Fighting antisemitism takes ‘all of us,’ according to Temple Chai program

SHANNON LEVITT | STAFF WRITER

When Rabbi Charlie CytronWalker was taken hostage along with a few of his congregants in their Colleyville, Texas synagogue in January 2022, it sent a shudder through the nation’s Jewish communities, specifically its synagogues. Jewish clergy were already keenly aware of the vulnerability to antisemitic attacks after a gunman entered Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation on Oct. 27, 2018, and murdered 11 people.

Upon seeing the news out of Pittsburgh, Rabbi Emily Segal’s friends in Christian ministry immediately reached out to her, realizing how traumatizing such an incident could be for a rabbi or any Jew. After the ordeal in Texas, however, she didn’t even receive a text.

“They showed up after Pittsburgh, but they didn’t show up when my colleague was held hostage,” she told a group of roughly 70 people on Sunday morning at Temple Chai in Phoenix, where she is the senior rabbi.

Her friends’ silence saddened her but rather than pretend it didn’t, saying nothing for the sake of comity, she told them how she felt and why she needed to hear from them when antisemitism, a growing concern, flared. Her honesty led to “a great conversation” and greater solidarity, she said.

Segal recounted her story during the first public meeting of Temple Chai’s Kulanu group, a new program of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which seeks to tackle antisemitism with the help of synagogues. Kulanu is an eight-month program dedicated to empowering congregations to address antisemitism and hate in their communities through education, community engagement and advocacy. Temple Chai is one of 120 synagogues in the country’s first official cohort and the first in Greater Phoenix.

“We all have circles of influence and talking to them about antisemitism is one powerful action you can take,” Segal said, illustrating one of the key concepts behind Kulanu, which takes its name from the Hebrew word meaning “all of us.”

“Fighting antisemitism takes a wholeof-society approach and our Kulanu network brings together congregations across the nation to engage in critical conversations about antisemitism and hate, as well as implementing initiatives engaging audiences beyond the Jewish community,” said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt when he announced the rollout of the ADL program.

Since January, Kulanu leaders at Temple Chai have participated in ADL’s webinars, spoken to a range of community members and talked directly to law enforcement as they planned their first public event, which they decided would include a call to action, Sandy Kravetz, chair of Temple Chai’s Kulanu program, told Jewish News. Six speakers were invited with that impetus in mind.

Don Schon, ADL Arizona board member, used ADL’s data about the increase in antisemitic incidents to illustrate the scope of the problem. Schon described “having grown up in the cocoon of middle-class America, where antisemitism was not an existential concept” to him. However, a fivefold increase in antisemitic incidents over the last decade, made him want to get involved “by sharing factual data and opposing and condemning extremism and hate by any group against any group,” he said.

Combating antisemitism should be a generational project, said Rabbi Suzy Stone, campus rabbi for Hillel at Arizona State University, and explained that most of what she deals with in Tempe has to do with anti-Israel sentiment and the

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, though even that is minimal in comparison to other college campuses. While some outside groups have littered ASU with explicitly antisemitic content, it is not a common occurrence.

“Ninety percent of what’s happening on college campuses, especially in the Jewish community, is vibrant and thriving and good. If it weren’t the case, I wouldn’t be a rabbi on a campus,” she said.

Hillel works closely with the administration to ensure students’ safety, but as long as there is no physical threat, free speech is paramount on campus, which means some students will say things that aren’t easy to hear or invite speakers that espouse uncomfortable views.

She suggested that parents and grandparents talk to students before they get to college about antisemitism and what anti-Israel sentiment is based on.

“Make sure that the first time a student hears that Israel is an ‘apartheid’ or ‘colonial’ state isn’t at a college campus,” she said.

When a parent in the room described being nervous when she heard her own child, a likely future leader in the Jewish community, criticize Israel using similar language, Stone pointed out that today’s Jewish college students often wrestle with complicated views about Israel, something Jewish leadership should understand without fearing it.

“Sometimes those are dog whistles and sometimes those are deeply inherent beliefs about wanting the State of Israel to be a better place,” she said. “There’s going to be a generation of Jews who speak very differently about their identity with Israel.”

Steve Glassman, a former teacher at Paradise Valley High School and the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Phoenix’s Hebrew High, also advised people to talk to their children, at any age, about any incident that upsets or worries them because they need guidance when things happen.

Chelsea Lenowska, a former FBI agent, pointed out that along with the rise in antisemitic incidents, acts of hate against other minority communities have also risen. Happily, there has also been an increase in federal resources to investigate these incidents and 94 U.S. Attorney’s offices across the country have begun talking to local communities about combating hate crimes.

“When you see something, say something,” she said.

Detective Mike Hillman, the Phoenix Police Department’s liaison to the Jewish community, amplified Lenowska’s message and recommended documenting incidents and reporting them to Phoenix police’s non-emergency number, 612262-6151, or by contacting him directly at michael.hillman@phoenix.gov.

Jude Simons, a retired teacher and volunteer for Citizen Engagement Beyond Voting, explained how her nonpartisan organization works to help Arizonans be heard by their state legislators.

“I encourage you to get involved at local levels,” she said.

One person asked what he could do to help even if he didn’t have an incident to report. Given the increase in dangerous and unchecked rhetoric across the board, Lenowska suggested that the most consequential thing a person can do is to speak up when an acquaintance, colleague or friend says something offensive, even though it can feel difficult or intimidating.

“People are getting comfortable saying things that are just wrong and if nobody says anything, they don’t stop. But if I interject, they might listen to me because they know me. That’s the biggest thing that we as individuals can do — use our sphere of influence,” she said. JN

For more information, visit templechai.com/ programs.html.