Search for Meaning with Amanda Berman

Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback welcomes back civil rights attorney and Zioness founder Amanda Berman for her second appearance on Search for Meaning. Recorded days after Tisha B'Av, the conversation opens with the atmosphere in New York following Mayor Mamdani's video calling Prime Minister Netanyahu a war criminal, the mayor's Tisha B'Av statement, and a stabbing on the Upper West Side — and what it feels like, right now, to be a visible Jewish activist in the city.

From there, Amanda unpacks the framework she's spent years refining: the distinct categories of Jews, Judaism, Israel, and Zionism, and why collapsing them into one another fuels both antisemitism and bad-faith political attacks — including on committed Zionists like Rahm Emanuel. She makes the case against binary language like "pro-Israel" and "anti-Israel," and argues for why Zionism still matters as a living movement even 78 years after Israeli statehood.

The second half turns to hope: the Black-Jewish coalition work Amanda has built alongside Rabbi Zweiback and Bishop Michael Fisher, including their trip to Israel timed to the Ethiopian holiday of Sigd, the "wedge issues" that complicate Black-Jewish solidarity today, and what real, non-transactional coalition-building actually requires.

Learn more or get involved at zioness.org.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

When I call myself a Zionist, it is really to me the core of my Jewish identity and my Jewish being is that connection not only to where we're from, but to each other. Whether we are living in Zion, in Israel or not, Zion is the thing that, you know, that binds us together.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Welcome to Search for Meaning. I'm Yoshi Zweibek. Thanks so much for joining me. My guest today is a dear friend and someone who inspires me. And full disclosure, I serve on the board of her nonprofit, Zion S. You're gonna really love this conversation. It's the second time I've had Amanda on the podcast, and it's just an honor to have her back. She's a civil rights lawyer, she's an activist, founder of Zion S and just an all-around extraordinary person. And one of the things you'll hear about is some of the work that we've been doing together. But what I really wanted to do was focus in on where Amanda is right now. But first of all, Amanda, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Thank you. What an honor to be back on Search for Meaning.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Well, I'm in Los Angeles right now. You're in New York, and we're recording this just a few days after Tishaba of the saddest day traditionally in the Jewish year. And something extraordinary, not really surprising, but extraordinary happened this year. The mayor of the uh city in the United States with the largest Jewish population, and actually perhaps the largest Jewish population in the world, right outside of Tel Aviv, puts out a video calling the sitting prime minister of Israel a war criminal, and then later admits he he'd like to arrest him, but he can't. And then on Tisha Baav, the mayor puts out this peaceful holiday message, which actually inadvertently sort of acknowledges that the Jewish people have a historic tie to the land of Israel because he he mentions the destruction of the first and second temples. And then that same day on Tisha Baav, there's a stabbing on the upper west side. Still not clear 100% what happened, but there are reports that the stabber shouted out Alahu Akbar in Arabic, and now the prime minister is firing back. And it is a uh it is a challenge and a difficult moment. And I'm just wondering for you, as a Zionist activist, how is it to be in New York City right now? What's the mood?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

It's really a hard time. Not that you need me to tell you that. I think Jews in New York, and I know in LA too. I mean, it's coast to coast and everywhere in between right now that um American Jews are really asking questions about not just their political and ideological home, but their physical home, like whether we are going to continue to be safe here. And I know that those conversations for people who don't know us, and even sometimes people inside our community, those conversations can feel really dramatic. Like, you know, there's a perception, again, even inside our own community, that we're a very privileged group, that, you know, there would be no reason whatsoever for us to feel afraid here, that we control the institutions, et cetera, et cetera. And that, of course, is not how we are feeling in the moment. It's really, it's a sort of gaslighting. Now, it obviously is a complicated reality because American Jews are living in a real golden age of Jewish life. I mean, we're living for the last century in a world where there is a Jewish state, where we have reclaimed our sovereignty in our ancestral homeland and where democracies have flourished, particularly the United States, where, you know, Jews have really been able to succeed and advance and build and um to assimilate in a lot of ways and to really achieve the American dream in so many ways. And so, you know, we're trying to carry a lot of tension in that, but also knowing in a really, I think, epigenetic way that what is happening right now, you can't really unwind the clock on what is being unleashed, what is being normalized, the language from the highest levels. And by the way, it is a left wing and a right wing problem. And so, you know, I think there are a lot of questions that people are asking right now, a lot of feelings that people are having. And I went on the subway this morning with my Jewish star necklace and my State of Israel necklace and my high. And it was the first time I actually thought about it. I'm never taking them off, but I know that lots of people are tucking them in or taking them off or are actually genuinely afraid to go outside. And that's that's a sea change moment, as you said, in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Yeah, I had a powerful experience this last Friday night. We had our every year now for the last uh 10 or 11 years, once every summer we have Shabbat at the beach. And it's so beautiful overlooking the Pacific Ocean. And, you know, in the wake of Bandai Beach in Australia, in the wake of so many other attacks on Jews around the world, we go to the beach, we have three armed guards there, and they're wearing body armor, and it's crazy, right? And but this year was different for me because where I was standing leading the service, I have my back to the ocean, so everybody gets to see the ocean behind me. And I'm looking up this little hill, and every time someone comes over the hill, just walking down to the beach, I'm thinking, what if this person wants to harm us? What if this person pulled a gun out? What would I say? And then across behind us and over to the side, there are apartment buildings and there are balconies. And I'm thinking, you know, what if someone came out on their balcony with a long gun? It's crazy. This is not how we should be thinking. And then on the other hand, I wonder if, no, that's actually how Jews have probably always thought, at least for the last couple of thousand years, and we kind of lulled ourselves into or were lulled into this moment where we stopped thinking about it. Do you think that that's all a setup to this question about the golden age? You know, some people have written about, and and certainly there was the article, I think it was in The Atlantic, the Franklin Foyer article about the golden age coming to an end. Where do you stand on that? Do you feel like that is uh over overstated? Was the golden age ever really that golden? What do you think about this moment that we're in right now?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

I do think that it was a real golden age and maybe even continues to be a real golden age in many ways. And that's both relative to Jewish history, right? The last 2,000 years, we've been stateless, powerless, living at the whim of countries and societies that always had us at the margins, enslaved us, murdered us, you know, tortured, raped, brutalized in every way Jews. So there are so many different, again, elements and and different ways of thinking about and looking at where we are sitting in society today. And I just don't know that it's possible to diagnose which elements are having the most impact. I really do think it's sort of a toxic brew where society is falling, right? Like we're when anti-Semitism is used. You mentioned the mayor of New York in his really propaganda video last week about Prime Minister Netanyahu. I won't speak for you, but I'll say I have no love lost for Israel's prime minister. And I think he should be in jail, frankly, in Israel, because I think he, you know, should be front tried and, you know, and and the prosecution should be finished because of the ostensible crimes that he potentially committed in Israel. So that's where I think that, you know, he should face a court of law. But the idea that New York's governor would be constantly invoking Israel and constantly talking about Israel and Israel's leadership instead of governing New York is a symbol of his inability to actually govern New York. Because when leaders invoke Jews and Israel, when it's not relevant to the discussion, it's a distraction from the real work that's supposed to happen. And there's really just no reason why the mayor of New York should ever be talking about any foreign policy issues. They're not relevant to his job here, which, you know, as you well know, he ran on really important issues. And I think he won because people believed that he was going to address the most extreme wealth gap in any major city in the United States. There is significant poverty here. There is significant hunger, child hunger, houselessness. There are, you know, healthcare needs and immigrant justice issues, ISIS coming here and rounding up innocent people. Like there are so many things. Crime is up. People don't feel safe in their communities. So there are so many things that the mayor is supposed to be focused on. And when you look at the outside's attention that he spends on Israel and everything surrounding Israel, it really should be an indication to people that his goal is not to actually address, you know, inequality in New York City or to really upgrade the quality of life for the people that he represents.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, absolutely. I have two daughters living in New York. And on my last visit, what I kept thinking about was like piles and piles of trash everywhere. I was like, uh, and I lived in New York a long time ago, so I'd seen that before. But I just got back from a visit to Tokyo, which is uh a city with a larger population than New York, and I didn't see any trash piled anywhere. In fact, I almost saw no trash, period. So that's the kind of thing that I would want my mayor to be focused on. Also, rats in the subway. Don't forget those big rats.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Saw one this morning.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

I don't like it. I think we really see something about that. But what what we saw, um, you probably saw yesterday, I think maybe it was yesterday, maybe it was the day before, the mayor of London kind of pulling the page from uh Mayor Mobdhani's playbook and basically gave the same speech. And uh I think that's the other thing that's really dangerous and insidious about this, is that when people see this, they say, ah, okay, let's see if we can play that out in other places. So it has these ripple effects. And as you said, instead of focused, focusing on governing the city and all the complications that accompany that. I mean, it's a big job, and I can only imagine how difficult a job it is. Uh, why not just dive in on that? But I wanted to then back up a little bit because I've heard you talk about this before, and we've spoken about this together, and I want to focus in on that a little bit because I think it's really, really important. Different categories of the way we think about Jewish identity, the way others think about us. So I want to look at words like Zionism, Israel, Jews, Judaism, and ask you to kind of unpack that because I think it's really helpful. A lot of our listeners probably think they know what those words mean and certainly probably do know what a lot of those words mean. But thinking about the way they relate to one another and the interplay between them and how complicated that becomes, especially when we're in a moment where someone like Mayor Mamdani can get up and say what he said and couch the whole thing as, no, no, I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm not even anti-Israel. It's just this one person who I find noisome and offensive. And so I'm focusing my energy on him. But of course, how does the listener hear it? And what I see happen is that it the categories collapse and it just becomes Jews. So I'd love you to talk about those categories of Zionism, Israel, Jews, and Judaism and help us understand why those distinctions are so important.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

First of all, I I run trainings you may have been on for Zionist activists, and we have a slide that has it's called the definition slide, and it says Jews, Israel, Zionism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism. I forget the order, but it's those five words. And the the title is defining terms. And every time I get to that slide in the presentation, I'm like, I know this sounds really crazy that I'm gonna define Jews for you, but just bear with me because I actually think it's really important because most people in the world don't know what a Jew is. So who are Jews, right? Like that's a question that a lot of people can't answer. A lot of people don't know Jews. We make up 2% of the population of America and 0.2%, one fifth of 1% of the population of the world. So most people in the world have never met a Jew before, but of course they have met an anti-Jewish idea or a trope that is baked into their society. So they're already prone to believing something about Jews that is a dangerous preconception. So a lot of people believe that Jews are just a religious group and that, you know, everything about being Jewish is wrapped up in Judaism, in the faith tradition, which, you know, is a complicated thing because Jews are actually an ethno-religion and Jews are a tribe, and Jews, as we know, don't fit into any of the boxes or categories of contemporary identity. And Jews um are genetically tied to our indigenous homeland and the land of Israel, other than Jews who convert in, who choose to be Jewish. If you do a DNA test as a Jew, it will say you are a Jew. And so when people say it's just a faith tradition, it's just a religion, then they think that anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism is sort of the disruption of your worship, right? If if you say, I don't want you to pray on Shabbat, I'm offended by the Shema, then people think that that's the only anti-Semitism in the world. And then they're able to excuse things like, you know, accusing Jews of being genocidal baby killers, for example, because they're not able to connect that in any way to a faith tradition or or you know the way that a Jew practices their religion.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

The point is very critical to the conversation because Judaism is not like Christianity in the sense that if you say I'm a Christian, but Christ has no meaning to me and is not part of my life, then the response is, well, you're not you're not a Christian. Maybe you once were, maybe you're just confused. But to be Christian means that you accept Christ as your personal savior. But you can be a Jew and be an apostate. You can be a Jew and be a heretic. You're still a Jew. And that's something that is not the case of every other religious tradition. In fact, it's really not the case of almost any other religious tradition. So I understand why people get confused in the categories, but it's so important because, as you said, it is much bigger than a religious tradition.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yeah. Um, and you know, it's so core to an identity, our Judaism. So even those of us like me who don't practice or worship frequently, um, we're raised in a Jewish tradition. We have Jewish cultural traditions and practices. We, you know, we sing certain songs. You can go to India or Japan or to Mexico or Argentina and walk into a synagogue and you know the same tunes and you sing the same songs. I mean, you are so connected to your tribe. And it's because we're such a small people, but also because we really have done, I think, an incredible job over these thousands of years of statelessness, of maintaining our traditions and even bringing in new traditions. And of course, you know, when people when anti-Semites throughout history, I hate to, you know, use them as a way of defining ourselves, because of course we define ourselves and we know who we are and what we believe in, where we come from and what our practices and traditions are. But they've always found the people who want to harm Jews have always found different ways to define who they think we are in order to fit us into the categories that are worthy of persecution. And where I think we've collapsed the category specifically between anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Israel sentiment. And we just have been, I think, collectively, and again, I don't mean this about as blame, but I do think, again, the precision of language really matters here, that we need to a take people in good faith. And if they're asking hard questions or even questions that make us uncomfortable, or even questions that are actually anti-activating an anti-Semitic trope, we should assume that they are not trying to be bigots, that they are not trying to harm us, that they genuinely don't know and don't understand, you know, what these categories are. And so it's up to us to do a better job of defining them. I think where I want to go with this is to really beg, urge people not to throw around the label anti-Israel or anti-Zionist, unless someone really does want to dismantle the borders or roll back the Jewish people's liberation movement to undo the success of what I think is one of the most inspiring progressive movements in human history, a movement to achieve, again, self-determination and safety and freedom and sovereignty for one of the world's most enduring persecuted minority communities. Real progressives have to see that as an extraordinary, um, not just progressive movement, but the most successful decolonial movement in human history, the expulsion of the British imperial forces and the return of the indigenous people to their homeland. So it's really an extraordinary thing. And that doesn't excuse any kind of political challenges or bad behavior by the Israeli government. But if we're not distinguishing legitimate criticism, concern, critique, including criticism, concern, critique that makes us really uncomfortable or that we feel goes too far, or that we feel is dangerous, even if we're not engaging it, then we're actually pushing people away. And we just don't have the luxury of that, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

But I think the the point that it becomes then also sort of a binary where we say, okay, now that we've labeled you this, then that that is indeed what you are. That is very problematic. So obviously, the distinction between you know critiquing a government policy or questioning whether a war crime has been committed, questioning whether ethnic cleansing has happened, all of those things does not make someone necessarily anti-Israel, although, of course, sometimes they do come together. And I think a great example of that, we spoke about this offline, is Rahm Emanuel, who uh has criticized Israel and uh gave an important speech in Tel Aviv, I think now two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, um, and is also very clearly a Zionist and has been his entire life. His father was born in Israel, uh, which is not in and of itself proof of one being a Zionist, but uh and his middle name is actually Israel. And but if you look at his track record as an individual, as a politician, he's quite clearly a Zionist. But then because he was criticizing the Netanyahu government, because he um offered critique of certain policies, there were Jews who labeled him as anti-Zionist. So maybe let's just use that as sort of a case study and also help us understand why that is so problematic in terms of political discourse, in terms of Jewish community, in terms of these categories.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

You know, Rahmanuel, I think to your point, is quintessentially a Zionist. He actually volunteered in the IDF when he was young. It's very clear in the way that he talks about Israel that he cares deeply about Israel's future. And one of the things that I kept thinking when I was listening to his speech is okay, there's an area of policy disagreement that I have with him, but I feel genuinely that it is coming from a place of love and care and concern. So the thing about Rahm Emanuel and his speech that, you know, I was really struck by was that he laid down what I thought were guardrails for the conversation for the 2028 Democratic presidential primary that are gonna require everyone who jumps into the race to orbit around him. And he did it at a time that Congress was voting. You had an unprecedented number of Democratic Party elected officials in Congress voting almost half of the Democratic caucus, voting to end all USAID to Israel, including people who love Israel voting that way because, you know, according to them, because they wanted to send a message that they're fed up with the Israeli government and the American government. Of course, we could critique that justification. But what Rahm Emanuel, I think, was trying to do was again set these guardrails that require other people to react and respond to. And that to me is actually as pro-Israel as it gets. Again, you can critique any of the individual things that he said. And he said some specific things, some of them that I thought were amazing about the qualitative military edge being preserved, about, you know, the 23-state solution or 22-state solution. I don't know if it's plausible or feasible, but I do know that I don't hear a lot of people, you know, anywhere politically identifying the failures of the Arab world to actually take responsibility for Palestinian suffering. That's not a conversation that I hear people having in general. It's all blaming Israel all the time. So I think he's introducing a new way of talking about that that actually puts responsibility and onus on, again, the 22 states of the Arab League to actually get involved and and, you know, to end their own rejectionism of Israel such that the Palestinians can self-determine as well. So again, lots that you could critique in his speech, lots that I think you can like in his speech, but to call it anti-Israel because you have critique to me is not just insane. It's really dangerous. It's doing the work of the people who want us to collapse the categories because they want anyone who has critique of this Israeli government to actually consider themselves anti-Israel. And we're falling for that trap. And it it pains me so much. And I wish we wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

I want to ask a question about Zionism. And then we have to get to the work that we're doing together because so much of what we've talked about is important uh but also painful. And it feels like, oh, if we just live in this, you know, how are we going to get up in the morning and do the important thing? Work we need to do. But one last question about categories. And it's one you and I have spoken about, and I've spoken to some colleagues and friends about this as well. You know, Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people and our return to sovereignty in our indigenous, in our land of indigenity. Now, 78 years in, the state exists. We have returned, notwithstanding all of the challenges it faces, both external and internal, in many ways, it is objectively flourishing. Again, notwithstanding all of the challenges, and they are considerable. It is uh not just objectively flourishing, but it certainly exists. And so you could say if the movement was designed to create this entity, and now the entity has been created, what do we still need Zionism for? So help us understand why we do still need Zionism and what it means today when we've experienced in some ways liberation.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

I am, as you know, an activist in lots of different ways. And I'm a feminist. And in 1920, women got the right to vote. We got suffrage, mostly white women. Took some time for other groups to, you know, have voting rights protection. But we started with success in the suffrage movement more than a century ago. 1973, Roe versus Wade is passed, and abortion is protected in all 50 states. And people said, okay, maybe the feminist movement is over, right? Like maybe all these gains have achieved so much, and maybe we don't need to call ourselves feminists anymore. And then, you know, there were all these attacks on feminists, and they were bra burners, and they were, you know, trying to destroy society and they wanted to usurp the rights and powers of men and all of these things. Well, now it's 2026 and abortion access is eroded. You know, there are 14 states that have passed total abortion bans. Congress is now passing legislation that is gonna stop millions of women from voting, where, you know, their their birth certificate or their driver's license is gonna have a different last name than what's on the voting rules, and you know, they're not gonna be able to vote. So the idea that just because something is achieved or succeeded, or you know, that that some um goal of your movement is achieved, that your movement ends. I mean, look at racial justice movements. And we we did a post together for Juneteenth, and we talked about how long it took for the words to get to Galveston, Texas, even though the Emancipation Proclamation had happened two and a half years before, people didn't even know that they were free. And then they still weren't free because then they had a century of Jim Crow. And then, right, voting rights and the Civil Rights Act passed, and those are under threat. And now there's all this gerrymandering that's working to dismantle black political representation. So there's no such thing as succeeding to the point that you stop fighting. Unfortunately, the world is always going to try to roll back your rights. And when it comes to the Jewish people, you know, we've learned this lesson, I think, over and over again throughout history, for a much longer period of time than the domestic justice movements that I just mentioned. We know that people will always be trying to dismantle our rights and our freedoms and our ability to protect and secure our own future. And so, to me, the idea that we would stop calling ourselves Zionists is a sort of submission to a world that that has perverted that word for a much longer period of time than the state has existed. And so again, I hate to use the anti-Semites as a way of defining us, and I don't mean to do it this way. But when I hear people saying, for example, we should stop using the word Zionism or Zionist, it pulls badly, it's badly received, people think it means all these horrible things. We're making, you know, we're getting no points when we use it. And again, we've achieved it already. So what are we doing calling ourselves that? I would like to remind them that the ideas that actually were at the foundation of Mein Kampf, of the rise of Nazism, were outlined in a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It wasn't the Jews, it wasn't, you know, the international Jews, though, you know, that of course did exist here in the US with Henry Ford, but it was the protocols of the elders of Zion that baked the ideas into first Europe and then, you know, societies all around the world, that there was some global Jewish plot to dominate the world for our personal gain and to oppress everyone else. It was the elders of Zion that were illustrated with all of the classical anti-Semitic tropes that we now know lead to the murder of Jews. So even when the Zionist movement hasn't succeeded, we are going to be demonized as Zionists. And if God forbid the Zionist movement were rolled back and our sovereignty were ever actually dismantled, God forbid. They would continue to call us Zionists, right? It's not about 67, it's not about settlements. I got plenty of critiques of settlement policy and settler behavior that has nothing to do with Zionism. And so, you know, understanding, you know, Theodore Herzl didn't actually come up with the word Zionism. We often credit him as the father of modern political Zionism, which of course he was, but he took the word from another European intellectual a couple of decades before him, Nathan Birnbaum, who I really need to memorize Nathan Birnbaum's quote. But basically he said, we should call our liberation movement Zionism because it relates to our whole history, our peoplehood, the story of who we are and where we come from and how we pray. And, you know, and and we we pray in the direction of Zion. We long to return to Zion. We break a glass to commemorate the destruction of the second temple at every wedding. We say next year in Jerusalem from all over the world, right? Where it's Zion and Zionism were the thing that connected the Jewish people and the diaspora for thousands of years. So the idea that we abandon that part of our history, I mean, we are the people of Zion. We are born at Mount Zion. You cannot extricate Zion from Jewish identity, Jewish faith, culture, peoplehood, tradition, history, any of it. And so that to me, when I call myself a Zionist, you know, going back to what we were talking about earlier, how you can be a Jew who doesn't practice Jewish faith or religion, but you really can't be a Jew that extricates Zionism. And certainly there are Jews who try, but they gotta make new prayer books. They make new Haganas for Passover because you cannot take Zion out of the story of the Jewish people. You cannot take Zion out of Hanukkah, you cannot take it out of Rosh Hashanah or Yom Gippur. They keep trying. It doesn't work. We make jokes about it. So, you know, it's when I call myself a Zionist, it is really to me the core of my Jewish identity and my Jewish being is that connection, not only to where we're from, but to each other. Whether we are living in Zion, in Israel or not, Zion is the thing that, you know, that binds us together. And so to me, like abandoning it is just so unacceptable of a conversation. Under no circumstances will I ever submit to a world telling me I'm not allowed to be a Zionist, because if I'm not allowed to be a Zionist today, I'm not gonna be allowed to be a Jew tomorrow. And I'm both. I'm a Jew, I'm a Zionist, to me, they're inextricable. And um, I just I absolutely refuse to abandon that word or that identity.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

I want to focus on, so thank you. I want to focus on our work together, specifically uh the work that we've been doing around Black Jewish coalitions. And some people on listening to the podcast have heard me speak about this in the past. And I've shared from Arbima with you and with our partner, Bishop Michael Fisher, reflections from the experience, the extraordinary experience we had last November 2025, where we had this unbelievable trip to Israel together. And we've had now two Exodus Freedom Saters, and we've had a lot of Tikuno Lum social justice opportunities where we've come together and worked with members of these different communities and coalitions, the Zionist community, Greater Zion Church Family here in Compton, Stephen Wise Temple, and in Atlanta in late August of this year, we're trying to make this bigger and more of a national coalition, bringing together uh black pastors and rabbis and other leaders from all over the country together in Khavrutta, in in partnership. And so it's been such an important and exciting thing for me to be a part of. And I'd love you to tell our listeners a little bit about why this work matters so much to you, both as a civil rights attorney, as a Jewish woman, as as the executive director and founder of Zion S. Why is this specific work in Black Jewish coalition? And of course, remembering that these aren't two separate communities, but there's also the intersecting the intersection of the Black Jewish community where there are black Jews in the world, Jews of color who are part of this conversation. But love to hear your perspective about why this work matters and maybe a little bit about what we're trying to accomplish.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

It's some of my favorite work that I've done since the beginning of Zion S is this partnership and the racial equity work that we've been committed to the Zaha Fellowship for Black Jewish Zionists that we run at Zion S that has really helped me build a network of extraordinary Black Jewish leaders who have helped me navigate hard conversations about race and racism and the Jewish experience and the black American experience and certainly the experience of Black Jews. And, you know, I think there's obviously a deeper level of knowing that really it's almost cliche at this point to say it, but like none of us are free until we're all free, and that's actually true. And when there is persecution targeting any community, it is targeting all of us. And we know that as Jews, right? That people love to say that we're the canaries in the coal mine, but really we're not always. There are lots of communities that are targeted and scapegoated, and we are among those communities for sure. And sometimes we are first and sometimes we are last, and sometimes we experience at the brunt of it, but not always. And when we are in coalition and partnership with other communities that are also experiencing that kind of scapegoating, that kind of hate, um, it strengthens all of us. And, you know, we talk so much in our community about our the relationship between our universalism and our particularism. And the particularism is the Zionism, is the part we've been talking so much about, the specific particular needs of the Jewish people, of Jewish life, of a safe Jewish future, of Jewish freedom, and you know, our ability to define what our lives look like in a world that has always shown such apathy to us and to our needs. Um, and I'm very proud to care so deeply about the particular needs of our community. But we also have this universalism. We also have this commitment to repair the world. And I think we also, too many in our community, throw around sikunolam in ways that don't really mean. But I think when you get to live at the intersection of the particularism and the universalism, you actually see why these are sort of twin Jewish mandates. And making sure, you know, Theodore Herzl always talked about Zionism being a model of progressive liberation movement for us that could then have lessons for us in the fight for other people's liberation and other people's freedom. So, you know, it's not just I again, those things kind of feel like a cliche sometimes when we talk about them. They really are real. It really is true that there is such a core relationship between, you know, xenophobia, anti-blackness, and anti-Semitism, along with white supremacy and white nationalism in America. If you look at, you know, the attack against the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, you see a xenophobic anti-immigrant person who was targeting the tree of life because Hayas was housed there, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which works to um address refugee displacement. So, you know, he was targeting a Jewish institution because of his xenophobic hate toward immigrants and refugees. And if you look at the shooting at, you know, the Mother Emmanuel Church in South Carolina, you see someone with neo-Nazi fascist white supremacist ideology and really spouting his hatred of Jews before he went and shot up a black church. Um, same thing with the the grocery store in Buffalo, New York, where 11 um black people who are shopping in a grocery store were killed by someone with an anti-Semitic manifesto who believed that Jews were essentially orchestrating a replacement of white society by uplifting and advancing racial justice and equity. So there are really deep connections between the persecution that our communities face and experience. And if we are not fighting them together, we are fighting them alone. And we know that we are losing when we are fighting alone. And then, of course, it's it's core to who we are as Jews to care deeply and to work to repair the world. Um, but beyond the really deep need, this sort of intellectual understanding of the movements that you know harm and oppose us, um, and you know, what I believe our mandate is as the Jewish people on this earth, putting that aside, when you meet someone like Bishop Michael Fisher, who I was so privileged that you introduced me to and, you know, helped build that connection. And for the three of us to be able to build this partnership together, you just don't say no. I mean, he you meet some people sometimes, if you're lucky enough, who you know are going to change the world, who you know are going to do good, who just are light, who bring light and who you want to be part of what they're doing because it really feels like humanity is better when you are in partnership with this person. And that's Bishop Fisher. And so, you know, and with in partnership with you also. I think like the three of us have been able to build something incredible. We all have different vision, different, you know, lanes, different ways of thinking about the challenges that we're trying to solve and who we're representing. But they it came together so seamlessly. And again, I think that's super rare. And to be able to have this kind of partnership, like you want to build on it. You want more people to get to experience it. You want to scale it, you want to see what you can do. I mean, it's especially for people like us who are doers, right? Who are leading again different constituencies, but with the same goal of actually advancing our people and advancing our society. Um, it's just such a gift. So it's why it's important is because it's something that brings me hope in such a painful dark time, and something that I feel really privileged to get to do alongside both of you.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

And it's been so much fun when I think about some of the moments that we shared in Israel together, just such joy and excitement, including the time we were, you know, Zion is an actual place. Hartsion is um a little a little mountaintop in Jerusalem. And we got to be there together and went together to what's known in Christian tradition as the upper room, which is the site according to tradition of the Last Supper. And we just saw such an extraordinary and heartfelt um spiritual moment and other just beautiful moments. That time when we were on the Galilee with the sun setting, and the group broke into song, and it was just like, wow, uh, you know, goosebumps. So we got to experience some some really powerful and beautiful moments. And part of what I love about what we tried to accomplish together on this trip, and hopefully it's something we'll be able to do again with other groups of folks, is uh really inviting people who were really on the fence about a lot of these issues that we talked about in the earlier part of our conversation, Zionism, and what does it mean to be pro-Israel or anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian? And to be able to witness in real time the questions that were being asked, moments where people are like, wait a second, you know, this is this is not apartheid. It doesn't mean it's not complicated, but my goodness, uh, and then culminating with the SIG, where we got to be in the presence of not hundreds but thousands of members of Beita Israel, the Ethiopian Jewish community. And for our group from America, which included um 18 black Christians and two black Jews, to see thousands and thousands of black Jews together and then see the president of Israel coming to address the group, you know, and and police forces there to protect that group, you realize, like, whoa, this is not the story that we've been told in, you know, in so many other settings. So I think that was just so powerful and beautiful. What uh what I'm conscious of our time, so I just have a couple more questions for you. But one of the things that you and I are going to be speaking with Pastor, with Bishop Fisher about when we're uh together in Atlanta at the end of August are some of the wedge issues that are sometimes issues that make our relationships globally. Obviously, there's the individual relationships, but sort of the global communal relationships of the black community, the Jewish community, the black Jewish community. Not that any of these are monoliths, of course they're not, but there are certain issues that have become challenging issues for our communities to navigate. And maybe you could just focus on one of them again, so our listeners understand that when Jews who might be listening say, well, you know, we marched together in the 1960s, and how come, you know, today, X, Y, or Z, you fill in the blank? And that's something that to a casual observer or to someone who's maybe not dialed into this quite as much or not thinking about this quite as regularly and deeply, that might seem like a very reasonable question to ask. But when you really start peeling back the layers and say, hey, wait a second, you know, first of all, did you march with Martin Luther King Jr. yourself? Like personally, were you there? And by the way, you know, that was a long time ago. That was uh, we're talking closing it on 60 years ago. So I'd love you to talk about some of those wedge issues and why it is, perhaps, again, not uh to to diagnose the the challenges in its entirety, but to give us a sense of why it is that this partnership that uh was so strong and existed for so many decades is uh has frayed in certain ways and is challenged today in ways that perhaps it it wasn't 30, 40, 50 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

I would say a few things. First of all, uh the partnership was extraordinary and it was a two-way street. There are HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities, that got visas for European intellectuals who were fleeing the Nazis and couldn't get jobs anywhere to come and teach at HBCUs. There was uh an incredible outsized presence of civil rights leaders in the fight for Soviet Jewry for the protection of the Jews of Russia who were being oppressed, the Soviet Union. There has been a real focus inside our community, and my friend Professor Mark Dollinger would call it a historiography, our story of our history, and everyone should read his book, Black Power Jewish Politics, of what we did. And I again I'm not saying it with blame. It is actually what we learn and what we are taught inside our Jewish institutions and and our Hebrew schools and our Jewish life. And I genuinely believe that it comes from a place of pride that we know that fighting for voting rights and for uh for civil rights and for freedom and opportunity and safety for black Americans was being on the right side of history. And so we love to talk about the Jews who participated in those movements. And we should be extremely proud of them because they were incredible, courageous, heroic leaders who did something that was completely outside the norm in the way that they showed up. So we should, in my opinion, talk about them in a way that demonstrates our commitment to continuing their legacy for the same reason when we just talked about why I still call myself a Zionist, even though Israel is here, and all of the rights that are ruled back even when you think they're secured. I mean, the Voting Rights Act was one of the things that that Dr. King marched for and died for, frankly. And it is being gutted by the minute in today's America. And we're gonna now have a uh an election in November where, as I said, black political participation is being eroded systematically and intentionally by people who have argued essentially that the Voting Rights Act shouldn't be in place anymore and shouldn't protect Black voters. So the fact that there were Jews, again, extraordinary Jews who participated in the civil rights movement should inspire us to continue that work. But when I hear, as you've heard me complain about, unfortunately, one too many times, when I hear people say we were there for them and they're not there for us, and by the way, that's not always referencing the black American community, though it is, I think, too frequently. My question to exactly your point is who's we and who's they? We were there with that. Like, who's we were you? Exactly. Your question. Like, what when you say we, you mean some Jews? Maybe somewhere, someone in your family knew them, but probably not. Like, what is who is we collectively? Do Feel that we are owed something because of that, or do you feel that that is a model for our mandate of how we're supposed to show up in the world? And beyond that, solidarity really is not transactional. And that's another thing that sounds cliche sometimes, but it just doesn't work like that. Solidarity is difficult and challenging, especially when you are coming from communities that are being pitted against each other. But it happens when you are in genuine relationship with one another. And pointing at a community or a group of people and saying, you should be there for me when you don't know them is not likely to result in them responding and saying, You're right, I owe you something, because they don't, that's not how human beings work. It's just, it's a terrible strategy. And so again, I think we should celebrate the history of this partnership and the extraordinary impact it had on American progress and American democracy, where rights were expanded and more people were protected and more people had access to what we say is the American dream. That is amazing. Now let's keep fighting for it because rights are being ruled back by the minute right now. And expecting someone to show up for you when you're not in the spaces where you're going to build organic relationships and people are actually going to understand your pain, it's not likely to result in the thing that you want it to result in. And so unfortunately, a lot of times when I hear people saying that, it's people who actually aren't really in deep relationship with people outside of our community. And again, I want to reiterate for like the 10th time that it's not bleam. It is really hard right now to be in a relationship outside of our community. We are feeling so attacked by the world and so alone. And it is really difficult sometimes. Sometimes you just want to be in a safe space surrounded by people who get what you're feeling and the loneliness and the pain. But if you're not in relationship with other people, I don't think that you should expect something of them. And I'm going to give a really specific and quick example of a conversation that happened last week with a friend, a black leader from Philadelphia, who will be with us in Atlanta. And it was the day after Lindsey Graham, Senator Lindsey Graham, unfortunately, was found deceased. And he shared that it was painful for members of his community to see Jews Lionizing Senator Graham, who a lot of people in the Black community perceive as having worked to erode civil rights and racial justice, and, you know, voted the wrong way on issues that are of real importance to the Black community and to their safety and freedom and opportunity in this country. And I hadn't thought about that, though I think about similar things, but I hadn't thought specifically about the way that Jews were speaking about Lindsey Graham because he was deeply committed to Jewish safety, to fighting for our community, to Israel. I mean, one of the most stalwart supporters of Israel anywhere in American political leadership. And so I understand why people feel that losing him is really uh is really painful for our community, especially in a time of such vulnerability. And that's a real thing. That is a real, that is a hard thing to navigate. And one of the things that came up in our conversation was, you know, I said it reminds me of how a lot of Jews feel when they see a black leader uplifting Louis Farrakhan. And I struggle with that because most people in the black community that I know who have ever said a nice word about Louis Farrakhan are responding to the fact that what the Nation of Islam has done inside jails, creating pipelines for education and for opportunity and for jobs for people who are not gonna have any opportunities after being released from prison, who, you know, the nation of Islam has done actually incredible work in minimizing recidivism and creating opportunities for people. And so that is an objectively good thing for a community that is suffering from such disproportionate mass incarceration. So we have to be able to say like there are people who are doing one good thing and a lot of really bad things, and we want to celebrate those good things without being accused of, you know, supporting the bad things because that's not how human beings work. And we should all do better at making sure that people who fight for one of our communities do a better job of standing up for another community. It would have been really interesting, I think, if I had known the way that the Black community experienced Lindsey Graham as one specific person. I didn't have a relationship with Lindsey Graham, but certainly many, many Jews did. And wouldn't it have been interesting if we had gone to lobby him together on civil rights legislation and said, you've been such an incredible ally to our community. And the way that black civil rights are being rolled back, we believe is a danger, actually, to all of us. And we want to come to you together and say, we really hope you'll vote differently on this. That's what solidarity looks like. It doesn't mean canceling people, it doesn't mean claiming that anyone who uplifts a leader that you don't like is a bigot or subscribes to that leader's bigotry. It means people are complicated and they have, you know, they contain multitudes, and you can like one thing about someone and oppose another thing about someone and work to engage and interact to try to help everyone be a little bit better.

SPEAKER_00 49:14

Well, I really appreciate that. And like everything else you've shared today and in every interaction I've had with you, it's very nuanced and um and I think just really helpful. What I want to close with is giving you an opportunity to help us understand ways that we can partner better with you. Uh, we'll put in the episode notes a link to Zion S.org. But I know that there are lots and lots of different things that Zion S is working on to try to build coalitions, to try to advocate for uh what Zionism really stands for and help people understand that on an education level, but also, you know, grassroots organizing and really connecting people. What are some things that we could be doing to be your partner in any of these areas of your work?

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Thanks for asking that. So people can sign up for our email list at Zion S.org. There's also a link on our website to join our Slack space, which we just launched, and is going to be our new digital organizing hub. So there's gonna be a way to do racial justice organizing through the Zion Slack with other people, either in your community or around the country. There are gonna be places to do climate equity work and immigrant justice work and reproductive freedom work. So, you know, all the work that we've been doing, we're now kind of relocating to this digital hub, it's just gonna make it easier for people to connect with each other. And there's also a space in there for, I forget what the team called it, but just, you know, general, like you see something interesting, you want to engage, you wanna, and you can sort of create your own conversation in Slack. So it's pretty cool. We run regular trainings, which people can check out the agenda for at zionus.org/slash events, where we help people navigate the hard conversations, similar to, you know, the way that you and I do together for as many people as will listen. And last year we trained people in 45 states. We're a tiny organization, but we're also having a big imprint. And I think it's really important for people to understand that really, again, it sounds like another cliche. One person can make a huge difference in a community where this conversation is happening. The anti-Zionist ideas that came into the left came with very small numbers of passionate people who had a set of talking points that they really stuck to. And that sort of made sense if you didn't have a deep understanding of what Zionism is or who the Jewish people are, or you know, what the history of anti-Semitism is or how it is a malignant threat inside our movements. If you don't have that history, which most people don't, it's easy to believe that Zionism is a colonial, imperial, racist project, right? Because if you think that Jews are white, which most Jews in America are, then it is easy to argue that Zionism is a colonial project that is bringing white people to colonize brown people in the Middle East. And so, you know, being trained and prepared and continuing to show up in the spaces that matter to us, again, the universalist spaces that matter, but as a particularist, as a Zionist, is the most effective way that you can sort of intervene in the conversation where it is happening and where it is spreading. So I would totally encourage people to sign up for our list and to join our Slack spaces and to come to our trainings and to get involved in every way in all of the grassroots organizing spaces that you can to do it with fellow Zion S activists so that you feel strength in numbers. Because we unfortunately, again, in this moment of vulnerability, we have, I think, gone into a bit of a tribal posture where we're really only talking to ourselves about our fears and the direction of where things are going. But actually, we can have real impact if we go out into the world where people are vulnerable to internalizing anti-Jewish ideas and they meet a Jew, or even better, they meet a Zionist who shares their values and and you know exists in the same ideological ecosystem as them and can be their partner in advancing justice for everyone. So that's that's what we do, and really grateful to you for helping be a leader of our movement and so grateful to you for your friendship and partnership in so many, um, so many good trouble things that we get to do today together.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

Amanda, thank you for your time and your leadership and for letting me be part of Zion S. And I look forward to our next trip to Israel. I look forward to this experience in Atlanta and my commitment to all of our listeners out there is we will keep you updated on the progress we're making. And I guess the thing I I just end with is in moments when we feel a little deflated and even a little defeated, I think to remember some of the things that you shared with us today and how important it is, how one person really can make a difference, how one relationship really can make a difference. And when we magnify that with uh a movement of people who care about this, we will move the needle, might not see it in the time frame that we're hoping, but we will see it. So thank you for your leadership. Thank you. Well, that's our episode. Thanks for listening to Search for Meaning. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe, and leave a review. It really helps others discover the podcast. And consider sharing Search for Meaning with a friend. They might appreciate the insights and inspiration found here. Special thanks to our editor Josh Sterling and our production coordinator Raz Husseini. Our theme song was composed by Maestro David Cates and myself, produced by Kenley Mathis, and features a vocal by cantor Josh Goldberg. Stay healthy, stay hopeful, and stay tuned.