Let's Find Common Ground - Experiencing Hatred: True Stories to End Hate and Educate

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

CPF hosts a panel discussion on "Experiencing Hatred: True Stories to End Hate and Educate" as part of our "Combating Antisemitism and Hatred Series." The series explores the struggle against antisemitism in the context of countering hate, reducing violence, promoting empathy, and nurturing civil dialogue.   Featuring:  Jeff Blattner: US Department of Justice Deputy Assistant Attorney General; Former Judiciary Committee Chief Counsel for Sen. Edward Kennedy; Fall 2024 CPF Fellow Rob Eshman: Contributing Editor of The Forward; Former Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Jewish Journal Ron Galperin: Former Controller and CFO for the City of Los Angeles; Former CPF Fellow Aziza Hasan: Executive Director, Muslim Jewish New Ground; Former member of President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Todd Levinson: Host of “Healing Race” podcast; Producer at MainStream Nation Aaron Nir: CEO of Sanei International; CPF Board of Councilors Member Pedro Noguera: Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education Marylouise Oates: Novelist, Activist, Former LA Times Journalist Dov Wagner: Rabbi and Director of the USC Chabad Jewish Center Kamy Akhavan: Managing Director, Center for the Political Future

Welcome to the Bully Pulpit from the University of Southern California Center for the Political Future. Our podcast brings together America's top politicians, journalists, academics, and strategists from across the political spectrum for discussions on hot button issues where we respect each other and respect the truth. We hope you enjoy these conversations. I wanted to welcome all of you to the second and final panel for today's conference on combating anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred. I wanted to share with you a quote that you probably all know. It's a quote from Maya Angelou and she said, I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

Right? And so getting people to feel your words, getting people to feel your thoughts, that happens through narrative or stories. And today we're going to be hearing some incredibly powerful stories about hatred. All of you in this room have experienced some form of hatred in your lives, either for your ethnicity, your heritage, your race, your gender. It could be any reason at all, or it could be no reason at all. How do we combat hatred? I've been involved in this work of combating hatred for a few decades now, and I can tell

you that it really comes down to listening and empathy. Those are some of the core tools we have in the tool chest. It's not violence, it is not even facts. It is listening and it is empathy. So on MRI scans, and this is true, there's many different areas of the brain that light up when you're telling stories. The brain network that processes emotions, obviously that gets triggered. Areas that are involved in movement, those get triggered as your story unfolds. Your brain waves actually start to synchronize with the person telling the story. The greater the listener's comprehension, the more those brainwave patterns are mirrored.

It's really remarkable. And if you look at the time somebody's beliefs have changed, oftentimes the origin of that change has to do with someone telling a story that really hit their heart. I could go on and on about the power of stories, but I won't because we're here to hear some amazing, vulnerable, and gut-wrenching stories right now. We have nine speakers here today who will each share a five-minute story and then briefly discuss that story with one of our co-moderators, who by the way will also share their own stories. And I hope that these stories can inspire those of us in the room, those people who are watching

on YouTube, those who are listening to our podcast, will inspire all of us to join this fight against hatred. So without further ado, I want to thank you for your support and I want to thank you for your support and I want to thank you for your support and I want to thank you for your support and I want to thank you for your support and I want to

thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and

thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support and thank you for your support. Thank you, Cami. Thank you for doing this and for having me here. This happened a few years ago. I'm in a fancy hotel, the Hyatt Hotel in Irvine, California, and it's a weekend called

Lim Mood. 700 Jews for a weekend of learning, singing, of course a lot of eating, really a spectacular weekend. And I take a little break and I decide to go down to the jacuzzi. There's a few people there and a man comes over and he takes off his shirt and we can't help but notice that on his chest is a giant tattoo of a swastika. He gets into the jacuzzi. Everybody I'm in there with, one by one, starts to leave. And I decide, I don't know why, but I decide to stay. I say, hi, I'm Rob.

He says, hi, I'm Don. I said, you know that there's 700 Jews at this hotel this weekend, don't you? And Don says, ironic. I said, so what's the story? So Don tells me that he was arrested, he was sent to prison in Arizona, and he said in prison in order to survive, you have to join a gang. So he joined the Aryan Brotherhood. And he said, when you join the Aryan Brotherhood, you have to get the tattoo. I said, there's tattoo parlors in prison? He said, no, but

they take hair grease and they burn it. And with the residue, they mix it with shampoo. And then they put it on a needle and they attach a needle to one of those old Sony Walkman. And that's how they make this crude swastika on his chest and he said but you know Rob I don't like it I want to get rid of it it makes it really hard to get a job I said yeah especially as a lifeguard I said so what is it what does that mean to get rid of it he said well it costs $1,600 I said look I don does that mean to get rid of it? He said, well, it costs $1,600. I said, look, I don't want to amplify any stereotypes, but I could probably go into the lobby right now

and pretty quickly raise $1,600. He said, that would be great. So we were in the jacuzzi. We didn't have a pen or paper. We were just in our bathing suits. I said, meet me in the jacuzzi. We didn't have a pen or paper. We were just in our bathing suits. I said, meet me in the lobby on Sunday and I'll have the money. So I tell the story because we're living in this time that the Prime Minister spoke about and Bob and Cami spoke about, and how do you confront it? And what I learned from the Nazi in the hot tub

is to go into these situations with curiosity, an open mind, an open heart, and most of all, all without fear. Thanks. Okay. So, Rob, did he get the money and did he remove the tattoo? What happened? So it took me about five minutes to raise the money. And I walked down to the lobby on Sunday. I was to wait there for an hour. No dawn. I went to the hotel, they said I went to the person at the reception. And they said that he wasn't actually a guest, he was a friend of a guest. And so there was no way to trace him. And I never know what happened. And when you sat in that hot tub and saw him remove his shirt,

and everyone else left, What made you stay? I was so curious. I, first of all, I thought either I'm going to die or I'm going to learn. I mean, there were just like, there's only two things, right? Like either he's truly a crazy Nazi or he's somebody who just can't, he's got a tattoo of a swastika on his chest and he can't help it. He wants to go into jacuzzi. And so I just, I just followed my gut.

And I think so much, like you see these protests on college camp, you see these people waving their crazy signs and chanting their slogans and I just do the same philosophy, I think, you know, you just engage, you know, curiosity. And I think sometimes the most, the most, um, extrem most extremist slogans or actions are just a request for more information. I love that, Saurabh. Thank you so much for sharing it. Thank you.

Thanks for your courage in that hot tub. And if I can, I'll ask you to introduce your co-moderator. I will exit the stage, but I'll be back at the very end. And I really look forward to hearing more stories. Okay. I'll be back at the very end. And I really look forward to hearing more stories. Okay, so our second presenter and my co-moderator is Aziza Hassan, who's the executive director of New Ground, the Muslim Jewish New Ground. She's a former member of President Obama's advisory council

on faith-based and neighborhood partnerships. And she is also a friend, Aziza. There you are. partnerships and she is also a friend, Aziza. There you are. Good afternoon, everyone. I couldn't help but need to breathe more deeply as I was hearing what I was hearing over the last hour. There was so much that I agreed with

and so much that I think we need to keep doing better at. And in that spirit of what Rob just brought up, of that curiosity in these hard moments and the need for modeling, for me I thought of so many stories. And the one that I keep coming back to is the one that roots me the most. In 1948 my family was forced off of their little village in Palestine. They were forced off at gunpoint. There was so much that happened in the many years after. Fast forward decades, my uncle, who's still alive with us today, he worked for the United Nations and he was a videographer and he went back to the village and he was doing a lot of the filming and being what a historian does.

And so he was back in our little village right at the side of our house and we have a mill, a house and lands there and they're recording when this man walks up to him. He's a Jewish man from Canada. And he just starts yelling expletives at him, saying all sorts of things, being dirty, blah, blah, blah, go back wherever you belong. And so my uncle looked at him and said, huh, where do you live?

And the guy's like, kind of looked to the right and the left. He's like, I live right there. It's like, okay, I need to wrap up with these guys. It's gonna take me about an hour and then I'm gonna come over to your house and I'm gonna drink a cup of coffee. And the guys that are with them are like, you're doing what? And the guy said, okay, come over. And to his credit, after he wrapped up,

and my uncle went over, the man had a cup of coffee ready, and him and his wife invited my uncle to sit in their home. And they took time to talk. They talked and talked and talked. And by the end of the conversation, the man looks at my uncle and says, you know, I wish you could be my neighbor. Not knowing that it was our land he was looking at.

Sometimes the gems are right next to us. They're right in front of us. And it just takes our own courage to step into it. Sometimes it's the courage to receive someone who has courage, and sometimes it's the courage to step into it. Sometimes it's the courage to receive someone who has courage, and sometimes it's the courage to step in yourself. I know it's scary. I know it comes with huge consequences. And I know it's terrifying sometimes.

The pendant I'm wearing, I wore, I bought on October 6, 2023. It's a pendant of the Tree of Life. I bought it from the survivor of a Dadeusian massacre. I bought it because for me, it stands for a sign of life after deep, deep suffering. And I know that sometimes, actually most days, it's hard for me to put one foot in front of the other. But I know that courage and the compassion of people around me helps me find the will

to keep going. And I hope that as we listen to the rest of today's stories, we can keep our hearts open and our curiosity engaged so that we can really take each other in because what I heard from the prime minister as a Palestinian

woman sitting among you was he spoke with so many so much affection for so many different people who are Jews. I have a lot of great Jewish friends too, but what struck me with what he said is that he couldn't name one Palestinian among them. They were just the PLO. And so I hope that we can see each other today, really see each other, give each other the benefit of the doubt to listen, even and especially when it's hard, but to open our hearts with compassion and love and find a way through together.

Thank you. Thank you Aziza. And I really encourage all of you to go and learn, if you haven't, learn more about New Ground, which is Aziza's organization. and learn, if you haven't, learn more about New Ground, which is a Zeezus organization. And in that spirit, two questions come to mind. One is what happened between, did they stay in touch? Did their? Great question.

It's actually an important part of the story. They not only stayed in touch, my uncle eventually moved to Vancouver, which is where this man was from. He is now really good friends with this man's son. And they are together, like they are, they're working together on helping settle refugees and helping speak up to hard issues and they're, they're really important allies to each other.

Wow. Um, you've devoted your, I mean, what you do in your daily life is really, that's a microcosm of what you do, bringing Jews and Arabs and people who are deeply affected by this conflict together. Um, what, what's the key to making that work? Because it's, you know, telling these stories is difficult to set do. And it's also very difficult for some people to hear. So what's, if there's a key to actually making those interactions work, what is it? You know, I think it's, it's also very difficult for some people to hear. So what's, if there's a key to actually making

those interactions work, what is it? You know, I think it's taxing work. It doesn't come at an easy cost. Like it takes a lot out of you to be able to come back to the table or take breaks when you need to. And the reason why that story is so important for my rootedness is because it helps me remember who I am. And so when out we have programs we have programs for

professionals, for high school students, for individuals, but our high school kids especially this year will be interviewing their grandparents and their stories of heritage. And the reason why and we've evolved to this is that when we are more rooted in who we are, and we really own it and we believe it, we have a greater capacity to listen to other people's stories, but also to share our own. We can't silence our own voices just as important as it is to listen.

And so that will and that resilience, it's what keeps the curiosity and the will and the ability to keep doing the work. Do you wanna introduce the next person? Sounds great, thank you. And thanks for the great questions. Thank you. So our next story will come from Aaron Neer,

the CEO of Sinai International. He's on the CPF board of councilor member. Please join us. Hi, thanks for coming. This is a personal story regarding an episode that occurred while I was in college. But before I get to that, I wanna share some of my family's background

to give you some context. My father was born in 1930 in Lviv, Poland. Lviv is now known as Lviv, and it's a major city in the Western Ukraine. In the fall of 1939, in order to evade the pending German occupation, my father and his family, which comprised of his older sister Lala, my aunt, my grandfather Samuel and my grandmother Sidja, they packed their most important possessions and they

actually rode on a horse-drawn carriage across the Polish-Romanian border. But that didn't work out and they were forced to return to Lvov. On the morning of July the 25th, 1941, my grandfather was arrested at his home for being Jewish and disappeared forever. My father was only 11 years old. That same afternoon, the Ukrainian auxiliary police began assaulting Jews on the streets with clubs, knives, and yes, axes. They began looting Jewish homes and businesses. According to Yad Vashem, which is the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, at least 2,000 people were murdered over these three days. My grandfather Samuel was one of them.

He was executed in the Lviv Municipal Stadium. My father, his mother, and sister had to figure out a way to survive in their beloved homeland of Poland where they were no longer welcome. In fact, they were under constant threat of being discovered as Jews and being disposed of. My father survived through luck and guile. His sister, Lala's boyfriend Ludwig, after whom my older brother is named, was a highly skilled artist who came up with a scheme to fool the Germans by forging fake baptismal certificates. The way they did that was they looked for churches that had burnt down. This meant the Germans could not verify whether or not the certificates were genuine. There were three million Jews in Poland

when World War II started. Today there remain only 5,000. Somehow my father and his mother survived. And sister, I grew up with the realization deeply ingrained in me. If not for my father's ingenuity and my aunt's strategic brilliance, I would not be standing in front of you today. Fast forward to October 1983 and my freshman year at the University of Virginia. My roommate and I got along well, but that was not the case with his friends who got drunk on a daily basis in my room. Suffice it to say, we frequently argued.

About six weeks into the semester, I was in my ground floor dorm room with a friend. We had just returned from a football game. There were dozens of students in the quad outside my window celebrating the home team victory. All of a sudden, someone outside my first floor window shouted, Hey, Aaron, why don't you shut your big fat Jewish mouth? Another voice rang out, shut your Jewish mouth now or we will shut it for you.

I was stunned and badly shaken with fear. My first thoughts were, are they going to come to my room and do something? Fortunately, my friend Dave was in the room with me, and he went to the window and yelled, get out of here, I'm going to report you guys. They left. The incident left me highly agitated and colored the rest of my freshman year. I was fearful for my safety, but that diminished over time. Luckily, I received support from my friends on my hall who had heard the students shouting

outside. At the encouragement of the academic dean and my friend Dave, who agreed to serve as a witness, I decided to press charges to the university judiciary system. For me, just bringing the case meant a great deal in terms of coming to terms with what happened and dealing face-to-face with antisemitism. Actually, it had been a first to me up to that point in my life. I felt it was my responsibility to pursue the perpetrators and hopefully teach whoever was paying attention a lesson.

This was not the only incident I experienced at UVA or elsewhere throughout my life. As Jews, most of us face ignorance and even hatred, often expressed in subtle and not so subtle ways. My father faced death on a daily basis as a child for six years during World War II. Somehow he made it out. But antisemitism continues full throttle, with Jews being targeted, bullied, and even murdered right here in the U.S. It is critical that we recognize and reject antisemitism, and it must not only be Jews

who recognize and reject it. As Robert Kraft's organization, the Foundation to Combat Anti-Semitism states, when one hate rises, they all do. Hate in any form and the silence that enables it will tear apart our society, moving our country backwards rather than towards a stronger and tolerant future. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Aaron. You really helped us see how pervasive the experience of antisemitism has been in your own family's experience, starting from Poland, your own experience, and your dad. And you had mentioned, especially in the episode

that happened on college campus, that eventually the fear kinda sort of started to dissipate in the course of the year, but what have been your coping, methods of coping throughout your life? Because it sounds like this is something you carry to help you cope. I think the way that I've been able to cope is really through my faith. And, you

know, joining synagogue and praying and being part of services has helped me strengthen my identity as a Jew and just help strengthen me in general. And so I would say that I, you know, frequently throughout my life turned to my faith, no matter where I was, and I've lived all over the world. But reconnecting with those roots and staying true to who I am has been the best way for me to cope with all the little sort of stones that are thrown against you through your life, which I think you know about as well. Just briefly, what happened to the students who you pressed charges against?

So it's a good question. Sadly enough, what happened is they were also 18-year-old freshmen. They had a Judiciary Committee that the Dean of Academics told me, advised me to press the charges through this judiciary committee. And they voted to have a no vote because they said that they didn't have the jurisdiction to make that assessment.

And a lot of people were very angry at that result. But at the end of the day, what was important was that that story had gotten out, especially among the freshmen in this very big dorm. And it was kind of known, like don't mess with Aaron Neer. You know, like, you're gonna get sent to the judiciary. So in that sense, it had its impact, in fact. Thank you. Go to the next speaker.

Dov Wagner, who is the Rabbi and Director of USC Chabad Jewish Center. I think it says something about the nature of Jews that while all of my great grandparents were killed in the Holocaust or as a result of their displacement from it, I never grew up thinking of our family as one that was affected by the Holocaust because my grandparents had left, had gotten out before. They weren't survivors like so many of our neighbors and friends. It never seemed to be something that had touched the family until you got a little older and

recognized how all those branches of the family weren't there. And similarly, I think you might think walking around looking like me on a college campus, I'd have a lot of stories to share. Thankfully, very rarely do I do I experience overt antisemitism. In fact, I think to me, the biggest impact of antisemitism on my life in recent times, especially, is as a campus rabbi, the stories of my students become my stories to bear. Hearing from them about a professor saying something

in class, about being screamed at in middle of campus, about all kinds of impacts, fears that they have as a result of their interactions, becomes in some way my own. But one little incident, since that's what I was asked to share. A couple of years ago we were going to be going on a road trip early on a Thanksgiving morning. So I went to fill up gas at the nearby gas station,

7-Eleven, corner of Fig and Adams. And there was a guy, it was a cold night, there was a homeless guy that came over to me and asked if I can help him. I felt bad for him, so I said, sure, come on into the 7-Eleven and I'll buy you a sandwich. When he comes to the front with his sandwich, the cashier started telling him, you don't belong. And I said, don't worry, I'm taking care of it, I'm going to pay for it. The cashier turns to me and says, but you people don't do that.

And then a moment later says, oh, you must be so rich if you can afford to do this and not worry about the, he sort of fit all the stereotypes into one little moment. And he wasn't a bad guy, by the way. He gave me my drink for free in appreciation. In other words, this wasn't a bad guy, by the way. He gave me my drink for free. In appreciation. In other words, this wasn't with malicious intent. It was just so deeply ingrained within him.

These stereotypes about Jews. Stereotypes about people that look like me. In terms of what we do, where we go with this, I shared at the campus memorial we just had on October 7th. This past summer, I was in Israel with my family. There

happened to be a delegation at that time of Chabad and campus rabbis who were invited to meet with the prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, and I was invited to join. He shared a story, his recollection. So, the first time he met the Lubavitcher

Rebbe on Simchat Torah and he mentioned one line that the Rebbe told him. The Rebbe told him in a moment of great darkness, even a small candle can be seen from afar. Our job, each of us, is to be that light in the darkness, to shine that light for who we are,

for our truth, for our people. Because when we stand proud, when we shine brightly, it lights up even what seems at times to be insurmountable. Thank you. Thank you, Rabbi. I'm so struck by that story at the gas station because to me it also illustrates this idea that sometimes what comes across as antisemitism or hate is just kind of, I mean, you didn't, did you feel it as antisemitism or is it more just is just kind of, I mean, you didn't, did you feel it as anti-Semitism or is it more just like these kind of ignorant?

Totally. Ignorance and having been exposed, unfortunately, to negatives rather than positives. And did you think to maybe just like not confront but to actually do a little quick education there or something or? I mean, we had a one or two minute conversation. He says shared an experience of why he thought that and whatever. And, you know, I just said, well, you know, as you can see, it's not true. And I'm curious.

And I'm not very rich. And I'm curious. You know, there have been incidents that most of the incidents of antisemitic assaults that have happened in the last year have been against people who are visibly Jewish. So, you know, wearing kippot or wearing prayer fringes. And I just wonder if you think about that as you leave the house in the morning,

if you've changed anything about your, how you kind of prepare for going out in the world. Um, do I think about it? Yes, but haven't changed anything. I will say, I think there's as it's a much longer question, but there's a lot of different streams of antisemitism currently bubbling to the top. Um, the college campus kind is less apt to affect somebody that looks like me than an average student that's just sitting next to them in an intellectual.

Interesting. Well, thank you. Thanks very much. Aziza. Yes, thank you Rabbi. Our next speaker is Todd Levinson. He's the host of Healing Race podcast and he's a producer at the Mainstream Nation. So over my life until their passing, my grandparents became two of my best friends. Over our many long deep conversations about faith, family, friendship, life. They also shared many stories about how they endured,

survived, escaped the Holocaust. One day I asked my grandfather if I could bring one of my friends to my next visit. My grandfather asked, is he Jewish? I said, no. And then he shared and explained that although he has no animosity toward non-Jews and works with them in a business capacity all the time, he had a discomfort. He was uncomfortable about having them in his home. And I understood. Even though I wanted to bring these most important people in my life together, I understood because how could I not understand someone who lost almost their whole family, who had to experience the struggles and the pains and the suffering of the Holocaust, that maybe there might be some discomfort. Maybe there might be some deep pain still there. Maybe there was more trust that need to be built. Well, that didn't mean I wasn't going to keep trying.

And eventually, he did meet many of my non-Jewish friends. And our evolution on this topic came to a crescendo on the last dinner I had before his passing. It was like a greatest hits album. He was retelling all of the wartime stories that I had probably heard dozens of times before. Except this time, it was different and unexpected. He retold how he had escaped from a Nazi labor camp in Poland and into Russia and was immediately thrown into jail for treason. But this time, he had an addition. He told me how he was, and this was through tears, cold, sick, tired, and how the woman

who he shared a cell with put a blanket on him to comfort him and now he had the longest deepest sleep that he had had in ages and then he told me and she wasn't Jewish he then told me about how a baker had rescued him had allowed had helped him escape from the Siberian labor camp that he was in after, even though he had never worked in a bakery. And then he told me he wasn't Jewish. And then he stared, I will get through this, he stared at the non-Jewish in-home nurse who was taking care of my grandmother since her stroke looked directly at her and said, God loves everyone. In 2021, my former freshman roommate

and I, who is black, decided to start a podcast called Healing Race. In 25 years of being close friends, we had never talked about race, ever. And I didn't know if it was part of the solution or part of the problem. But what we decided was there was so much conflict that maybe, maybe we could just record our conversation and show that we, Americans, humans, can have open, real, deep, constructive conversations about race and our other identity differences. He shared with me the anxieties, the caution that he brings into white relationships, including the one he had with me. And at a key moment, I shared with him this story

about my grandfather. It was cathartic. It was transformative because in that moment, he knew I understood and saw him because I understood and saw my grandfather. He knew that all the suffering that my grandparents had experienced and all the heroism and resilience that came out of their experience were the same kinds of suffering and heroism and resilience that he saw and experienced in his black American community. It was through engaging on our many differences that my grandparents and I found the deeper similarities that made us so close.

Andre and I have experienced the same with ourselves and the politically and culturally diverse Americans we bring on the show. Others can't know us until we let them know us. And we can't know others until we truly try to get to know them. I definitely grew up around non-Jews in Los Angeles but I spent a lot of my childhood around a lot of Jews and there's nothing wrong with that. It's totally natural to want to spend time with your identity group especially in the face of shared struggle and pain.

At the same time, I don't know any more powerful way to work our way out from all these isms that so painfully divide us than engaging across differences. My time talking with my grandparents was some of the most special time I've had in my life. In many ways, we were drastically different people, but we loved each other despite it, sometimes because of it, and through it, found our way to more important similarities, points of deep human connection. I might not believe in God, the

one that my grandfather told me at some point loves everyone, but if there was ever something to emulate in that God, finding love in your heart for everyone sounds like a pretty good trait to emulate. I owe that understanding to my grandparents. Thank you, Todd. Like when you started describing like the woman in the blanket and the baker, but up until that point, you hadn't even heard those stories. You had heard the stories of holding back, or at least the presence of holding back. And there's something also about the moment that we're in, which is, it's like there's an instinct to hold back and to pull into your own, like you were mentioning.

And there are threads of kindness that are always around us that we just can't always see and it takes a little bit of time to see. But you made the choice to do that podcast, I think before or after you had that all these pieces come together for you. It was after my grandfather had passed. And so what brought you to what like to really invest in this podcast? Well, I mean, I it's just it's painful for me to see division.

That's unnecessary. And I guess through my experience with both my grandparents that this was about more of my grandfather. I just learned that, you know, telling stories and showing your humanity becomes a bridge to dispelling stereotypes but also coming together into kind of a shared identity. Thank you. Our next speaker is Mary Louise Oates and I too am half Jewish. Surprise.

It's always a surprise. My mother had a pre-World War II marriage. She got pregnant with me, moved home and six years later married Raymond Oates, a really wonderful father. I want to talk a little bit about the secretive, sneaky parts of anti-Semitism. When people think you're not Jewish and they say things to you that they wouldn't say publicly. I got a, I was a work for UPI in the 60s and then I got hired by Seymour Hersh to be the press secretary for the Jean McCarthy campaign for Mrs. McCarthy.

And we were in an empty office, Richard Goodwin, Anne Wexler, Sandy Fruscher, Curtis Gans, Seymour Hirsch, and I'm talking to Abigail McCarthy from Minnesota and very Catholic. And she sees in me a kindred spirit. And she said, oh, she said, there are so many Hebrews have signed on, aren't there? So I went over to her and I said, I'm quitting. Oh, he said, that's okay, you can be the number two, just don't talk to her again. I thought, this is terrible. I mean, this man is running on a campaign of social justice, get out of the war, racial justice.

He was bad on that too. But it's an interesting thing that when I came to work for the LA Times, after thank God there was no internet and they hadn't realized how political I was, I got hired, I needed the job as a society writer, hard to believe. And I'm there and I start getting letters after the first year on kind of very pretty pink old lady stationery from a woman who lived in Arcadia. And she was complaining all the time because I kept writing about Jews over and over and over again. I would get these letters every two weeks and I just kept them in a file. And then after about two years, I took a big envelope, I put all the letters in it, and

I stole a line from Harold Ross, the guy who had invented the New Yorker, and I sent it back on LA Times stationery. Someone is writing letters using your stationery and the person is obviously crazy. I never heard from her again. But here's something more worrisome. I went one time when I had the column and I could write about what I wanted to write about. I went to cover the amazing Blue Riven at the Music Center.

Mrs. Chandler, Dorothy, Buff as she is known, had decided to make the Music Center happen by squishing together the West Side Jewish Los Angeles with the Pasadena San Marino Los Angeles. I said, well, I'll just go cover it and see what's happening with these people. And a woman came up to, oh, they had enlarged it from 400 to 600. So this woman from somewhere over in Pasadena land came up, from San Marino, said to me, oh, she said, so many new people. I said, yeah, it's kind of great. You know, it pays for the children's music festival every summer. She said, they're such aggressive givers. Okay,

I got that. And so I said to her, I said, I think you're uncomfortable being around Jewish people. Oh, a kind voice, this face, this name, I've got to be like Rent a Shiksa, right? So now she's going to tell me everything. I got the whole blow by blow by blow. I said, you know, I can really help you. I have Jewish people in my column all the time. She said, yes, yes, yes. I said, I'll never put you in the column. I'll never be near a Jew again in the LA Times. I get to the office and my editor Diane Spantz says to me, you're dead. This woman's a big friend of the Chandlers. I said, what should I do?

Otis Chandler, who was a wonderful publisher, had this open door policy. And you could go down and walk in if you were a writer there or a copy boy or anything. So you have to go talk to Otis. So I go down. And it's a little intimidating because he was a big game hunter. So there was a stuffed bongo. And beside the intimidating because he was a big game hunter.

So there was a stuffed bongo and beside the desk there was a stuffed grizzly. I mean it was like nature land. And I'm a single mother. I'm dancing as fast as I can. I mean I got to hold on to this job and I said, well, you know, your mother, she brought together the West side and the East side of Los Angeles and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This woman, I gave him the name. He said, I know her, whatever it's going on.

I said, and this is what she said. And this is what I said back. Now you might not know this, but Otis Chandler was an Olympian. He was a shot putter. He had big hands and he took his hand, whacked it on the desk. And he said, Mary Louise, I wish I could be as honest with people as you are. Was that's why the LA Times was a great paper. But that's what I found out over those three inches and other similar ones.

That anti-Semitism is really a stealth missile. It just kind of pops up, but it only really pops up if they're convinced they're talking to another gentile. I think this conference is important because everybody here is going to go back and tell somebody about it. And that's the way good news spreads since the LA Times is not such a great paper anymore. It's true. It's true.

And I thank you for letting me be part of it. And I loved everything everybody else did. Thank you. Thank you. Mary Louise, I noticed that in every single case where you were confronted with this, you did not shrink back. I'm not a shrinking person. I went to the anti-war movement, kid.

I can do anything. And I think that's a lesson there, that you just confronted it immediately on the nose. I think you have to, and I think also if I hadn't been primed by the lady sending me those letters week after week, I don't know if I'd been so abrupt with the woman from San Marino. I thought, oh, here's another one, right? This one not in letters, this is in face to face. But thank you, oh, here's another one, right? This one, not in letters, this is in face to face. But thank you, no, no.

I try to be a moral person. I, and I think, and I have a master's in divinity from you all to prove it. Ha ha ha ha. Prove, prove. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. There's something about like when we are in our, the closed, the, having spaces where we can be able to talk to some of these things that do exist and confront them but also feel supported by people sometimes it's not always easy to own your own courage and

so I'm curious like when you were especially leaning into that was it is it something that happened for you over time or is it something that you just... No, but it certainly was out there. I mean, in the McCarthy campaign, those were the six top people in the Democratic Party standing in this open office. And all this woman could see was they had a star of David over their head. I mean, that was so shocking to me. I said, my God Almighty, I mean, we got nothing with this candidate, but at least we have all these smart people trying to make him into a real person. And I also think that when I talked to a friend of mine about it afterwards, who was Jewish, she said, well, you know, she's from Minnesota.

I said, give me a break. I mean, Minnesota, there's Jews in Minnesota, right? Right? Yes. Bob Dylan. Very well done. Very well done. But no, I think there is a lot of conversation that none of you would hear because you have

Jewish names, you have a Jewish history, you have a Jewish outfit. I think, but I do think it's out there in such pervasive ways that it leaves, I think, I think, but I do think it's out there in such pervasive ways that it leaves, I think it leaves Jewish students on campus unguarded in some ways because they haven't heard that conversation and don't know that it could come forward and rail them, you know, it's very difficult. And I think it's, I think, I think Islamophobia is terrifying. I mean, why do we have to put labels on hatred? Why do we have to have those hatreds? But we do. Right. We have some things that we have to contend with.

Yes. We hear about violence all the time in the news, yet we rarely hear stories about peace. There are so many people who are working hard to promote solutions to violence, toxic polarization and authoritarianism, often at great personal risk. We never hear about these stories, but at what cost? On Making Peace Visible, we speak with journalists, storytellers, and peace builders who are on the front lines of both peace and conflict. You can find Making Peace Visible wherever you listen to podcasts.

Our next storyteller is Pedro Nogueira. If I said your name wrong, please let me know. Please correct me, Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education. Good afternoon. And I've been enjoying this event very much and I wanna thank you all for inviting me to participate. And one of the themes I want to reinforce,

as we've heard in several of the stories, is that hate relies on dehumanization. You have to dehumanize a group before you can justify hating them and then perpetuating atrocities against them. And we've seen that, we continue to see that throughout the world today. The story I'm gonna share is not about violence.

I would call it in the scheme of hate, it's a small hate, but it's one I experienced directly. So I was in college at Brown University and I was originally gonna try to play soccer because I was a soccer player in high school, but I was not recruited. So it was because I was a soccer player in high school, but I was not recruited. So it was clear I was not going to get much time.

And one day I was walking after practice and I saw some guys playing rugby. I didn't know what it was. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. We don't play rugby. And I said, what is that game? It looks like fun. And the guy came over and said, come, we need players. You look like you can run fast.

I said, yeah, I can run fast. He says, so I was recruited to join the team. One of our teammates was a guy named John F. Kennedy Jr. You may have heard of him, son of the president. And we got to know each other because he, like me, not only played rugby, but were also active in the anti-apartheid movement. One of the great advantages of having John F. Kennedy on your team is that big crowds would come to the games, especially young women

who wanted to see John. And unfortunately, John was not a reliable teammate. He didn't always show up. So we'd have to lie and say somebody else was John, otherwise the crowd would leave. And so we would, sometimes it worked, not always. So we were playing Boston College in the game and as you may know it's Irish Catholic school and I was having a particularly good game. There was a large crowd. It was at Boston College and during the game I hear someone say get that nigger and I was taken aback, I was wondering to myself, did I hear what I thought I heard? And so I just continue to play, and a few minutes later it happens again.

And I see who it is. And it's a very large guy on the other team. Now there's one other black player on the field, he's on their team. And he is a short guy who plays hooker. If you know anything about rugby, hooker is the worst position on the field, that guy on your team that's called me the N word, I want you to tell him if he does it again, I'm gonna punch him in the face. Now I didn't really wanna punch him in the face

because he was much bigger than me. But I felt I had to do something. So he says, which one I pointed him out, he says, let me go talk to him. So he goes and talks to him. He said, what's your name? I said, my name's Pedro. So a few minutes later, we're playing and the same guy says, get Pedro. And others

start calling me by name, Pedro. And for that one game, I was even more famous than John Jr. because he was not there. And after the game, as is the tradition in rugby, we drank beer. And I talked to the guy, he apologized for having used that term to me. And it ended relatively well. But what was most disappointing to me was my team. Because at no point did anyone on the team ever say, you know, this is wrong, it's got to stop. So I went to the captain of our team, and I'm not going to say who he is, he is now the CEO of a major bank in the United States.

I told him, I said, listen, everybody heard it, and no one on our team, including you, was the captain, said anything. And he said, well, you know, it's not a big team, including you, was the captain said anything. And he said, well, you know, it's not a big deal. You know, these things happen. I said, it was a big deal to me. And I was glad the other guy said something and it stopped. A few weeks later, we were going to play in a tournament. We drove from Providence to West Palm Beach, Florida

and stopped in an area not outside of Orlando that's right now being hit by the hurricane. And another player on the team invited the entire team to his home for a barbecue. But it was Passover. And he said, I've never had a Jew or a black at my house. And we're going to have pig. If you don't like it, don't come. So me and one of the Jewish guys said,

we're going to go somewhere else and eat. Five years after graduation, we got together for a reunion where the alumni play against the current players. And I brought up the story of what had happened. And by now, they're a little older, a little more apologetic about what had happened. Today, the guy who didn't want blacks or Jews to his house

is the mayor of a major city. He defended LGBTQ people when they were victims of a mass attack, mass shooting, spoke up, that same CEO of a bank became an advocate for DEI. And I share this because sometimes at the moment people aren't able to rise to the occasion, but sometimes with time they can mature and see not only the fault of their ways, but the humanity of others. And that, too, gives me a sense of hope. Thank you for that. Is there a way to educate for it?

Is it something that just people have to learn the lesson and that time has to pass and they have to grow up a little bit? Or is there a way to actually teach people to stand up for other people? I think there is. I think the big challenge with educating against hate and prejudice is kids go home to families that reinforce the hate and prejudice is kids go home to families that reinforce the hate and prejudice. But I know one of my colleagues, Ron, Ronnie Astor, is works with a school in Israel right now that still serves Jews and Palestinians and I don't know how they, he said it's reopened since October 7th.

And they're there together. So I do think it's possible to create communities that deliberately work against hate. But you have to have the courage and we've heard people talk about courage. You have to have a commitment and we need more of it. That's beautifully said. I'm really also struck by that. Like sometimes confrontation is just as important as the

kindness, and that you need to also just step into it, even if it takes a little bit more time than you would like it to, and that you've really been just on this path. And did you feel like you were born into confrontation? Not really, not to confrontation, but I learned very early not to run from it either, right? Not to stand up even when it was hard and that's helped me. It was a challenge here last spring to be silenced when everything was happening on campus. And I remember hearing about you. I want to just commend you for the role you played on campus because it was a very, very tense period we went through here. And I know Michael Roth is a friend

of mine. He's the president at Wesleyan and he's written about what it was like to have once been a student protester and now have an encampment outside his office. And this actually says, I went and talked to them about what they were doing. I told them that, you know, they had to respect others. They had to respect the rules and regulations but I spoke to them and I courage dialogue and I think dialogue has got to be part of the effort to produce, to counter hate and conflict.

Couldn't agree more, especially like with our response can be so to try to control the situation, we actually make it worse. And giving people space to express themselves, I can actually lead to better solutions, but it can take a lot of time and a lot to invest in. You want Ron? Sure.

Oh, our next speaker, Ron Galperin, former controller and CFO for the City of LA. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm really heartened to be here with all of you and to also hear all of these amazing stories and to share in the experience of everybody who's up here. I've always found it kind of ironic that we talk about antisemitism in that the term antisemitism was actually created by, for those of you who may not know, by a German who actually started the League of Anti-Semites.

And he was an anti-Semite himself. And I have to say, I grew up with a very strong sense of Jewish identity, but I never really grew up with a sense of being a Semite. And most of the people, I think, who are Jew haters, they don't necessarily hate Semites. They hate Jews. But that's about sort of how we frame the conversation. A little bit about myself and my background. I grew up in a rather bucolic suburb as a child of Philadelphia. And I didn't grow up with a lot of anti-Semitism in my midst,

but I very much grew up under the shadow of the history of the Holocaust and of my family. I remember occasionally from some of the non-Jewish neighbors being called a Christ killer. But interestingly enough, that didn't really penetrate me because I went to Jewish schools and I thought, like, who's Christ? And I thought, well, I haven't killed anybody. So I didn't actually make that much of it until I grew up a little bit and sort of understood who Christ was and what was meant by that term. But my father was actually a Holocaust survivor, as were my grandparents. And I grew up in a house in which we actually didn't speak much English.

We spoke mostly Hebrew, and we spoke Yiddish as well, with my grandparents who came over to the United States when they were in their 60s. And they were kind of already old in their 60s back then, and they had been through so much. And they never really quite learned English all that well, so we spoke Yiddish in the house. But there was this sense, this, I don't want to say cloud, but the sense of the history of what the family was. And my grandmother would often talk about the kind of life that they had in Romania

before it all came to a crashing end. And it was many years that it took for it to sort of unfold what the stories of the family was. I remember being surrounded often by people who had tattoos. And I sort of understood on some level as a child what that was. But I didn't really get it until I started maturing and understanding a little bit more. So my father was actually, in 1943, he was very lucky.

He was able to get out of Romania with a passage on a ship. And again, I didn't learn about this until quite a number of years later. He made his way to Turkey, and it wasn't until I was actually a controller for the city of LA that my father told me the full story and how he had gotten over to Turkey. And this was during so much of when I started in my roles as controller, there was also

so much happening in Syria. And we were talking about Aleppo and the terrible refugee crisis that was there. And he said, oh yeah, I've been there. I said, what? You've been to Aleppo, Syria? And he said, yes, I was a refugee in Aleppo, Syria. Really? And so I started asking him a lot of questions.

And I began to realize that he had not shared a lot of things for a variety of reasons, partly I think because he didn't want it to necessarily be a burden for his children, partly because my father, as I came to learn, was only in forced labor. He never was in a concentration camp. He was only in forced labor.

And I think he felt this sense, well, I didn't have as horrible of an experience as everybody else, and so perhaps I'm not a survivor in quite that same sense. Although he also, as he got older, came to understand, yes, he was. But he made his way from Turkey to Syria and then found himself a refugee in Aleppo, Syria. And from there, he made his way into what was then Palestine, and he was in a British internment camp. After he told me this story, we went and we visited Israel, and I had been there many times before, but I'd never been to actually the internment camp where he was, that British

internment camp which is called Atlit. And I learned a number of important lessons from all of this. One is the importance of asking lots of questions, not waiting for people to tell you what our family history is, but asking and asking and asking and sometimes again and again and again because those stories begin to unfold in some amazing ways. I'll also say that my father who made it to 96 and ended up becoming a PhD in music and a rabbi

and was accomplished in many things, I never felt bitterness from him. There were so many reasons that he could have been incredibly bitter and incredibly angry. And I never really got that from him. Rather, it was about what is the next day like and what is the next day like? And how do you create relationships

with all sorts of different people, regardless of their background or their race or their religion. And I carry that message with me from my father, who went through so much and was able to come out of it. And what we can learn from that also is despite these terrible times that we're in, where we are experiencing so many forms of hatred, that there is a way that we can emerge

from it, that we can even triumph from it in some different ways and find ways to come together. And that's why I'm so happy to be here with these amazing people who are up here. So thank you so much. Thank you for that story and that journey. I am curious to hear a little bit more about Atlete and about what especially strikes me is sometimes we undercut our own stories and it's actually really important for us to share them.

Well, interestingly enough, once I now knew this story about being a refugee when I was sworn in for my second term, I chose as the person to swear me in a refugee from Afghanistan. And she had come to the country just a few years earlier and she was working with other refugees. And it's really important for me. I've always felt that the experiences that my family had really make me hopefully better informed and more empathetic for other people who are having similar

experiences no matter where they may be from. And so it was an important message for me to send about that kind of inclusiveness. But I do remember visiting a Tlite and actually they've turned it into sort of a semi-museum these days. And it looks very much like the kind of barracks that you would find at when you go to places like Auschwitz, but it was not obviously a death camp. It was an internment camp. And he told a story of how he thankfully was not there for so long, but he really didn't have much to eat at all. And he had a cousin who worked at a chocolate factory. And his cousin would save the shards of chocolate and bring them to my father so that he

could get some sustenance. And that's how he got through it and eventually made his way out of that internment camp, met my mother as they were both in the Israeli opera and they got married and the rest is sort of history. I thank you for that gift. My grandfather was held at Etlite. Oh my God, wow. And so when I think about like how, like when I went and when I went through all these,

like just trying to go through my family story, it's not until you go to the bottom of that museum area that it says that actually 60 percent of the inhabitants of that were Arab, they're not called Palestinians. I think that sometimes the details come from the most incredible places. Thank you for sharing. I'd love to have a conversation with you after this. Okay. Wow. I had no idea. I just learned something. Wow. Our final storyteller today is Jeff Blattner. He's with the US Department of Justice, Deputy Assistant Attorney General,

former Judiciary Committee Chief Counsel to the senator Edward Kennedy. Thanks. I'm currently, by the way, a fellow at the Dornsife Center. If you're there, stop by and say hi. With your indulgence, my brief story of the impact of hatred on me and my family has two chapters. The first begins on November 9, 1938, Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glasses that it's known in Germany. On that night, the SS came to my mother's home in Hamburg

and took my mother's father, Felix, to Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp. That same night, a little over 300 miles away in a tiny village called Schwanfeld, the Nazi SS came to the home of my father's parents who had a small dairy farm. A Nazi officer pointed a loaded gun at my grandfather, Leo, and cocked the weapon. At that point, my grandfather's foreman, a Gentile, said, don't kill him. I need him to pull the plow.

The Nazi lowered his weapon and my grandfather and the rest of the family were able to escape. They arrived in New York City just 31 days later where they reunited with my father who had come by himself at age 15, a year earlier. 40 years later, my father and I returned to Schwanfeld where he showed me his childhood home and we visited the Jewish cemetery outside of town. When we arrived, there was a woman in her 50s who in her spare time was taking care of the graves abandoned by those who had fled or fallen at the hands of the Nazis. Her name was Elfriede, a Gentile, and she was the daughter of the man

who saved my grandfather's life on Kristallnacht. Second story, second chapter is less dramatic and more personal. One of my earliest memories of growing up in Pittsburgh took place in 1959, shortly before my fifth birthday. When I went with my parents as they sought to buy their first home. When we approached the door of a lovely home on a nice street, my parents rang the doorbell. After a moment, the door opened and my parents were quietly told that the lovely home and

the nice street were not open to Jews. I remember vividly feeling powerless to respond to that act of bigotry. 29 years later in 1988 I helped Senator Edward Kennedy, a Catholic, pass revisions that finally put real teeth in the federal Fair Housing Act. To me what those stories have in common is not just the senseless evil of raw bigotry and the frustration and powerlessness that come from experiencing it. It is also the realization that righteous actions, large and small, by good people who did not stand silent can make all the difference.

I hope you find inspiration in that and cause for hope. Jeff, I was so struck that, you know, that kind of classic anti-Semitism that kept Jews from buying homes, that kept Jews out of elite colleges and kept Jews out of different professions, which was rampant in America up until basically the 60s and 70s. What changed? Like how did that end? I mean most of our grandparents, great-grandparents grew up in that America, where so many opportunities were off limits to them because they were Jewish and then that really did change. And what was the big factors in that? were off limits to them because they were Jewish. And then that really did change.

And what was the big factors in that? Well, I'm sure historians can give a better perspective. I'm actually reminded of something that a South African friend of mine sent to me after, I was bar mitzvahed a tree of life and after the tree of life tragedy, which I wrote about it at the time. But I heard from a South African friend

who talked about the anti-apartheid movement also really originated in the 60s, of course culminated as we heard earlier with Mandela's freeing and the changes. And I feel what she wrote was brick by brick, day by day, drop by drop, never give up, keep pounding the wall until finally it cracks. And I think that's what happened

in the civil rights movement. It wasn't unique to breaking down the barriers of anti-Semitism. It was the barriers against racism and sexism as well. Attitudes change, you know, people, I think, trace some of it back to desegregating the army in the 80s, in the 40s, I should say, as perhaps one factor. But you know, the point point is don't give up. A powerful thing to hold, brick by brick, drop by drop,

that with time we can be what we need to see, even if we felt the powerlessness and we sat with it for years. Thank you. Thank you. You know, you've had it. You've heard so many incredible stories of reflections by so many individuals who have brought, I feel like, a richness to the tapestry today.

And from really paying attention to why courage matters, why holding curiosity matters, why compassion, why owning your own story, being rooted, and even sometimes having to confront, but confronting in ways that are also still true to kindness and finding a way where you're still advocating without harming the other. I think of when we first started today, and the call to action that it can't be one person's story healing at the cost of another, but that we need to be able to have space for all. For that there's anti-Semitism, whether that's Islamophobia, whether at Newground, when we talk about anti-Palestinian sentiment, we have to be able to talk about all of it

because one does come at the expense of the other. And if we don't, then we're just gonna keep hurting each other. Folks, please join me in giving a huge round of applause to all of our speakers for today. You guys did such an amazing job. Um... For... For everyone here, I-I feel like you're basically saying that dialogue, conversation, that is the currency of change, and that none of you're basically saying that dialogue conversation

That is the currency of change and that none of you have said avoid dialogue You've said have more of it share these stories. These are not facts and information these are very much from the heart stories and Everyone in this room everyone who's watching you have so many stories and those are all opportunities for us to connect across the many many differences that we have as humans but more importantly the many many many more things that we have in common as human beings so thank you for your vulnerability your courage your stories sharing your experiences so that we can all be inspired and grow from them to those of you who came with to

be here in person today thank you for making room in your day to be here. This is a special kind of day. We don't have this kind of experience very often where we can hear these kinds of stories. Thank you so much to the Neer family, Aaron, Sarko. We really are grateful for you creating the space for this kind of event to happen. It is so, so important.

We're going to continue to do this and talk about differences, not just interfaith, not just interracial, across all variety of differences, because the Center for the Political Future exists because we care about a better America, and we're not going to get better unless we talk to each other. So thank you for modeling that civil discourse.

Really appreciate it. Thank you, folks, for coming today. Have a good day. We'll see you at the next event. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us on the Bully Pulpit. It helps us a lot when you subscribe and rate the show five stars wherever you get your podcast. Follow us on Twitter at USCPOLFuture. That's USCPOLFuture. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and visit our website for upcoming programs. This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.