O pinion
The Importance of Multifaith Cooperation and Dialogue
BY SAUNDRA STERLING EPSTEIN
FOR MANY YEARS, I have
been honored to be involved
in the extremely important
work of building relationships
among different faith commu-
nities, as well as within the
different strands of our Jewish
community in its largess.

At this point in our lives —
individually and collectively
— it appears to me that all of
us who are knowledgeable and
comfortable in engaging in these
efforts should reach out and do
so, especially those who are on
the more-halachically observant
side of the spectrum, which is
too often poorly represented. (I
have been the only one in the
room too many times!).

To do so is healing, serves
as important advocacy and is
validating to all of us who are
people of faith. Moreover, it
makes a powerful and neces-
sary statement in our fractured
world at this time when the
strength and ethical pitch of
our religious teachings are
more necessary than ever.

Pew Research Center
findings indicate that in our
general population we have
approximately 30% religious
“nones” — that is, people
who do not identify with any
faith tradition or community.

This percentage is higher for
those who are not involved in
ongoing religious life involve-
ments on any level, with the
numbers of unconnected
individuals increasing in the
younger age brackets.

This problem of continuity of
our religious traditions and way
of life is a challenge shared by
all of our faith communities, as
indicated in my conversations
with my Muslim, Christian and
Catholic colleagues, specifically.

Concerns about human rights
issues and religious teach-
ings that, in their eyes at least,
contradict their social values
are often causes for which
our young people do not feel
that their respective religious
heritages are responsive.

Also, members of all of our
respective communities are
suffering from food insecurity,
threatened loss of homes, social
isolation, work insecurity,
sexual abuse and violence, the
opioid crisis and other ailments
that are pervasive at this time
and desperately need access to
services. We are all aware of
this, as well as the drain on our
service organizations in trying
to continue to meet mounting,
seemingly infinite, needs with
finite resources. Additionally,
we need to remind each other
the power of our faith in
supporting us spiritually while
we tend to the needs of our
physical realities.

To address these shared
challenges, there is an ongoing
effort to streamline our area’s
multifaith work, bringing
together the 20-year-old
Cheltenham Area Multi-Faith
Council founded as a response
to 9/11 by Rabbi Lance Sussman
and a group of Christian clergy
members and lay leaders; a
newly formed consortium of
Muslim, Christian and Jewish
community leaders; and the
developing Montgomery
County Multi-Faith Coalition
in a newly branded coopera-
tive where we crowdsource our
services and provide opportu-
nities for shared learning and
interaction with each other.

These collective efforts are
already yielding important
results, such as ensuring there
are food pantries that provide
food for people in need who have
religious dietary restrictions,
offering resources for women
and men from different faith
communities who are victims
of domestic violence, accessing
counseling services sensitive
to different faith communities’
sensibilities and so on.

Additionally, we
are committed to sitting together
to learn more about our respec-
tive faiths and foundational
texts, marveling at how much
we share as well as becoming
more sensitive to, and
respectful of, our differences.

As my treasured colleague and
friend, Aziz Nathoo, a Muslim
community leader and Sheikh,
often reminds us, “We are here
to converse, not to convert.” l
Saundra Sterling Epstein is the
director of BeYachad: Bringing
Jewish Living and Learning
Together. Upcoming events include
an Oct. 5 program entitled “GRASP:
Gathering Resources Addressing
Suicide Prevention” and another
on Nov. 15, “Thanks-Grieving.” For
more information, contact Epstein
at shulisrose@aol.com.

When I Faced Antisemitism on Campus in 1985, I Felt Alone.

I’m Glad Today’s College Students Have Each Other
BY HOWARD LOVY
IN 1985, I STOOD in the corner
of a crowded meeting room
at the Wayne State University
Student Center, stone-faced,
while people I did not know
lined up at a microphone to
denounce me before the Student
Newspaper Publications Board.

“I don’t think Howard Lovy
should be editor of The South
18 AUGUST 26, 2021
End because he is biased toward
Israel,” said one, referring to the
student newspaper, where I was
up for the editor’s position.

The board would decide if
I should take the top job. By
virtue of my role at the paper,
I was in position to assume the
top editor slot.

“Howard is a Zionist,” said
another critic, “so he should be
disqualified from this important
job as editor of The South End.”
Some of them said something
about the racist rabbi, Rabbi
Meir Kahane. Another said
something about the massacre
of Palestinians in the Sabra
and Shatila refugee camps in
Lebanon three years previously
by an Israel-allied militia group
and with the knowledge of the
Israeli army. Apparently I was
responsible for all these things
and people. I should not have
been surprised.

A few anti-Zionist students
had targeted me months earlier,
not only peppering the paper
with letters to the editor about
me, but showing up at The
South End office specifically to
harass and threaten me.

But at this hearing, there
were not dozens, but hundreds,
of people I had never met telling
the board about what a lousy
journalist I was because I had
written pieces on the opinion
page in support of Israel. The
Student Newspaper Publications
Board, wary of controversy
because of a previous editor’s
anti-military activism, rejected
me, and I did not get the job.

I was 19 years old at the time.

I’m 55 now and over the shock,
but I look back on it as a key
JEWISH EXPONENT
event in my development as a
Jew and as a journalist. It was an
important lesson for me in how
isolating antisemitism could be.

It was difficult for me to
explain to my friends and
colleagues that this even was
antisemitism at all. I mean, it
seemed perfectly reasonable to
many that my “bias” in favor of
Israel’s existence compromised
my impartiality. But what was
the “other side” I was supposed
to take equally? Israel’s nonex-
istence? In 1985, at the age
of 19, I lacked the words to
explain to anybody that I was
being targeted for harassment
specifically because I was a Jew.

In this way, I under-
stand what is happening on
campus today, with the rise in
antisemitism masquerading as
anti-Zionism. The AMCHA Initiative
has been tracking antisemitic
incidents and activities on U.S.

college campuses since 2015. Out
of curiosity, I punched Wayne
State into their database and
found 16 incidents of “antise-
mitic expression” and activity in
support of the boycott, divest-
ment and sanctions movement
targeting Israel from March
2016 to June of this year.

The argument, of course, can
be made that all these events
are not antisemitic, that they
simply express solidarity with
Palestinians. And if you’re not a
Jew on campus and don’t see and
feel for yourself how these things
manifest themselves in reality, it is
difficult to explain this gray area
between pro-Palestinian activism
See Lovy, Page 33
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



O pinion
I Used to Judge Ex-Orthodox Jews. Then I Started Listening
BY RIVKA NEHORAI
TEN YEARS AGO, I sat
shocked watching a new music
video from one of my creative
Jewish heroes, Matisyahu.

Newly married and studying in
yeshiva, my husband and I were
trying to figure out how to uplift
the art world in alignment with
our Orthodox Torah ideals.

continue to suppress his own
truth and voice, and for him to
toe the expected “traditional”
Orthodox Jewish line out of my
fear of what non-Jews might
think. At the time, I believe he
owed it to all of us.

A few years after we left
Israel, my husband and I began
hosting gatherings in Brooklyn
for creative, out-of-the-box
Jewish thinkers. Our guests
included a significant number
of what are derogatorily
referred to as “off-the-derech”
Jews: those who had been
raised in the ultra-Orthodox
community but had left
it. Many of them no longer
followed many or most of the
traditional Orthodox interpre-
tations of Jewish law. But, my
God, their Jewish spirit and
creating art that is critical
of your community are your
greatest teachers.

They have seen the belly of
the beast, and they have valuable
information for you. They
know how to make your world
healthier, safer and more just.

And they love the Jewish people
and Judaism perhaps more than
you will ever understand.

Instead of worrying about
the optics of a celebrity Chasid
going his own way, I should
have been worrying about those
who are hurting, who are being
abused by the systems that
structure the Chasidic world.

Those who want a different life
but can’t escape. Or those who
escape with scars.

Just listen to their stories, I
would tell my past self, and see
The denominations limit us.

Especially within Orthodoxy,
it becomes more about proving
you fit in than about being part
of an ongoing conversation.

Our creative community
in Brooklyn was filled as well
with those who jumped between
cleaving to tradition and listening
to the reality on the ground of
what was and wasn’t working
and shifting because of it.

This past year, I moved
far away from everyone who
shared their stories with me
in the last decade. I now live
in Long Beach, California,
outside of an observant Jewish
community. It’s quiet here,
as my husband and I try to
untangle for ourselves how
Jewish practice and belief can
serve us in contributing most
to the world.

One thing has become clear
to us: We need to listen to
the critics, no matter where we
are. Don’t worry about what
the non-Jews will think. Don’t
worry about a “backlash” from
white supremacists or antisem-
ites or other Jews.

Just listen. The future
belongs to those who struggle
and question and search and
shift — and can inspire us to
create a better Jewish world,
if only their stories are taken
seriously. l
Rivka Nehorai is an artist, art
educator and community builder in
Long Beach, California. Her work
can be viewed at rivka.gallery.

KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
One thing has become clear to us: We need to listen to the critics, no
matter where we are. Don’t worry about what the non-Jews will think. Op-ed an Example of Cancel Culture
Don’t worry about a “backlash” from white supremacists or antisemites
I was left aghast when I read the opinion piece penned by Leon
or other Jews.

Malmud (“Ben and Jerry’s Noxious Fuming,” Aug. 5). In that
Yet here was my icon,
Matisyahu — who rose to
fame singing about his faith
and wearing the black hat and
modest suit of a Chasidic Jew
— dancing around in a Santa
suit for his “Miracles” video
with a shot of an immodestly
dressed woman and a guy
dressed up as Antiochus using
the word “babes.” Outraged, I
wrote a blog post imploring the
singer to remember that he was
a “poster child” for a serious,
beautiful and deep people.

A few months later, I ran
into Matisyahu himself in a
random little shul on Shabbat. I
introduced myself after services
and took the quick opportunity
to bless him in coded language
that he should “continue
helping the Jewish world.” He
bowed his head in thanks and I
walked away feeling good about
what I had said.

I understand now that
I was really blessing him to
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM the depth of their insights blew
me away.

I can still hear the haunting,
booming melody of one man
who occasionally came. Born
and raised in a strict Chasidic
sect, he cherished his memories
of singing together with his
father and brothers on Shabbat.

He had chosen to leave that
community because he needed
to search for a truth and a life
beyond it, but he loved Judaism
so fiercely and deeply that I can
cry just thinking about what it
was like to hear him sing.

If I could say one thing to
my outraged self-watching
Matisyahu shift directions 10
years ago, and what I would
say to Orthodox Jews today
who say they are hurt by “My
Unorthodox Life” and any of
the other critical examinations
of the Orthodox world, it is this:
Listen. These
Jewish people
who have “left” and are now
how you can be a part of the
change. I know that many thrive
in Orthodoxy. But the point
isn’t that the system works for
some or even most people. The
point is that when someone
is sharing their story of what
didn’t work for them, it creates
an opportunity to discuss the
change that can be made, from
giving yeshiva students an
adequate secular education to
changing the way homosexu-
ality is viewed.

If those critical of the
Orthodox world are dismissed
as traumatized, mentally
disturbed or bitter, we miss out
on the greatest gift our society
could receive. To become whole.

To become better. To end abuse.

These voices are the checks and
balances for a society.

For the past 20 years, I
classified myself as “Orthodox,”
although I always identified
more as “post-denominational.”
JEWISH EXPONENT
op-ed, the writer demands that his readers disavow all support
for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream because of the company’s willingness
to “suspend their principles when they get in the way of making
money.” Malmud instructs the reader to rethink decisions around
the ice cream one purchases because he takes issue with the
purported inconsistency of former owners Ben Cohen and Jerry
Greenfield in the realms of social justice and climate change,
among many other areas of legitimate global concern.

However, I thought nothing of such things the last time I
purchased a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Neither did many
of my family and friends from various political stripes. Are we
worried about such things in relation to our ice cream? Not quite.

Like many of us, they simply enjoy a good serving of ice cream
from time to time, independent of the company’s stances on the
aforementioned issues.

So why then should we value Malmud’s opinion? I’m not
entirely sure of the answer. But I am certain of one thing: The
op-ed is yet another unfortunate example of “cancel culture” in
today’s society. l
Dan Klein | Wayne
STATEMENT FROM THE PUBLISHER
We are a diverse community. The views expressed in the signed opinion columns and let-
ters to the editor published in the Jewish Exponent are those of the authors. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the officers and boards of the Jewish Publishing
Group, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia or the Jewish Exponent. Send
letters to letters@jewishexponent.com or fax to 215-569-3389. Letters should be a
maximum of 200 words and may be edited for clarity and brevity. Unsigned letters will not be
published. AUGUST 26, 2021
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