Confronting Hate: Examining Anti-Semitism Through Religious and Ideological World Views

The late Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, our organization’s namesake, was known as “the Human Rights Rabbi.” Ranked, in his time, as one of the four most influential and respected religious leaders in the U.S., he dedicated his life to building bridges across communities. He understood that dogma can separate people, but that values can bring them together. That inclusiveness made him a powerful force for justice, not just among Jews, but among world leaders and people from every tradition. As such, his practice of Judaism was as a Universalist who preached identity without insularity.

The newly released biography of Rabbi Tanenbaum, Confronting Hate: The Untold Story of the Rabbi Who Stood Up for Human Rights, Racial Justice, and Religious Reconciliation, by Deborah Hart Strober and Gerald S. Strober, is therefore timely—because the issues Rabbi Tanenbaum confronted are hauntingly similar to the issues we face today: civil rights, human rights, persecution, demagoguery, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, immigration, refugees . . . division and hate.

How he addressed these issues are guideposts for today’s activists and all people of conscience.

The anti-Semitism he fought is an ancient hatred, and one that does not stand in isolation. Instead anti-Semitism reflects and, historically, has often been the precursor to the flourishing of other hatreds.

Long-standing stereotypes are now treated as public truths. Far too many people claim “Jews control the world”
and scapegoat them for an array of societal ills from capitalism to communism. Violence targeting Jews and Jewish
institutions is not new. But today, anti-Semitism—and religious bigotry—are resurfacing with force. This conversation confronts it head-on.

On November 14th at One Spirit Learning Alliance this panel shared first-hand accounts from: Dr. Georgette Bennett, Tanenbaum’s President and founder, and the widow of Rabbi Tanenbaum; Judy Banki, who discussed her work with Rabbi Tanenbaum during his years fomenting change with the Vatican
Council II; Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, bestselling author and investigative journalist who wrote the expose “Behind Islamophobia Is a Global Movement of Anti-Semites” detailing the trans-Atlantic networks behind the rise of the far-right as a global movement; and TM Garret, former white supremacist leader turned human-rights activist, who shared his experience then as founder of a German-faction KKK group and now as an anti-Nazi activist combating anti-Semitism in the wake of last year’s shooting at Tree of Life and the Halle attack on Yom Kippur.

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