here, emotional witnesses, I mean, who can testify to what this means. 

But there's going to come a time where they won't be there. And our job, I say our, I mean everybody's, our job in the present is to document our experience. So that when we're not here anymore, people in the future have the opportunity to have access to the intensity of the feelings that we had. That ultimately is how you prevent complacency. And so I don't claim any, I don't understand anything in the present. But I do understand the records. And I hope that we're being a good steward and custodian of them so that in the future, people have the opportunity to have access to real human feeling and so that they can really understand what this experience was like for people who were alive today.

Manya Brachear Pashman: The Rauh Jewish Archive has collected and preserved thousands of artifacts and documents, but no physical or intellectual access has been granted yet. Cautious care has been taken to make sure families and survivors are ready and know what's involved in making the materials available to the public. Once that happens, a trove of electronic materials will be uploaded to the newly launched October 27 Archive, which will become the public face of the collection. The electronic catalog will help individuals, schools, and institutions such as Tree of Life to tell the story they're trying to tell. 

Carole Zawatsky: We're the only generation to bear witness to this. The next generation will not bear witness. Their children will not bear witness. We have a moral obligation to ensure that these lives are remembered and memorialized, and that we as Jews and as citizens of this earth remember what hate looks like and work toward a better world. It's all too easy to walk away from what's ugly. And we have to remember. We can't walk away.

Manya Brachear Pashman: The Tree of Life building is now a shell of what it once was. The stained glass windows will soon be removed for safekeeping until the new building is ready to welcome them back. As the demolition crews arrive to remove what's left, Carole's focus has shifted.

Carole Zawatsky: Our focus now is truly on working with our architect, working with the exhibition designer, and forming a new institution. This is an incredibly special moment for us, as we come together and continue to crystallize our mission, our vision, and form this new institution that will be a significant part of the Pittsburgh community, along with the national community.

Manya Brachear Pashman: The architect for the project, Daniel Libeskind, a son of Holocaust survivors who is renowned for his redesign of the new World Trade Center site, has described the spiritual center of the Tree of Life as a Path of Light, which connects and organizes the public, educational, and celebratory spaces.

Carole Zawatsky: We can never as Jews allow ourselves to be defined by our killers. And I'm delighted to be working with Daniel as our architect and his concept of bringing light into the darkness. Vayehi or, let there be light. We have to bring light back to the corner of Shady and Wilkins. And side by side with tragedy, as we have done throughout all of Jewish history, is also celebration. To have baby namings and B'nai Mitzvot. Celebrate Shabbat and celebrate holidays side by side. That this is the most Jewish thing we can do. When the temples were destroyed in Jerusalem, what did we do? We recreate. And that is the strength and resilience of the Jewish people.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Carole also continues to build a multifaith donor base, comprised of foundations and individuals from Pittsburgh and across the country, to raise the $75 million needed to make the reimagination a reality, ideally by 2025. The reasons why donors give vary, but in most cases they're deeply personal.

Carole Zawatsky: The events of 10/27 are personal for everyone. For those people who tell us: I heard the gunshots from my kitchen. I was with my children. From people across the country who experienced a sense of loss of safety. To non-Jews who say: I have to have something to tell my children why some people don't like their friends. What did I do? How did I help be a part of the solution?

Manya Brachear Pashman: For generations, the Jewish people have confronted antisemitism in its many forms. But through it all, the Jewish calendar continues to guide the community through celebrations of life and beauty and wonder. Carole describes it as the bitter and the sweet. 

Carole Zawatsky: I've had on occasion, a Rabbi, a funder: 'How are you doing? How do you get through this?' And for me, there's often a soundtrack in my head. And one of my favorite Hebrew songs is "Al Kol Eleh," and through the bitter and the sweet. To me, it is the definition of Judaism. And it's the definition of what we're doing.

Manya Brachear Pashman: Do you mind sharing a bit of that song with us now? 

Carole Zawatsky: 

Al hadvash ve'al ha'okets
Al hamar vehamatok
Al biteynu hatinoket shmor eyli hatov

Al kol eleh, al kol eleh.

Manya Brachear Pashman: This podcast is dedicated to the 11 lives lost on October 27, 2018:

Joyce Fienberg, 

Richard Gottfried, 

Rose Mallinger, 

Jerry Rabinowitz, 

Cecil Rosenthal, 

David Rosenthal, 

Bernice Simon, 

Sylvan Simon, 

Daniel Stein, 

Melvin Wax, 

Irving Younger. 

May their memories be for a blessing.