H eadlines
Jewish Leaders Discuss Historic MLK Speech
L OCA L
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
DR. MARTIN LUTHER King
Jr. could connect with any
audience, including teenagers.

So said the panelists of
the “26th Annual Greater
Philadelphia Martin Luther
King Day of Service with Global
Citizen360: A Dialogue,” a Jan.

18 webinar about how King’s
words could offer guidance in an
age of unprecedented challenges.

Members of the communities
of Jewish Community Relations
Council of Jewish Federation
of Greater Philadelphia and
PRO-ACT, Philadelphia Recovery
Community Center watched a
video of King’s 1967 speech “What
Is Your Life’s Blueprint?” which
he delivered at Barratt Junior
High School (now Barratt Middle
School) in South Philadelphia,
and shared their thoughts on
the enduring relevance of King’s
legacy to young people.

In his speech, which he
gave six months before he was
assassinated, King told students
how to embrace the values that
would create a moral blueprint
for the rest of their lives. Among
these values were self-respect,
determination and love.

“I think about these things
JCRC and PRO-ACT panelists discuss “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?”
Courtesy of Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
often, specifically as it relates
to being a mother and raising
three young boys,” said panelist
Shelby Zitelman, co-founder of
Soom Foods. She added that
these values were founda-
tional in raising her children
to be mensches who care about
themselves and the people
around them.

King also stressed the
importance of education as the
gateway to economic opportu-
nity, despite the overwhelming
racism and poverty facing
his young audience. Panelist
George Mosee, executive
director of the Philadelphia
A nt i-D r u g /A nt i-V io l e nc e
Network, said he was a student
at Shaw Junior High School,
now Hardy Williams Academy,
just a few miles from Barratt,
when King gave his speech.

“The six, seventh and eighth
grades are critical grades, and
not just in terms of academic
growth and development,
but preparing one for success
in life. And so it was just
wonderful that Dr. King took
the time to visit a junior high
school,” he said.

He added that King’s ideas
could be applied not just to
young people building their lives
but to older adults impacted by
substance abuse and violence.

“It seems to me that Dr.

King gave us a blueprint, and
not just for building a resilient
successful life, but he also gave
us a blueprint for repairing
broken lives,” he said.

Panelist Joshua Runyan, an
attorney and former editor-in-
chief of the Jewish Exponent,
added that King’s message
of instilling self-worth was
key to repairing the world’s
injustices. “Dr. King’s message is that
a person must determine their
own internal truth and realize
who they are individually. You
can’t ultimately contribute to
a collective goal, as in societal
progress, without first realizing
who you are as an individual,”
he said.

Panelist Brother Robb
Carter, co-director of the
Men’s Center for Growth and
Change, reflected on how his
own attitudes about King have
changed throughout his life.

As a teenager watching civil
rights activists get brutalized
by police and white mobs on
television, he was horrified
that King would advocate for
protesters to refrain from physi-
cally defending themselves.

As an adult researching his
legacy, however, he was inspired
by King’s need to balance calls
for personal responsibility with
advocating for societal change.

“I’ve come to appreciate that
he’s one of the most gangster
warriors there is,” he said.

He listened to “What Is
Your Life’s Blueprint?” several
times in the days leading up to
the event.

“Today, hearing it just now,
I was able to just look at his face
and appreciate him as an artist,
as a preacher and as a story-
teller,” he said.

The panel was moderated
by JCRC Director Laura Frank
and Marie Widmeier, coordi-
nator of the Philadelphia office
of PRO-ACT.

Widmeier asked the panel-
ists if Philadelphia’s youth
could still apply King’s ideas
to solving problems in their
own lives and communities.

Mosee said yes, and that young
people needed to be encour-
aged to think about their
moral strength as well as their
academic and financial success,
which are often too heavily
emphasized in schools and
juvenile justice systems at the
expense of moral education.

Runyan thought so, and
shuddered to think of the
alternative. “Because I believe in a benev-
olent God, I can’t imagine the
Almighty would create a world
that does not have the power to
redeem itself,” he said. l
spanzer@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0729
Panel Discusses Ethical Eating, Pandemic
L OCA L
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
WHILE WORKING ON an
essay about Judaic ethics in a
pandemic, Rabbi Jonathan Crane
came across an ancient source
that caught him off guard.

The small vignette in the
Babylonian Talmud spoke of a
great third-century sage who
declared a fast after hearing of
a pestilence spreading among
pigs, maintaining that the
disease could spread to humans
because of similarities between
the two species’ organs.

6 JANUARY 21, 2021
The vignette surprised Crane,
a scholar in bioethics and Jewish
thought at Emory University
Center for Ethics, for several
reasons. “First, there is concern about
the spillover effect of diseases
crossing species long before germ
theory took hold among natural-
ists and scientists in the late 19th
century,” he said. “Second, this
concern about zoonotic diseases
is found in religious resources,
and not in medical or public
health instructions, or in secular
essays on farming.”
Crane spoke about the
ancient sage’s urgent response
to a disease among animals as
part of “Animals, Religion, and
Public Health: An Interfaith
Webinar.” The Jan. 13 virtual
event explored how religious
perspectives could be used to
address the flaws the pandemic
has revealed in the food industry
and to prevent future outbreaks.

Rev. Aline Silva reminded
viewers of the hazardous working
conditions facing workers in
meat processing plants, many of
whom are poor, Black and brown
or immigrants without other
employment options. According
to the Food and Environmental
Reporting Network, more than
JEWISH EXPONENT
Rabbi Jonathan Crane (lower left) discusses Jewish food ethics on the
interfaith panel.
Courtesy of CreatureKind
200 meatpacking workers have between humans and their food.

died of COVID-19 since March.

“We currently rely on a
The panelists agreed that system that works based on
grave humanitarian and animal distancing and concealment,”
welfare concerns emerged
because of the disconnect
See Ethical, Page 19
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