People of the Pod

As Stanley Tucci reflects, "Given the circumstances in today’s world, the parallels between then and now are impossible to ignore. It’s an incredible story, but it’s also happening today, to millions of people . . . It's a story about people in a certain place and time, and what happened to them, and what happened to them has happened before, and has happened since, and will continue to happen. Unless we as the human race begin to understand that we are all the same.” What would you do if fascism and antisemitism seized your homeland? In his award-winning podcast, Pack One Bag, documentarian David Modigliani takes listeners on a gripping journey through his family’s escape from Italy in 1938.  The podcast series features actor Stanley Tucci as Modigliani’s great-grandfather, who was known as Italy’s “King of the Books,” and once advised Mussolini but later turned against him.  As Modigliani retraces his family’s steps across Italy, he uncovers hidden Fascist spy documents, personal family diaries, and the poignant Jewish love story of his grandparents that echoes through time. *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC.  Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  Gov. Josh Shapiro and AJC CEO Ted Deutch on Combating Antisemitism Mijal Bitton on What It Means to Be a Jew Today The Next Chapter in Catholic-Jewish Relations What’s Next for the Abraham Accords Under President Trump? You can reach us at: [email protected] If you’ve appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with David Mogdiliani and Stanley Tucci: Manya Brachear Pashman:   As a documentary filmmaker, David Modigliani has created a variety of works on politics in America, improv comedy, and the improv comedy of politics in America. But during the pandemic, he discovered the love letters of his grandparents, written moments before they fled fascist Italy. Those letters led him to produce a more personal project – an award-winning podcast series starring Stanley Tucci, titled Pack One Bag. David is with us now to talk about that journey.  David, welcome to People of the Pod.  David Mogdiliani:   Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So, at the core of your podcast, Pack One Bag, is the story of your grandfather, a Nobel Prize winner who fled Italy in 1938 and this was a story that you heard as a young man, as a teenager, right? But if you could share with our listeners what that story was, when you originally heard it. David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, so my grandfather, I was just a five year old kid when he won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1985. But as I became a teenager and started to grow up, I became sort of fascinated by their love story, the story of escape.  Which was basically that my grandfather, Franco Modigliani, had been a 19 year old kid in Rome when Mussolini passed the racial laws against Jews like him, and he didn't know quite what to do, and he was so fortunate that he had fallen in love with this girl from Bologna named Serena Calabi, whose family had really been planning for this moment for many years, had had the foresight and the privilege to move resources outside of the country, put together an exit strategy, and when they fled Italy for Paris in the fall of 1938 they invited him to join them. They invited their daughter's boyfriend to join them. And the family was in Paris for about nine months and then made it onto the Normandie, a French ocean liner that left the coast of France in August of 1939 and turned out to be the last boat out of mainland Europe before Hitler invaded Poland and World War II began. So that kind of fairy tale escape, a whirlwind romance, that getting married, you know, in Paris on the run, and arriving in the US, kind of just in the nick of time, was the kind of origin story that I grew up with as a kid. Manya Brachear Pashman:  And how did your grandmother's family know how to read those tea leaves?  David Mogdiliani:  My grandmother's father had been known as ile de libri, the king of the books in Italian because he had founded and run along with his wife, something called La messaggerie italiane, which was the biggest book distribution business in all of Italy. It gave him resources and an understanding of where things might be going in Europe in the 1930s so I had known all of that. But when I sort of became more interested in this project and wanted to learn more, and dug into some boxes that my dad had, 19 boxes of my family's documents, we found inside them, a couple of letters from Benito Mussolini to my great grandfather, the king of the books, and that kind of was a staggering moment to see the signature of the future dictator of Italy there at the bottom of the page.  Mussolini had been a lefty socialist newspaper editor in 1914, 1915, and when he had been kicked out of the Socialist Party for supporting Italy's intervention and involvement in World War I, the Socialist Party had kicked him out, and he had decided to start his own newspaper. He needed help doing that, and it turns out that my great grandfather had not only advised him on sort of launching his startup newspaper, but had also funneled a secret subsidy from the French government to Mussolini to fund this paper. So I was relieved to learn that he later had broken with Mussolini, you know, didn't follow sort of the whole fascist experiment, but that he had a sense of Mussolini's temperament, his character. And really, after Mussolini killed a political opponent of his in 1924, a couple of years after coming into power, that is when my great grandfather said, if things continue this way, there's no future for us in this country. Manya Brachear Pashman:  And when you say your great grandfather, the king of the books, concluded that there was no future for us, did he mean your family, or did he mean the Jewish community? David Mogdiliani:  I think at that time, in 1924, he meant our family, and I suppose also those who were not interested in kind of following a blindly fascist authoritarian dictator to the extent that he might transform the country. One of the things that I was sort of fascinated to learn in this project was that Italy was, in fact, a very inclusive place for Jews.  In 1870, the country was sort of unified, and the Jews who had been in ghettos across Italy for hundreds of years, were released, became really central part of Italian society, which was a very tolerant society. Mussolini, in fact, had a couple of Jews in his cabinet. As late as 1935 had a Jewish lover. And it was not really until a later stage of Mussolini's fascism that he very swiftly turned against the Jews, eventually passing the Leggi Razziali, the racial laws, which really instituted a whole set of restrictions that only got worse. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So talk a little bit about your process. I mean, how did you piece together this saga and all of the many pieces of this story that you had not known before, this saga that eventually became 10 episodes of your podcast. David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, you know, during COVID, a lot of people baked banana bread. I pulled out my grandparents' love letters. I had always wanted to interview them to document– I had been a documentary filmmaker for many years and to capture their story–and I kind of just never got around to it. Before I did it, they died. They passed away. And so I had kind of been living with a sense of guilt about that.  But I was in a new romance with a woman named Willa. We had become quarantine mates during the pandemic, she was really curious about the seeds of this family story that I'd shared with her. And we pulled out these love letters, which, in fact, my grandmother had translated into English for her grandchildren, because she really wanted them to know how you know, love had gotten them through the horror of that period. And pulling out those love letters, I was sort of stunned by how fresh and relevant they seemed. Not these kind of black and white mementos from a time gone by, but in a world where there was increasing authoritarian leadership around the world where antisemitism was on the rise, again, their letters to one another, which were going back and forth between Rome and Bologna. They were dealing with these questions, how do we deal with rising fascism? How bad is the antisemitism getting, and what do we do about it? And inside of those boxes, we found not only letters from Mussolini, but kind of the other part of the story. You asked me about the story I grew up with the fairy tale escape that was kind of the baseline that I was operating from. What I had not fully understood was that when my grandfather fled Italy with his girlfriend, and the king of the books, and was so fortunate to escape with them, he left behind his whole family, including his mother and his older brother, Giorgio. And eventually, as World War II kicked off, as they got into the Nazi occupation of Rome, all he could do was read about, you know, the Nazis invading his hometown, what was going on abroad, and he had lost touch entirely with his brother, and yet, what We found inside of these 19 boxes was a 25 page letter from my grandfather's brother, Giorgio, from the older brother that he'd left behind.  And that 25 page letter, it had come just after the war ended. And it said, essentially, you know, we survived. And there's so much to tell you, you know, here's how. And it was just this page turning epic of how my grandfather's brother had shepherded his young family through the war, how they had hid in a small hill town outside of Rome, how he had taken on fake identity, and his little children had learned their fake names and identities and how to cross themselves and go to church and pose as though they were Catholic, and ultimately, how they had made it all the way through to the liberation of Rome. And that, to me, felt like this whole other world, the kind of parallel universe that my grandparents had escaped, the experiences that they might have had if they'd not been so fortunate to be among. Those who were able to flee, and that, along with the question of, why do we have these letters from Mussolini, you know, in the basement, and what's going on with the king of the books, all of that made me want to go back to Italy to dig into my family's past, to better understand this story, to find, you know, answers that could inform my present moment.  At the time, you know, I thought, well, I'll need someone to help me, an audio engineer, at least if we're going to do a podcast. And Willa said, Well, you know, or I could do it. She had learned some audio skills in film school, and I had this question of, like, is this a good idea? Like mixing my budding romance with, you know, digging into my family's, you know, unknown history, but her curiosity had kind of inspired me to dig into this story in the first place, and so we set off together back to Italy with kind of no idea of just how far that adventure would take us. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So I should explain that that saga, you tell that saga in the 10 episodes of the podcast, and the voice of your grandfather is actually that of actor Stanley Tucci. How did you connect with Stanley about this project, and what was it about the project that appealed to him? David Mogdiliani:  I knew that we wanted to bring not only the personal investigative nature of kind of solving some of these mysteries, putting together the pieces, but also to bring to life the experiences and the stories of the characters in this podcast. And so I knew that I could bring to life the voices of my grandparents, which I remembered so well, but I really wanted to bring to life as well the king of the books, my great grandfather, and whenever I thought about him as this kind of debonair Italian, you know, media magnate who got his family out of dodge just in time, he seemed like this kind of cultured, congenial hero that someone like Stanley Tucci might play.  And I'd been in touch with Stanley Tucci a few years prior in regards to his searching for Italy series, we almost worked together on that the scheduling didn't work out, but we'd formed a relationship, and so I shared with him, Hey, I'm digging into the story. I'm finding all this incredible stuff. I want to tell it in audio. And he said, I'd love to help. How can I be part of this? In addition to those more standard documentary techniques. We also do a little bit of kind of creative storytelling, and it's wonderful to have Stanley Tucci do that.  We travel to London, where he lives, and did two long recording sessions with him, and he, having Italian parents and grandparents of his own, speaking Italian well, was able to snap right into that character. He needed very little direction, and it was a great joy to hear him kind of bring that character to life. Manya Brachear Pashman:  And in fact, you had a conversation with him about his own family history and the importance of connecting to that. And I want our listeners to hear a clip of that conversation.   __ David Mogdiliani:  Okay, so tell me, I guess what drew you to the story. Why spend some time doing this?  Stanley Tucci: Well, a number of things. I'm interested in Italian history, Italian stories, Italian people. I'm interested in World War II, and given the circumstances in today's world, you can't help but be interested in the parallels of that time and our time. It's your family story. It's an incredible story, but it's something that's happening today. It's happening as we speak. It's happening all over the world to literally millions of people. David Mogdiliani:  I know you get asked this a lot, but what was your first connection to learning about Italy and its history and what happened to there? Stanley Tucci: My mother's father fought in World War I. He was a corpsman, and he was up in the Alps, and I mean, like the worst fighting, but he never spoke of that. But we were always told about our family history. We were able to live in Italy when I was a kid, and we were able to go visit my family. This is in the early 1970s down in Colombia, and that was fascinating, because it wasn't even 30 years after the war. But that history was really important to us, and the way that those stories were really funny that they would tell, or really frightening that they would tell. And like basically every Italian family, those stories were always told at, you know, dinner parties, at gatherings, at holidays, and you always had a connection with your family. You were always doing things with your family.  Sometimes you were like, Why are we here? No one seems to be getting along, you know. But that said, it's invaluable. Understanding that history, knowing those people. And I really love this story because it's a universal story. It is an Italian story, but it's not an Italian story. It's a Jewish story, but it's not a Jewish story.  It's a story about people in a certain place and time, and what happened to them. And what happened to them has happened before and has happened since and will continue to happen. Unless we as the human race begins to understand that we are all the same. That's why I like this story. It's about hope for equality. ___ Manya Brachear Pashman:  David, you use the word refugee. I'm just curious if your grandparents considered themselves refugees, given the timing of their departure and then the timing of what their relatives that they left behind experienced. David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, and I know actually they specifically did. There's a letter, when my grandmother fled with her parents in early September of 1938. Her father had told her, we're going to leave in the morning. We're going to make this look just like we're going on vacation so we don't draw any undue attention. And I want you to pack one bag and we'll take off in the morning. And they went ahead to Paris, and they were joined there a few weeks later by my grandfather, who had to settle some of his affairs in Rome and get his act together.  And so there are letters from my grandmother, having just arrived in Paris, writing to her boyfriend back in Rome and hoping that he's going to come soon. And she says, quite specifically, we're in this tiny hotel room, and we're really refugees now, everything feels quite different. She, of course, had come from this privileged background. She grew up in this beautiful villa on the hill above Bologna that her father had built, a villa that they had to abandon very quickly. And so she was sort of encountering the reality of being outside of her comfort zone, of not having sort of the comforts that she had grown up with and wishing and hoping that her beloved would join her soon, which would kind of allay some of her anxiety as a refugee.  I think they also felt that sense of being unsettled through their nine months in Paris, from the fall of 1938 until the summer of 1939 being unsure of whether war might break out during that period, my great grandfather, my grandmother's father, the king of the books, he found that his bank accounts inside of Italy had been blocked by the fascist regime, something that we uncovered in more detail in the archives in Rome as we dug into these fascist documents that were kept about all of this persecution, and they had this sense of being unsure of quite when they would leave and how far kind of the tentacles of the fascist regime might extend. And so I do think that they felt like refugees, even if they themselves did not encounter one tenth of the horrors that the family members who remained behind did.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  We have a narrative podcast series called The Forgotten Exodus that really speaks to that. It's about Jews fleeing the Middle East and leaving their homes behind. I mean, that's what you're doing, is you're leaving your home behind, even if you were hated in your home, even if you faced violent antisemitism, it was still home. I'm curious how much your family was fleeing fascism, or were they fleeing antisemitism? Were they fleeing more of one than the other, or did they go hand in hand? David Mogdiliani:  Yeah, well, I think that their initial plans that my great grandfather, the king of the books, was making, were related more to fascism, to his understanding of Mussolini and to political violence and how far things might go. But in the summer of 1938 as he began to get information about the coming racial laws against Jews, and in early September of 1938 when the racial laws were passed such that Jewish children could no longer go to public schools. Teachers couldn't teach at public schools or universities if they were Jewish. Jews could not own a business with more than 99 employees. They couldn't have domestic help of non Jews.  And that initial, you know, set of restrictions against them only increased that fall in the following months, you know, obviously getting to the point eventually that Jews could own nothing, that even the debts that they owed to other people should be diverted to the state. But the beginning of those racial laws is quite literally what they were fleeing when they then decided to execute their exit strategy. It was the promulgation of the racial laws that caused them to leave. Manya Brachear Pashman:  In other words, they began to develop that exit strategy because of fascism. It was initially kind of envisioned as a flight from fascism, but when the culture became antisemitic. That was the trigger. David Mogdiliani:  Exactly. Manya Brachear Pashman:  What have I not asked you, David, that you think is a really important point to mention. David Mogdiliani:  I would say, just about the love and humor that's such a big part of this story. My grandparents were, you know, constantly bickering at one another in this very loving way that we capture in the podcast, just the jump start of their romance was amazing to me. I mean, my grandmother came into Rome with her father, the businessman. She encountered this young kid who she later called il tipo ridiculo, meaning the ridiculous character, because he was just sort of a pesky all over the place, you know guy. And when she came back a second time, he had this plan to take her out, and he had concocted this outing up the Via Appia Antica, which is the ancient road outside of Rome. They got to know each other a little better, and she let him just steal a little kiss at the end of that little date. And the next morning, when she was going back to Bologna, he showed up at the train station in this suit, you know, two sizes too big for him. He's pacing the platform, and he had come to declare his undying love for her.  He was so worried that she was going to get a marriage proposal from a fancy guy in Bologna, and he felt like he had to state his case. And she was like, you know, you got to calm down. You know, it was just a kiss. You know, this is really over the top. And she told him, I want you to not write to me for three months. She really wanted this kind of cooling off period. She said, then write to me if you want. And let's see, you know, if we really have a connection. And so three months later, she's in Bologna, and she gets this package from Rome, and on the top it says: Oh aspettato tre meze, signora di tatoreza. (I waited three months, Madam Dictator.) Ma ogna notte teo scritto. (But every night I wrote to you.) And she opens it up, and there's 91 little letters inside. So every night he had written to her, and then he had saved them and sent them all at the end. So these kind of dramatic, you know, acts of romance and love, the way that they got married inside of the fascist Italian consulate in Paris, that was a huge part of their story, and I think a huge part of what got them through that very anxious, you know, experience. Manya Brachear Pashman:  You talk about how this moment in history jumpstarted your grandparents' romance. Do you mind sharing with listeners what happened to that girlfriend who tagged along and helped you with this project? David Mogdiliani:  It's probably about 3% you know, of the overall story. We're really focused on the story of my grandparents, my great grandparents. But yes, this girlfriend Willa that I had, that had sparked curiosity about my grandparents story when we pulled out the love letters four years ago, as she then came with me as we went back to Italy, digging into the archives, interviewing our cousins, bringing this story to life, and of course, brought us a lot closer together.  Our own relationship continued on, and we were married last year. And just about three and a half months ago, we welcomed our first child, Marcello Vita Modigliani, Vita meaning life in Italian which was a family name. So yes, my own romance has been part of this story as well.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  David, thank you so much. I really appreciate you doing this project and then coming and speaking with us about that. It really is quite relevant and quite instructive. And so thank you so much.  David Mogdiliani:  Thank you. It's been a pleasure to be here, and folks can find pack one bag anywhere they listen to podcasts, Apple, Spotify, but really anywhere, including at packonebagshow.com. You can stream it straight from the website there at packonebagshow.com and thanks so much for this wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  If you missed the last episode, be sure to tune in for the conversation between AJC CEO Ted Deutch and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. In that conversation on the ground in Philadelphia, Governor Shapiro and Ted talked about the antisemitism the governor has faced, the importance of nuance and how simply there is none when it comes to expressions of anti-Jewish hatred. 

Last week, AJC CEO Ted Deutch traveled to Philadelphia to meet with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for an in-depth discussion on combating antisemitism, ensuring the future vitality of Jewish communities in Pennsylvania and beyond, and addressing the challenges posed by rising political polarization both locally and nationally. “When it comes to antisemitism . . . there is no nuance. Antisemitism, bigotry, and hatred in all forms is not okay. Everyone in a position of public trust . . . has a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity and speak out against it,” said Governor Shapiro. AJC is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. AJC neither supports nor opposes candidates for elective office. Watch: AJC CEO Ted Deutch, Gov. Josh Shapiro Say Fight Against Antisemitism Must Be Bipartisan Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  Mijal Bitton on What It Means to Be a Jew Today The Next Chapter in Catholic-Jewish Relations What’s Next for the Abraham Accords Under President Trump? Honoring Israel’s Lone Soldiers This Thanksgiving: Celebrating Service and Sacrifice Away from Home The ICC Issues Arrest Warrants: What You Need to Know Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: [email protected] If you’ve appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with Ted Detuch and Josh Shapiro: Manya Brachear Pashman: Last week, AJC CEO Ted Deutch traveled to Philadelphia and sat down with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for a conversation about antisemitism, the future of Jewish communities in Pennsylvania and across the nation, and growing political polarization not only in Philadelphia but throughout the country. The conversation was so powerful, we wanted to share it with a wider audience. So, I turn it over to Ted and Governor Shapiro.  Ted Deutch:   I'm going to start just by fessing up to something that I tried to do, that I fortunately failed at. I don't often tout my failure, but there was a time some number of years ago, Governor, where I thought that your future should take you to the United States House of Representatives. I tried to convince you to run for Congress, and you had other plans. Fast forward many years, thank God I was wrong, and thank you for the remarkable job you've done as governor of Pennsylvania.  Josh Shapiro:   Thank you. It's so good to be with you.  Ted Deutch:   Obviously, it’s a really great to be with you. But I had, I wanted to break the ice just a little bit, if I may, with just some quick questions, just to lose, just to loosen you up a little, if that's alright. Josh Shapiro:   Do I not seem loose? I feel pretty loose.  Ted Deutch:   Alright, very quickly. Favorite eagle of all time? Josh Shapiro:   You know what I was on Eagles pregame live just yesterday, before the Birds played the Steelers. Birds beat the Steelers, by the way. And I got to sit next to Jaws. Ron Jaworski, and like, it was just a normal day. I was a little bit starstruck. So I guess I'd go with Jaws. Yeah.  Ted Deutch:   Alright. Better play-by-play announcer– Merrill Reese, Gene Hart? Josh Shapiro:   Oh my God, come on. All right. That’s like asking me to pick between my kids. Ted Deutch:   Alright, I’ll move on. Moving on, moving on, moving on. Some people here who don't, the handful who don't really get this at all, and my staff, who's saying, why are you doing this. Josh Shapiro:   Merrill Reese by the way is about to get inducted into the Hall of Fame for, they do once a year, they do an announcer, and Merrill just won that award this year. Pretty amazing.  Ted Deutch:   He is amazing. Best Philly movie ever made?  Josh Shapiro:   Rocky. Ted Deutch:   Easy. Thank you. Inappropriate question, perhaps at an AJC dinner, provolone or swiss? Josh Shapiro:   I do enjoy provolone, but I'm not a cheesesteak guy, so. We have a kosher governor's residence. I can't be out eating cheesesteaks.  Ted Deutch:   It was a bit of a trick question, I'll admit. And then we'll just finish this off. Favorite Israeli food? Josh Shapiro:   Falafel, but not from some fancy restaurant, though I do love Goldies and I love Michael, but on some like stand in the middle of nowhere in Israel, it's always delicious. Ted Deutch:   This also gives me an opportunity to acknowledge Tsach Saar, who is the Consul General of Israel. Thank you very much for being here. All right, I tried. Thanks for playing along.  Josh Shapiro:   Did I not do well? You did try.  Ted Deutch:  You did great. You did great. Thank you.  Josh Shapiro:   No more lightning round? Ted Deutch:  I have more. Josh Shapiro:   Now we got to do this serious stuff? Ted Deutch:   We do. And frankly, look, your answer to the silly question about cheesesteaks is the perfect lead in to my first question for you. The first governor, I grew up in Bethlehem, the first governor I remember was governor Milton Shapp, who was born Milton Shapiro. So in that respect, you're actually the second Governor Shapiro in Pennsylvania's history. He was governor from 1971 to 79.  But you are Governor Shapiro. You're a proud Jew who dismisses a question about cheesesteaks because you have a kosher home. You quote Pirkei Avot in your life as governor and the speeches that you give. It's so clear, and we and everyone has come to know how important Shabbat dinner is for you, with your family. Your Judaism matters to you a lot, and for those of us who are so involved in the community, it's something that obviously we admire. But I would love to hear a little bit more about how it informs what you do and why it's so important. Josh Shapiro:   I want to just say on a serious note, how grateful I am to AJC for the important work that you do every day, how grateful I am to Ted, who's been a friend for more than a decade. How thankful I am to the leaders here who raise money and do this important work. For Mark, who I think asked me to do this like a year ago, and has checked in with me each month to make sure he's going to do it. I'm proud to do it, and to the Liebmans, and everyone, I appreciate what you all do.  I just celebrated, Lori noted the other night that I've been in public office for 20 years, and I'm a proud public servant. I think public service is a noble profession, and the reason I am in public service, it's fitting that my dad is here tonight, is because of my family and because of my faith. Both draw me to service. Our faith teaches us that, as you mentioned, I quote Pirkei Avot. I quote it in a synagogue. I'll quote it at a Kiwanis Club. I was proud to quote it from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, just a couple months ago, that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it. Meaning each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, get in the game and do our part.  Now, doing our part can come in a lot of different ways. Some people do their part in a courtroom. Some people do their part in a business. Some people do their part through charitable work, like here at AJC. For me, my part is through public service. My part is through serving my community, and I'm honored to do it. I share that with you because as I was getting ready to launch my campaign for governor, you may recall I was attorney general at the time, a group of us came together and said, Well, how do we want to kind of reintroduce you to the good people of Pennsylvania as you launch your campaign? You could start by talking about a policy or for some initiative you want to get past, but actually what I wanted to do was talk about the issue I just mentioned to you, what drew me to want to serve in the first place. Why I was even contemplating running to be your governor.  And so we had a long conversation about what motivates me, Ted, and why I do this. To me, being able to bring together family and faith was really important, and the best way to show that is by doing what I do every single Friday night since I was a kid, and what we continue to do, and that is having Shabbat dinner with my family.  And so the first ad in my campaign was all of us sitting around the Shabbat dinner table. Now, fun fact for all of you, I think we filmed it like on a Tuesday, so it really wasn't Shabbat. My kids remind me of that, but we did have everything on the table. And what was so interesting about it was, after the ad started running, and I would show up in communities where there aren't a lot of Jews, if any Jews, in Pennsylvania. Folks would grab me and say, Hey, I saw your ad. That was great. I want to tell you what Sunday lunch is like after I get home from church. I want to tell you what Christmas dinner is like in our family. I want you to know what we experience when we leave our place of worship.  And in a lot of ways, it actually brought me closer together with the community. We were able to see one another in a deeper way. I think faith has allowed me to get into living rooms and conversations and communities in a much deeper way than perhaps I ever could before, as I think it is critically important if you want to be a public servant, to be true to who you are and express that to folks. So I'm proud of who I am. I'm proud of the way I've lived my life. I'm proud of the way Lori and I are raising our four children, and I appreciate the fact that the good people of Pennsylvania acknowledge that and open themselves up and share that back with me as I go out serving them as their governor.  Ted Deutch:   The importance of Shabbat dinner, part of it, obviously is your Judaism, but it also anchoring for your family. And for everyone that you interact with to know that on Friday nights, that's the time for your family. There's something there in a time of really polarizing politics and fragmentation of society, there's something there that we should learn from, right? Josh Shapiro:   I just think making sure you're committed to family, you're committed to yourself at some key moments, each day, each week, is really important. Lori and I live crazy lives right now, running all over the place. I'm not complaining. I asked for this, and I love what I do. I hope you can tell the joy that I have every day in serving you as your governor. And no matter where we are during the week, we always know, Friday night we're going to be together. We always know that it's going to be a moment where we can be with the kids and have conversations with them.  And I'll be honest with you, Ted. I mean, some of it, of course, is the prayers and the rituals and the religious aspect of it, but so much of it is just the family part of it, and being grounded in that, and knowing that that will be our moment during the week, whether we're at the governor's residence or our home in Montgomery County, we are always together Friday night, and it's something we don't compromise on. I think it's important that you've got to set those boundaries. You got to say what's important. And that's exactly what we do. Ted Deutch:   It's especially important to have time to be together in this period where, for almost 15 months, the community has really, in so many ways, struggled. We had the deadliest attack on the Jewish community since the Holocaust, the equivalent, just in terms that people in America can try to understand. The 1200 people, the equivalent of 45,000 Americans, God forbid, if you use the same ratios, the equivalent of 7000 people being taken hostage. Now still, 100 hostages still being held beneath Gaza. It's been really hard for the community.  And yes, Israel has fortunately made advances, and from a geostrategic standpoint, is doing better. But this has still been really difficult for the community, for those of us who care about Israel, and then layer on top of that, the antisemitism that we've seen, that you've been so outspoken about in the work that you do. How, again, given what's at your core, is it hard sometimes with the way that we're feeling, the way that you feel as a committed Jew, in the face of all this, to speak about it? Do you ever feel that you need to hold back because this is all so personal to you? Josh Shapiro:   I never feel like I need to hold back. I think it is always important to speak out. But I also think it is important that we have two separate conversations, one about antisemitism and the other about Israel. When it comes to antisemitism, I think it is critically important that folks understand: there is no nuance in that conversation. Antisemitism, hatred, bigotry in all forms. It is not okay.  And everyone, everyone in a position of public trust, everyone has a responsibility to speak and act with moral clarity, to speak out against it, and it doesn't matter who is sharing those sentiments. If they're members of your own party, if they're people who you otherwise might agree with on some other issue, we have a responsibility to speak out against it, and we have a responsibility as a community to be unified against antisemitism, hatred, bigotry, in all forms. There is no nuance on that.  When it comes to the issue of Israel and foreign policy and Middle East policy, that's a far more gray area. And I think it is important to continue to speak out in support of Israel, and I think it is also acceptable, if one wants to respectfully criticize a policy coming from the Israeli government, there is a difference there. And so what I try and do is not hold back in any way, but to make sure folks understand we are having two different conversations.  We got to speak out and stop antisemitism in our communities, and yes, we can express an opinion as it relates to the policies in Israel or by the Israeli government. And I think it is also critically important to acknowledge the very real fact that there is antisemitism in this country. There is antisemitism in this Commonwealth, and it is on the left and it is on the right, and there is no one party that has a clean record on it, and we've got to make sure that no matter who is putting forth those words of hate, they are condemned. Ted Deutch:   AJC is fiercely non-partisan in the way that we do our work and recognize and talk constantly, try to make the point exactly the way you have. That there's antisemitism, wherever it is, we have to call it out. But that it's harder for some to see it or to call it out when it's among their friends, in their own party, than if it's in the other party. This was something that I dealt with as a member of Congress. But when it when conversations turn to you during the election and people refer to you as Genocide Josh. Josh Shapiro:   Yeah, I saw that.  Ted Deutch: Yeah. There are those, I think we have to acknowledge it's on both sides. And clearly there are those on the far left who don't want to criticize Israel, but have now taken the position that Israel essentially has no right to exist. That then bring that into that kind of language, which is clearly antisemitic in the way it's applied. How do you deal with that?  Josh Shapiro:   I must tell you, it did not upset me and it didn't affect me. What did upset me was the way those attacks against me made other people feel. As I was traveling across this commonwealth, across the country, folks would come over to me and tell me, you know, I saw what they said about you, and it was making them feel less safe in their communities. It was making them feel less safe in their schools or on their college campuses. That upset me.  And on that I felt a responsibility to try and lift them up and strengthen them, and let them know that they should be proud of who they are. I'm proud of who I am, and sort of help them brush off the noise and recognizing and I think this is an important point, that while a lot of that noise did exist, and it is empirically true that antisemitism is on the rise, and thank God for groups like AJC doing this work. The vast, vast, vast majority of people that I come across every day, they're good people. They're not bigots, they're not spewing hate, they're actually looking to try and figure out ways in which we can bring people together. That is what I see.  And so I'm comforted by that every day. I'm not offended or upset by the attacks that people make against me, even the antisemitic attacks against me. What I get upset about, what I worry about, is how it makes other people feel, and whether that causes them to retreat or causes them to maybe not do something they were going to do or not, go somewhere where they were going to go. That is upsetting to me, and I try and spend as much time as I can with the people who are affected by that, to try and make sure they have the strength to continue to go forward and lead by example in a way that gives them the strength that they need to move forward.  Ted Deutch:   And sometimes, while the overwhelming majority of people are good, I agree with you, and I think it's important for us to realize that the data tells us that the vast majority of Americans are supportive of Israel as well, and are overwhelmingly opposed to antisemitism. Small numbers can do real damage. And that's what we saw on a number of college campuses, where the the protests, some of them going back to October 8, which were not protests about, obviously, about the Israeli government, but just protests in support of Hamas, some of these protests in support of a terror group, really put people at risk.  And you were very clear in the way that you approach that, right here in Philadelphia and around the state. How should, now that we're 15 months in, AJC has worked with universities around the country to try to ensure that they're doing what they need to to fight antisemitism. From your perspective, how are they doing, how are we doing, 15 months later?  Josh Shapiro:   I commend AJC for the important work they've done on college campuses. And I don't know if John Fry is still here, the president of Temple University, and an outstanding leader who was at Drexel University for some time and now is at Temple. He's an example of a strong leader dealing with these challenges on campus. And there are others to be sure.  Look, I think it is critically important that we protect people's first amendment rights to be able to protest on campus, protest on our streets, they of course, have to follow the rules of the road, whether on campus or in a city, Commonwealth, you name it, but they should be able to express themselves. But that expression is not okay if you're violating the rules of the campus, the rules of the city or the community. It's also not okay if it puts other people at risk. Universities have a moral and a legal responsibility to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and to this country to keep all students safe on campus. And for some universities, I think they were willing to forgo that responsibility, or it got a little bit out of balance. Some universities were willing to accept a little bit of hate over here, but no hate over here, and that's not okay. Hate and bigotry in all forms, needs to be condemned. All students need to be safe on campus, and yes, there should be places where students can express themselves and have their views heard. So while I realize there's a lot of gray area when it comes to figuring out exactly where that line is, I do think it's important everybody adhere to those basic principles.  And there are many colleges and universities here in Pennsylvania that are. I think, candidly, Penn lost its way. They are working to get back. I think Susanna Lachs-Adler and others. Susanna has done really wonderful work, and there's some important work there happening under their interim president. I think they are moving in the right direction there, and many other universities are as well.  And so I hope, to get to the heart of your question, 15 months later, we're in a position where students feel safe, to be able to both go to class and to be able to protest within the bounds of the rules on campus, and that we continue to be balanced in our approach there.  Ted Deutch:   When there is messaging sent, whether from faculty or from student groups or from other places on campus that say you are not welcome in this group, or, frankly, in this classroom, simply because you are a Zionist, simply because you believe in the modern state of Israel, that that also can't be acceptable because of what it says, the message that it sends to students, and how it puts people at risk. Josh Shapiro:   Without question. I mean, if you're a student on one of these campuses, you literally have a legal right to be safe in these communities and on these campuses. And university leaders have to remember that. I gotta tell you, these students, they're scared. You know, Hanukkah last year was sort of right around the time that these protests were really kicking up and students were incredibly scared. I heard from a number of students at Penn who reached out to me, reached out to my wife, and we decided to forgo lighting our hanukkiah for the first night at the governor's residence. Got in the trucks, drove to Penn, and we lit the hanukkiot at Penn's Hillel with those students. We wanted to make sure that they knew their governor, their first lady, had their backs, and that they were going to be safe on campus.  And that we were going to make sure that university leaders ensured their safety and their well being on campus. Again, I want to be really clear. Students have a right to protest. Their voices should be heard. I think students have helped usher in change in this country for generations. We want to hear their voices, but not at the expense of the safety and well being of any other student. That's where you got to draw a line. Ted Deutch:   You have, you've talked a lot about building a coalition to combat hatred, and you've invoked Rabbi Heschel, and you've invoked his work with Dr. King during the Civil Rights era. And it's, I think it's true for so many of us, that having invested so much time in those really important relationships, there was some disappointment with response after October 7, and yet, the only option, from our perspective, is to double down. One, because it's the right thing to do, and two, because the Jewish community represents .02% of the population in the world. We need allies. And this has been really central to AJC. And I know Stephanie Sun is here, co-chair of Papaja, and I think Anthony Rosado, co-chair of the Latino Jewish Coalition is here. And I appreciate their being here and their leadership. This is a really important way to continue to combat antisemitism and simultaneously to make sure that Zionists, the people who believe in Israel, aren't excluded.  Can you just talk about, I know this is important to you. Can you talk about how to build those kinds of coalitions that will help our community and and beyond? Josh Shapiro:   You have to build coalitions if you want to make any progress here in this Commonwealth and in the country. I'm actually the only governor in the entire country with a divided legislature, right? So I've got a State Senate led by Republicans, State House led by Democrats. I literally can't get a bill to my desk unless some number of Democrats and some number of Republicans support it.  And so you're forced to have dialogue. You're forced to come together. That's naturally who I am, trying to bring people together. But I want you to know it is. It is required here in Pennsylvania if we want to make progress. We made a hell of a lot of progress, fixing an unconstitutional education system, cutting taxes six times, hiring over 1000 new state troopers and police officers in Pennsylvania, and passing some of the most sweeping criminal justice reforms ever in the history of Pennsylvania. At the same time, we've been able to invest $3 billion in private capital investment to create over 130,000 new jobs. I've only been governor two years. We're getting a lot of stuff done.  I share this with you because we understand the critical importance of building coalitions. Now I'll tell you who else understood that, the person whose portrait hangs in my office right above my desk, William Penn. I share that with you because when William Penn helped build what is now the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he built this as a place that would be warm and welcoming for all, where people of all different faiths would be forced together to actually work together to make progress in this commonwealth. That was his vision, and I view it as my responsibility, as someone who's been handed the baton from William Penn, and actually a whole lot of people in between, of course, to pick up on the work that was done before I got here and to continue it, in the spirit that that Penn started. A spirit where we want to make sure we respect people, no matter what they look like, where they come from, who they love, who they pray to, and that those folks are represented around the table.  And when they're around the table, and they feel like they have the freedom and the safety to be able to talk and to share their ideas and their views and their policies, that's what's going to allow us to build a coalition, to be able to get meaningful things done, to be able to make progress. You mentioned Heschel and King. I've had a lot of conversations about Heschel and King with Reverend Warnock, who I think is one of the great leaders in our country.  He gave me the privilege of being able to speak at the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church where Dr. King was, of course, the prayer leader there. We spoke about Heschel and King from Ebenezer, the need to be able to bring the black community and the Jewish community closer together, to be able to do this important work. My friend David's here. He's done work with Operation Understanding and other organizations like that, that bring people from different walks of life together.  And if we can do that more, we can understand one another, we can reduce the amount of hate and bigotry in our community, and we can make progress in the spirit of William Penn, to fill in the work that Heschel and King started, and to be able to create a safer community for all of us. Ted Deutch:   I want to follow up on this note of bipartisanship. You talked about the division and the legislature in Harrisburg, and I want to just focus on Israel for a moment. We have, you have, sorry, it's been a long time since I lived in Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro:   You're still one of us. You're a Birds fan.  Ted Deutch:  Thank you. Thank you very much.  Josh Shapiro:   And he went to Camp Ramah. This guy's got a whole pedigree. Ted Deutch:   Lehigh Valley, in my blood. Look, if you think about support for Israel in Pennsylvania, there were two pro Israel Democratic senators. There will now be a pro Israel Democratic senator in Senator Fetterman, whose support has been nothing short of spectacular. You have strong Republican support, including from my good friend, Congressman Fitzpatrick from the area as well. And in many ways, it's a good reminder of the importance of bipartisan support for Israel.  As we look into the future, given the challenges that Israel faces, is that Pennsylvania model of bipartisan support from both senators and bipartisan support from House members and a Democratic governor, is that the model that we should continue to expect to see around the country and will both parties continue to be as strongly pro Israel as they could be? Josh Shapiro:   Look, I'm a proud Democrat, and I want to make sure that the Democratic Party continues to stand with Israel, and I'm going to continue to do my part to raise my voice, to ensure that it does. I lament the fact that in recent years, the issue of Israel, so to speak, has become weaponized in our political system. I think Israel is far safer and far stronger when the relationship that elected officials in America have is on a really bipartisan or nonpartisan basis. And I think there have been some organizations, quite candidly, that have tried to throw a monkey wrench in that idea, and instead have injected too much partisanship into that relationship. In the long run that makes Israel less safe. Maybe in the short run, given the way the political dynamics are in the country today, it could work to Israel's advantage. But mark my words, in the long run, politicizing America's relationship with Israel is not in the best interest of Israel long term, from a safety and a security standpoint.  And so I believe the Pennsylvania model is the right way, where we've got Republicans and Democrats alike standing up and speaking out in support of Israel, and by the way, challenging Israel, where Israel needs to be challenged, and also making sure that we are speaking with a unified bipartisan voice against antisemitism, and where antisemitism rears its ugly head, no matter what political party or affiliation or left leaning or right leaning person said it, or group said it, that we join together in standing up and speaking out against it. I think there's something to our Pennsylvania model, and I'd like to see it more across the country.  Ted Deutch:   I want to thank you really so much for this conversation, and I want to give you a chance to end with this, for all of the challenges that we're facing, it's kind of a heavy conversation. What is it that you're most hopeful about at this moment, thinking about our community and the future and your life and your world? Josh Shapiro:   You know, I get asked a lot like, how do you stay so optimistic and so upbeat, given all the challenges there are out in the world, and there are so many challenges, there's challenges like what we're talking about here tonight with antisemitism. There's other challenges that the world is confronting, and probably in another 40 days or so, we're going to confront even more challenges in this country.  But what, what I think keeps me so up and so hopeful every day is the privilege I have to serve as your governor and travel around to different communities and different neighborhoods and just meet people who are doing remarkable things every day. It is a privilege I wish every Pennsylvanian had. To go and to see these nonprofits who are doing life saving and life changing work. To see the incredible work that's happening in some of our skyscrapers here in Philly and our farmlands out in rural communities across Pennsylvania. There are so many people who are literally changing the world, doing tikkun olam in their neighborhoods.  And you know what? They're not down by the news cycle that I know really can bum a lot of people out. These people give me hope, and these people fuel my energy every day to go out and do this work as governor, and they make me optimistic and hopeful. And so while I leave you with this, while I understand the critically important role AJC plays to continue to combat hatred and bigotry and antisemitism, and you do a great job doing that work, while we're focused on those negative things that we've got to combat, I hope you'll also take a moment to appreciate the positive in our communities and understand that there is so much good out there and so many people doing so much good. And that is what fuels me. That's what keeps me up and excited.  And that is what I think you know, really, in many ways, in the spirit of Penn, we get to see every day in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. So we need to continue to do this hard work that AJC calls us to do. But let's never lose sight of the positivity that's out there that fuels my optimism every day. Ted Deutch:   We're so grateful. Governor Shapiro, thank you very, very much.  Josh Shapiro:   Thank you. Thank you, Ted.   

As many Jews deepen their sense of Jewish identity, Dr. Mijal Bitton joins the podcast to explore the significance of our Jewish heritage, texts, and peoplehood and what it means as we enter the Hanukkah season. Bitton is a sociologist, storyteller, podcast host, and Jewish advocate who also serves as the spiritual leader of the Downtown Minyan in Manhattan.  As one of the first Sacks Scholars, she helps young people reclaim and reimagine Jewish traditions. In this week’s episode, Dr. Bitton discusses  Sephardic Jewry, Jewish peoplehood, academia, the needs of young Jews, and the realities of intergroup and interfaith after October 7. Resources: The Morality and Ethics of Global Jewish Advocacy: Lessons from Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks - AJC Advocacy Anywhere Jewish Unpacked - Wondering Jews podcast, with guest AJC CEO Ted Deutch Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  The Next Chapter in Catholic-Jewish Relations What’s Next for the Abraham Accords Under President Trump? Honoring Israel’s Lone Soldiers This Thanksgiving: Celebrating Service and Sacrifice Away from Home The ICC Issues Arrest Warrants: What You Need to Know Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: [email protected] If you’ve appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with Mijal Bitton: Manya Brachear Pashman:   Dr. Mijal Bitton is a sociologist, storyteller and Jewish advocate. As the spiritual leader of the Downtown Minyan in Manhattan and one of the first Sacks Scholars, she helps young people reclaim and reimagine Jewish traditions.  Michal is no stranger to our AJC audiences. Earlier this month, she delivered a powerful Advocacy Anywhere to commemorate Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, for which the Sacks Scholars are, of course named.  And as co-host of Jewish Unpacked’s podcast Wondering Jews, she and Jewish educator Noah Weisman explore questions we all ask about the Jewish experience, from the mundane to the miraculous. In fact, just recently, they interviewed AJC CEO Ted Deutch. The podcast has covered topics spanning from how summer camp shapes Jewish lives, how to constantly juggle joy and pain, the impact of the Jewish vote in the most recent election, and in turn, the impact of Trump's resulting victory on Jewish America. Mijal is with us now in our Midtown Manhattan studio to rehash a little of that, but also to discuss what led her to take on her many roles, including her newest project. Mijal, welcome to People of the Pod. Mijal Bitton:  Thank you, thank you for having me. Manya Brachear Pashman:   If you could please share with our listeners about your heritage, about your upbringing. You were born in Argentina, correct?  Mijal Bitton: I was born in Argentina. My father's family moved to Argentina from Morocco and Syria. My mother is from Spain. And part of what shaped my interest in Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, is that when we moved to America, we moved to a Persian Jewish community. So that was like my introduction to American Jews, this very tight knit Persian community in Long Island.  Eventually, I met my husband, who is a Syrian Jew, with Egyptian and Iraqi background, and I wrote my PhD on the Syrian Jewish community in Brooklyn, which all just shows you a little bit my fascination. It's not just an identity, it's a tradition that I draw from and that I believe can actually give us very powerful tools right now. Manya Brachear Pashman:  Now, is this a Syrian Jewish community from Aleppo or Damascus?  Mijal Bitton: Historically, there is a big difference. I would say that a lot of these communities, you can think of them as pre-immigration and then new settlement in America. Right now in America, it's one community. The differences between Aleppo and Damascus are not that pronounced, maybe like when you cook a little bit the recipe that you use, or slightly different songs that you might have, depending where your family is from. Manya Brachear Pashman:  You are, in fact, a visiting researcher at NYU, and you are the director of the National Study of the Sephardic and Mizrahi in the United States. What is that study all about? Mijal Bitton: Yeah. So when I wanted to do a PhD at NYU, which I did, on Syrian Jews, and I wanted to study Sephardic Jews, what I realized very quickly, and you might have seen this from your other podcast, is that there is very little good scholarship, good literature to explain to us who these Jews are. This is a problem, both in terms of historical research, and for me, I'm really interested in contemporary Jewish life.  There was a huge gap of not having resources to understand Sephardic Jews in the United States. So I had to do my PhD, kind of trying to reconstruct, you know, even, like the categories of study, how do we think about Jewish observance and really religiosity with Jews from the Middle East. So this study is an early attempt by early I mean, we hope it's the first of many studies to begin to tease out the main pillars of what we need to know to understand Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews roughly.  And again, we'll go into this more in the actual report, which will come out in a couple of months, roughly 10% of American Jews are Sephardic or Mizrahi, very similar to, let's say, the Orthodox Jewish population, the Russian-speaking Jewish population, but much less understood, much less studied. So it's an important first attempt to begin to lay out the foundations of knowledge. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So would you say that study is overdue?  Mijal Bitton: Yes, very much overdue. I think it's overdue for many reasons. One of them is that in the American Jewish community we've had for many years now, conversations around diversity, around inclusion and the like. And Sephardic Jews have not really been part of this conversation. Or let me say this with more precision, they have not been part of this conversation in terms that they would want to be part of this conversation. Maybe I'll be a little bit more explicit as to what I mean.  Many of the Jews that we've cited that I know tend to reflect more socially conservative, Middle Eastern forms of Jewish life, and these communities don't fit in very neatly in diversity efforts that tend to align with progressive understandings of diversity. So that means that there's been a real gap in how Sephardic Jews are included or not included in many spaces that are trying to be more inclusive. So we really believe that diversity is not easy, and that it begins with listening and understanding, who are the individuals and communities that we want to include.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  I mean, how does kind of a deeper and broader knowledge of one's Jewish identity, one's Jewish history, how does your deeper and broader knowledge of your identity and history help you be a better advocate? And how can it help others be better Jewish advocates? Mijal Bitton: That's a great question. So you know, you mentioned before that I started a weekly Jewish wisdom Substack. It's called Committed and I'll be grateful to share the link with everyone. The first piece that I wrote there on Genesis was actually about Jewish pride, and it was an idea that I had been thinking for a long time about, and it was that, especially since October 7, I have been in all of these spaces with people who are newly reawakened, energized, outraged about what's been happening. And they speak constantly about the need for Jewish pride, Jewish pride. We need more Jewish pride, more Jewish pride, more Jewish pride.  And on the one hand, I love that. I love that awakening. It resonates with me strongly. On the other hand, I had like this little voice whispering to me, because, as a sociologist, I've actually done research that talks about pride as something, I want to try to say this carefully, as something that is sometimes the last thing a group holds on to before assimilating fully.  So in very simplistic terms, if you think about Italian Americans or Irish Americans right over three or four generations in this country, they will slowly lose a lot of their communal elements. They will move away from their neighborhoods. They will stop only cooking Italian food. They will stop working in certain professions. But they will still have a little bit of that Irish pride in St Patrick's Day.  So I have been concerned when we speak about Jewish pride, that Jewish pride can be seen as unsustainable if we don't know what we are proud of. There is a world of a difference between someone who says there's something here, that seems really good, and I think I'm proud. I'm proud. And it's different that if you're standing there and you say, I am proud of a heritage spanning 1000s of years, I stand on the shoulders of giants. I am continuing a legacy of Jews who have survived persecutions, who've survived assimilation, who've survived living in different countries and in different times, and I am holding all of this when I stand up as a Jew. That, to me, is the kind of confident pride that can help us as advocates when we are facing challenges, because we are facing challenges and we're going to continue to face challenges. So we desperately need that sense of Jewish history, that sense of spiritual sustenance. We have to know what we are proud of, what we are fighting for. Manya Brachear Pashman:  You wrote a piece shortly after October 7, and it was titled, The Pain You're Feeling is Peoplehood. And it was incredibly powerful. It went viral. Because it so perfectly captured what so many Jews were feeling at that moment. And for those who haven't read it, can you share what led you to write it and kind of summarize it for our listeners. Mijal Bitton: I lead a community, I’m the spiritual leader of a community called the Downtown Minyan. And like many spiritual leaders and clergy on that Simchat Torah. I had to, you know, I'm not saying anything new. Here I was, I was heartbroken, reeling. I don't use a phone on Shabbat didn't always happening. My family in Israel, the reports that were coming in, I felt like my soul, my heart was being ripped. I think many of us felt this. And I had a Shul to run, and I had to figure out, like, what Jewish wisdom can I use right now? And it was very primal and instinctive.  There was a teaching that I had taught before because I thought it was important, but at that moment, it felt essential, and it just like, came out. I stood in front of my community who were in pain, and I wanted to give them names to explain what was happening. And I described, I use a very famous teaching by Rav Soloveichik, who speaks about who asked the question, can we still speak of ourselves as Jewish people, even with all of our diversity and differences and disagreements?  And it brings up a Talmudic question about, if you have a man of two heads, is this considered one person or two? And it's a complicated question, if you take it seriously, and he offers a gruesome test to figure this out. You pour boiling water on one head, and then you look at the other, and if it cries out in pain, it is one people. If it doesn't, it is two. The reason that this teaching was important for me to say, and I think the reason you said it went viral is because, you know. I haven't said this like this before, so I am expressing this now, thinking with you. I think for very long, for us Jews in America, we have been pushed and compelled to think of Judaism along Protestant religious terms.  What I mean by this, it's a faith, it's a set of beliefs, it's a value system. It has to fit in like some universalistic framework, and that pain that we felt on October 7 was different. It was a reminder that to be a Jew is to be part of a family. That it doesn't matter how different we are from each other, how much we disagree. When your relative is in pain, you cry with them. And it's almost like that pain, to me was like a way of saying we are reminded that we're part of a family. And there's something. I don't have the right words here. There's something almost to treasure about the pain, because it reminds us that we are connected to each other, committed to each other, responsible for each other.  And I think we all felt it, and it took away some of the layers of conditioning that many of us have had, to pretend like we aren’t a family. That's what I think was one of the things that were so powerful about the tragedy that we all experienced. Manya Brachear Pashman:  Yeah, because we're so trained to be individuals, right, especially here in America, right, that individual spirit, and that's, that's not part of peoplehood. Or is it? I don’t know. Maybe that’s not the point.  Mijal Bitton: Yeah, listen, I think our tradition is amazing and complex, and there's strands of faith that brings up individualism and agency, but there's powerful strengths that talk about us as a family, as a collective, as a tribe, and there's powerful elements in our culture that have been pushing against that. And in many parts of our community, I think we drank the Kool Aid and we said we are not like, you know, that's backwards. That's not who we are anymore.  And then we were reminded that there's something there that we all felt was true. It existed before October 7, but I think October 7 kind of like woke it up. When I've shared this metaphor of the two headed men with people, many of them have offered an objection, and they've said, how awful is it for us to speak about who we are based on antisemitism? It shouldn't have to be like that. But, I mean, I would agree with that critique on theoretical terms. On sociological human terms, there is nothing that is more potent than having a shared enemy, a shared tragedy. Think about a family again, how tragedy brings us together.  So I think that unfortunately, the fact that there is still antisemitism vibrant in our societies and our streets has served to continue to reinforce that initial sense that we had after October 7. Of course, there are rifts. We can talk about debates that are happening. We are not as united as right after the tragedy. But, you know, I wrote a piece for CNN basically saying that the virulent anti semitism in the anti-Zionist movement is creating more Zionists. It's creating more Jewish solidarity. And it hasn't gone away. I am a religious woman. When I pray to God, I ask God that God should give us the challenge of having to remain connected in good times. I prefer that, but being that we don't have that right now, I do think that we have to double down on what our response is. Manya Brachear Pashman:  You wrote another piece for CNN that had to do with the anti-Israel protests on university campuses and the fear that it was inducing in so many Jewish young people, and the solidarity that was coming out of that. So with that in mind, one thing that the Jewish communal world is experiencing, we're certainly seeing it here at AJC, is an influx in involvement. Not just solidarity, but activism and advocacy, people who want to be more involved. Have you given any thought to this influx, and whether or not the infrastructure is in place here in America especially, to kind of sustain that, that level of involvement and activism.  Mijal Bitton: So one of the things that I've seen, and I'll be honest, that I'm still trying to understand it, but one of the things that I'm seeing is, there's, there's the thing called the organized Jewish community, okay? And it's a powerful ecosystem, you know, with lovers of power and influence. And I'm also privy, partially because of my work with young Jews, to a whole world of people who are wanting to be active, but who either don't have the access or the orientation to do so, you know, within the organized Jewish community And for me, part of what's still missing are the bridges between these different ecosystems. There's all of these people who are active on social media, right? The world of influencers, there's these groups of young Jews who are creating pop up Shabbat dinners, like all over the place, and like creating new clubs to celebrate Shabbat with each other and Jewish identity. And there is a lot of energy there. And what I'm trying to figure out is, I'm thinking of this as almost two powerful ecosystems, and I think that they would both be more powerful if they're in better conversation with each other.  So that, to me, again, it's a little bit abstract. I'm still thinking it through. I am a scholar in residence at the Maimonides Fund, and this is one of the questions that I have right now in this post-October 7 world: what would it mean to better bridge between these different ecosystems? Manya Brachear Pashman:  We just talked about the campus protests and the solidarity that they fuel, and we've also talked about the lack of research and scholarship out there about Jews in the Middle East and and North Africa and the diversity of the Jewish community. Do you think if young people had a better grasp of the thousands of years of history, of Jewish history in the Middle East, do you think that would shift the conversation at all, that education? And I don't mean obviously just within the Jewish community, I mean more broadly. Mijal Bitton: I mean, broadly speaking, yeah. So I would say two things I take to heart with my friend Haviv Retig Gur, who's a brilliant analyst. He speaks a lot about the fact that Jews, we don't know our own story. And I do think there is, like, huge lack of literacy in understanding that there were nearly 1 million Jews all across the Middle East and North Africa, and they left, fled, or were expelled in like massive Arab nationalist, anti-Zionist regimes that were propped up across the region. So I do think that for people to know these stories would be incredibly powerful.  I do want to note something, though, as someone who has been active in academia, I still have one foot there. I think that in many places, and we need to not be naive. In many places, people have vested interest in certain narratives, and they are emotionally attached to this narrative, and they have no incentive to change them, no matter how many counterfactuals you provide to them.  So there are definitely many parts in academia that want to think of the world as divided between the oppressors and the oppressed, and who want to think of Jews and Israel and Zionists as aligned with the oppressors, who they equate to Europeans and white and Westerners. And no matter how many counterfactuals you will give to them, they will find a way again, and I'm happy to explain this. They will find ways to make it fit into their narrative.  So we need a multi-pronged approach. One approach is to give the literacy to those who are seeking it as a way to have greater strength and intellectual tools at their disposal. Also, there's like a huge middle to convince, you know that can be moved. And when it comes to those ideologues, we have to battle their narratives. Manya Brachear Pashman:  In other words, offering that literacy to the Jewish community first, to those who actually want it, who are curious enough to want it, that's step one.  Mijal Bitton: Yeah, Jewish community, friends of the Jewish community, people who are intellectually honest and want to have a better discourse around Israel, the Middle East and current reality. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So Mijal, I am curious how your conversations have changed and evolved since October 7. Initially I wanted to ask you about interfaith dialog, but maybe intercultural dialog is a better way to put it. But did you have more intercultural dialog before October 7 or after October 7, or is your work really immersed in the Jewish community and Jewish dialog? Mijal Bitton: Yeah, so I would say like this: I think before October 7, I had spent many years focused on interfaith work. I think that the interfaith work was often anchored in more liberal and progressive spaces, and many of those efforts really imploded. And I think that I represent, because I've heard this from so many people who basically said, we've invested years into showing up for others and into relationships. And then if I can’t get someone to say that–you don't need to like Israel, you don't need to like Netanyahu, but just that Hamas raping and murdering is wrong and evil–then what am I doing here? So I think that definitely, I have been affected by that, by seeing that.  And right now, I think we're in a place a year out when there is new energy in trying to figure out, okay, like, who are those people that we can still talk to, and they exist. And also I think that, and this is like work that is ongoing, there is a real sense that we need to re-examine the work that we were doing. Perhaps we were investing in the wrong interfaith relationships and spaces. Which doesn't mean interfaith work is bad, but maybe we need to invest in other parts of interfaith work. Manya Brachear Pashman:  Can you expand on that a little bit? Mijal Bitton: I mean, yeah, this is like, personal. I am not going to be spending time in interfaith work with people who give Hamas a pass. I'll just say this, you know, like that. And I think there's a lot for me. I am much more interested right now in pursuing relationships with socially conservative leaders of other faiths, that perhaps in the past, we wouldn't have been in the same tables around interfaith work and who have spoken up with clarity when it comes to defending Jews and speaking up against antisemitism.  This doesn't mean, again, I don't want to imply that we should walk away from spaces you said before, it's important to have people fighting in many different areas. I think the real question we have to ask ourselves is, what are the lines, that if they are crossed, we walk away? Because I think too many Jews, for too long, have stayed in spaces where our basic story, dignity and humanity, was trampled, and we accepted that price. And that is not something we can do anymore.  So we have to figure out, how do we reconfigure relationships? How do we stand up for ourselves in different ways? How do we, and I’ll say this: in many places Jews showed up and agreed to, you know, like, pound their chest about, like, their white Jewish privilege as a price of entry into coalitions and relationships in ways that just were not honest. We need to fight all of this. Manya Brachear Pashman:  You recently hosted AJC CEO Ted Deutch on your podcast Wondering Jews, and I'm curious what you learned from that exchange with him, both on and off the air. Mijal Bitton: Yeah, it was wonderful. I co-host the podcast Wondering Jews with Noam  Weissman, and it was really nice. I mentioned this on that episode, but I have a very fond personal memory of my first encounter with Ted. It was the March in Washington. I was one of their earliest featured speakers at the March. You know, 300,000 people in person, many watching live. And I was very nervous. And I was like, pacing behind backstage. And I see Ted.  I've never met him before, but I had read about him. And when I read about him, I was very curious. I'm like, who leaves sitting Congress to go and work for the Jews? So I was already, fascinated by like, who would make this career switch? And then I saw him, and I don't know why, I turned to him, and I asked him if I could practice with him. And he literally had me practice my speech. I memorized it, and I practiced, and he gave me some feedback, and I changed some of the words, and his wife lent me a hostage tag necklace because I wanted to have one on stage. And it was early days, I didn't have one.  So my first encounter with him was that it felt like a very personal one, and that's what came across, I think, in the in the podcast, that Ted is this, you know, was a member of Congress, like runs AJC, but he just, he's so warm, and it is so obvious in everything that he says, that this is not like a job for him, but it is a passion and a life's mission. And the way that he spoke about just his love for the Jewish people, for spirituality, for what it means to stand up in the world, his hope and optimism. He speaks about relationships that you can insist on and make sure that you can have right now. It's very moving to find leaders who are running institutions and who themselves are able to embody a very powerful sense of conviction. We need more leaders like that. Manya Brachear Pashman:  So tell us about your newest project.  Mijal Bitton: Yeah, it’s called Committed. That's the name of the Substack. I started it on Simchat Torah. I'm still tinkering with it. Like you know, how long it should be, the tone, this, that. I'm very lucky to have a lot of readers and students who eagerly give me feedback as to what works and what doesn't, which is lovely, because I love learning Torah with them. But really, as many conversations that I've had with people about anti semitism and advocacy and Zionism on campus, as many conversations that I've been having around like antisemitism and Israel and politics, I have been having the same number of conversations about Judaism and spirituality and the soul and what it means to be part of this magnificent tradition.  I have been taken aback that often in my my classes and lectures, it will end with people coming to me afterwards and wanting to speak about their Jewish journeys, what it means to raise Jewish children, what it means to learn Torah, if you didn't grow up learning Torah, and now you want to what it means to to know that we are souls with bodies, as opposed to bodies with souls, all of these things.  I have felt that it's really important to try to to have weekly touch points that we can have to ask big questions and to be able to address them using Jewish tradition. So I've in my Substack so far, I've explored, like I mentioned before, Jewish pride, what it means to have Jewish pride. I've explored what it means to have, using the stories of Abraham and Rebecca, what it means to, when the world is burning, to know that we have multiple modes of responses. One of them is to provide justice, put out the flame.  Another mode is to help those who have burn marks and to just show care to them and be with them in times of need. The one that I wrote that I think went the farthest. One was around sacrifice, the binding of Isaac, which I wrote about what it means to from America. Look at Israeli parents and know that they are raising children who are willing to sacrifice in a way that American children are just not being taught.  I use the story of Jacob and Esau, and I did a beautiful thought experiment. What would have happened if a Chabad emissary would have met the bad twin of Jacob? And there's all of this text that actually allow us to imagine that Esau could have become a leader of the Jewish people if he would have been shown the kind of love that Chabad emissaries give. So I think there's amazing ways to approach Jewish tradition and to use those as and use Jewish tradition as a way to ask the most critical questions about what it means to live as a Jew today.  Manya Brachear Pashman: I imagine you’ll be lighting candles soon for Hanukkah. Any other special traditions? Mijal Bitton The one thing I would say that I love that we do in our Sephardic communities, we light a little bit differently. And this is a traditional way. There's some Sephardic Jews that have changed this a little bit, but traditionally we light one Hanukkiah (menorah) as a family. So in many Ashkenazic communities, each individual lights their own. Classically, in the Sephardic tradition, a family has one Hanukkiah, and we try to light it either by a window or, even better, outside. So my family, my parents, my siblings, they have a special Hanukkiah with glass panels, and we always light it outside the house, facing the streets in a very real way.  And I think that's an important symbol for us, what it means to insist on our lights in public spaces, what it means to fight for public spaces, and what it means, I would say . . . you know, Hanukkah has become such a commercialized holiday in America that, like lives alongside Christmas, and that feels good.  And it's become not just a watered down version of its original premise, but in many ways the opposite, because what the Maccabees did is they took on not just the Greek Empire in military terms. They took on the Greek Empire in cultural and spiritual terms, and they resisted assimilation with everything they had. So in a funny way, in America, to fit in, we've remade Hanukkah in terms that have been opposite in its original meaning.  And I think this last year asked us to reconsider what Hanukkah should look like, and what would it mean, you know, we shouldn't, I'm not saying we should be like the Maccabees exactly. You know, they're a complicated story as well. But what would it mean to make sure that we're not only lighting a light outside, but that we are expressing our Judaism in Jewish terms, even when it's a little bit uncomfortable for others.  Manya Brachear Pashman:  Mijal, thank you so much for joining us.  Mijal Bitton: Thank you for having me. Really great to be here. 

Bishop Joseph Bambera marks the launch of a groundbreaking Catholic-Jewish initiative - Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition - with a wide-ranging interview with AJC’s People of the Pod. At a time when recent events have challenged Catholic-Jewish relations, Bambera, the Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee (USCCB) on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, details why the church has made combating antisemitism a priority.  Translate Hate: The Catholic Edition, a joint project of AJC and the USCCB, features Catholic commentary on various entries of AJC’s renowned Translate Hate glossary of antisemitic terms, themes, and memes. It comes as Catholic and Jewish communities prepare to mark six decades of trust-building and mutual learning beginning when the Catholic Church reached out to the Jewish people and the world with Nostra Aetate, the historic Second Vatican Council document disseminated on October 28, 1965, which dramatically and publicly decried antisemitism and transformed the Church’s approach to the Jewish people for the better.Resources: New Glossary Breaks Ground in Tackling Antisemitism Through a Catholic Lens Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  Bernard-Henri Lévy and AJC CEO Ted Deutch on How to Build a Resilient Jewish Future Post-October 7 What’s Next for the Abraham Accords Under President Trump? The ICC Issues Arrest Warrants: What You Need to Know Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: [email protected] If you’ve appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with Bishop Bambera: Manya Brachear Pashman:   Nearly 60 years ago, the Roman Catholic Church issued a declaration called Nostra Aetate, a groundbreaking document that, among other things, aimed to heal the Church's strained relationship with the Jewish community at large. But over the past year, since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, there have been some tense moments: a call from Pope Francis to investigate whether Israel is committing genocide, a photograph of the Pope before a Nativity scene–featuring a keffiyeh. Now AJC and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have unveiled Translate Hate: the Catholic edition, the glossary of antisemitic terms, tropes and memes, originally published in 2019, also features Catholic commentaries to explain why the church has made combating antisemitism a priority. Here to talk about this partnership is Bishop Joseph Bambera, Chairman of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Ecumenical and interreligious affairs. Bishop, welcome. Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   Thank you for the honor of being with you today. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Bishop Bambera, please walk us through the Catholic edition of Translate Hate and how the Catholic Church became involved in this initiative together with the Jewish community. Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   I think the best way to walk us through the Translate Hate Catholic edition is to first take us back to 1965 and the Second Vatican Council and the declaration on the church's relationship with non-Christian religions, and particularly with the Jewish community. There was this really milestone declaration Nostra Aetate that I think many of us would be familiar with, and that really speaks about our relationship as it stands today. A relationship that I would say. tragically prior to the Second Vatican Council was not what it should have been. And on the heels of the Council, for almost 60 years, an anniversary that we’ll celebrate next year, we have grown together in mutual respect and understanding.  That particular declaration Nostra aetate speaks very, very clearly about the fact that Catholics and Jews really share a common patrimony. We Catholics, our roots are in Judaism. Jesus was Jewish. His family was. And so many members of the early church were as well. And we recognize and affirm in that document the fact that the Jewish people were the first to hear the Word of God and are a part of a covenant relationship that certainly has not been in any way broken, but has been maintained. And something that we affirm and that we teach in that document. A very important thing, from my perspective. And as well, the document reminds all those who would be familiar with it, and certainly who should be, if they are not, of the importance of us coming to a deeper sense of mutual respect and understanding. Of decrying any sense of hatred, persecution, or antisemitic efforts on the part of individuals that really have been such a burden to the Jewish people. So that particular document really laid the groundwork, for the very simple fact that I am here today and a part of this initiative.  But to fast forward a bit, the reality of antisemitism, as you know better than I, it has hardly diminished, and sadly, has intensified in recent years. And well before October 7 of 2023. So much so that the bishops of the United States, many of them, brought to the attention of the committee that I chair, the Bishops Committee for Humanism and Interreligious Affairs, have brought to our attention the fact that we need to begin to do something in a more concrete way. To walk more intimately and closely and lovingly with our Jewish brothers and sisters and to address the reality of antisemitism in a very real and concrete manner.  And so in 2022 this committee that I just referenced, they issued a document that they shared with all of the bishops. It's called the Fruits of Dialogues: Catholics Confronting Antisemitism. And in many respects, I would say that that particular document was the impetus for this initiative that we are a part of today, the Translate Hate Catholic Edition, hopefully it's been the impetus for other efforts on the part of many bishops in their own particular dioceses and archdiocese to work with their Jewish partners, to help to eradicate this, or certainly to address it in a way that is hope filled.  So this document has been in the works now for quite a while particularly with the leadership of the Bishop's Committee and the American Jewish Committee as well. What you will find is building upon the antisemitic themes and tropes that were placed in the document when the American Jewish Committee put it together; we have provided commentary on a number of them from a Catholic perspective. So you know, if you look at the notion of deicide, the commentary that we provide there offers very clear Catholic theological teaching on the fact that that whole reality is certainly not something that we would ever intend to insinuate today is the responsibility of all of the Jewish people. In the midst of these commentaries, we offer current theological teaching. We offer teaching on human dignity, which is so much a part of our tradition and our hope and prayer for humankind, and we acknowledge, as well, in some of those commentaries, the fact that, you know, some members of the Church throughout history have been insensitive and inappropriately offered, and perhaps even negligently offered, words and actions that led to antisemitic efforts, sadly on the part of so many. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So what is the expectation? This document is going out. How are you expecting or wanting parishes and pastors to implement it? Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   Given the fact that it the document that the Bishops Committee came out with in 2022 was really at the initiative of many bishops in the United States, I would like to believe and think that the vast majority of our bishops will embrace this and use it in whatever way speaks to the situation within their own territory, their own region, relative to the Jewish community there. So for example, once this is officially promulgated today, later on in the day, we will be releasing from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on our bishops-only website.  We will be releasing a letter from me as the chair of this committee, and the document, and that will be followed up with a hard copy that will be sent to every bishop in the near future, following the online version that they'll receive today. We anticipate that this will be used by other committees that might have some relationship to the work that our committee does, and the hope that they would use them. We will be disseminating it to ecumenical officers who are appointed in every one of our dioceses to do the work of ecumenism and interreligious affairs folks.  Manya Brachear Pashman:   You mentioned Nostra Atate. In 1965 you were just a child then. And I should also mention AJC played a leading role in those conversations, as well with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. You were ordained 20 years later. And I'm just curious if this major turning point in Catholic Jewish relations, did it come up in your theology training, or 20 years later, was it just accepted as the norm? Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   You know, I will be frank with you, the term that you used in asking the question was, did it come up? Yes, it did. It did. But given the scope of issues that would be necessary to prepare a man for ministry in the church as a priest in the seminary, it was one of many things that everything rose to the level of being absolutely vital, all right, to our preparation. So this was but it took its place in a whole line of other things that were just as vital.  So maybe the best way to answer your question was, you know, a great deal of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council was integrated into many of the theology courses that I would have taken, all right, and the same would go for something like Nostra Atate. All right. We were, I was certainly familiar with it. All right. It was certainly something that was communicated as a very significant teaching, a milestone moment in our church, a clear refocusing of our relationship with the Jewish community. Prior to that, there were no relationships officially. So it was put before us as something that was vital to consider. But I would not be honest in wanting to suggest that in some way it was a major focus. It was one of many. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I do want to fast forward and talk about today. Of course, Catholic Jewish relations are quite complicated now, especially given the Israel Hamas war, I imagine educating inspiring your flock on the moral complexities of that war, while also rallying the faithful to combat the rise of antisemitism against Israel and the Jewish Diaspora at large is very complicated, and there have been some tense moments. Recently, a letter from Pope Francis, one year after the October 7 terror attacks, included a couple kind of eerily iconic phrases from John 8:44, a verse that's long been understood as a fundamental, eternal indictment of the entire Jewish people. He was even cited by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter. A lot of Jews are irate that the Pope has called for an investigation into whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. And most recently, some people were upset that the nativity scene at the Vatican featured a baby Jesus resting in a manger draped with a keffiyeh, Palestinian national symbol, and I know that has since been removed from that scene. But how do you talk about all of these moments with your Jewish friends, friends like the Hollanders, when they arise? Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   First of all, the concern that you share in that question, maybe the hurt or the confusion that some of these things have caused. It's rather palpable. I spoke about it just coming into the studio today with Rabbi Marans. I would first say that the very fact that in this exchange that we are having here today, on a day that is a real positive step. I believe in Catholic Jewish relations with the promulgation of the Translate Hate Catholic Edition, I would say it's a testimony to the relationship that we have developed. And I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for the question, you know, they're, not easy questions to address, but they are of great concern to you and so many others. And you, on behalf of your people, have a responsibility to ask me that question, and I need to say to you that my presence here today is meant to speak a word of encouragement regarding our relationship. It is one that is deeply valued. I treasure it. I'm grateful for it. I am honored to be here today.  Now with that, let me, let me speak a little bit more directly to the question and how these types of things are addressed. I look at the work that I have done in ecumenism and interreligious affairs, and I've been privileged to be chairman of this committee for a term now, for three years. I was previously back in 2017 elected chairman of this very same committee. So I've been at the helm of it twice now, and I've learned so much, so much from Christian partners, so much from our Jewish partners. One of the things that I have learned in the midst of the work that I have done with ecumenism is that I can't create a false sense of unity and harmony. For us to journey together in a positive way, I need to hear what you have to say, and I need to receive it, and I can't say something that is contrary to where my church is.  Now, another dimension of the dialogue work that I have learned relates to listening. How do we listen to what we hear about this relationship? What are we hearing when we read something about Pope Francis? How is that speaking to our hearts? What is it saying to this relationship? I hear from you hurt. I hear from you confusion. I said that a moment ago. For me, and perhaps this is the best thing that I can say, and I would say it across all three areas or topics that you raised in your question, I would say this much. I can't speak for Pope Francis. But what I can do is reflect to you what I hear from him and what I have heard from him throughout his 11 years as Pope. I have heard from him very, very early on, and you're all familiar with this quote that he offered to a Jewish interreligious organization way back, I think, in 2013 or 14, shortly after he was elected Pope, that a true Christian cannot be an antisemite. That's something that I would affirm, and that's something that I have never heard him go back on.  I have heard him embrace better than probably I have heard prior to his election, a deep commitment to the documents of Vatican Council, Vatican Two, and particularly, a deep commitment to the tenets of Nostra Aetate. The other thing that I've heard from Pope Francis, and perhaps this speaks to some of the struggle that you raise that in the face of terrorism and war and the loss of innocent lives, of Jewish lives that were lost in 2023 and of countless other lives that are lost throughout our world in the midst of war. I hear him speak over and over again about human dignity, the value of life and the reason for why we treasure life, and that's rooted in a common scripture that we both cherish, in the first book of the Torah, Genesis, the first chapter. In the image of God man was created, in the image and likeness of God. I think that that speaks for me to this moment.  It does not take away, and I would not imagine that for a moment some of the struggle that you experience, but that's what I hear when I look at his papacy. I also look at some more personal dimensions of it. And I know that his experience as the archbishop of Buenos Aires was an experience that found him deeply connected to the Jewish community, particularly to a close friend of his, whom I've been privileged to meet, Rabbi Abraham Skorka. So I share these things with you in response to your observation. And by the same token, I would say to you that we have miles to go before we achieve the end for which we are about here today. Manya Brachear Pashman:   In this moment, Bishop, do you believe that Translate Hate, specifically this new Catholic edition has particular value in this, in this moment that we talked about, where the relationship can get complicated? Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   I think, in any moment in time when there is suffering because of hatred, because of an antisemitic perspective that so many people so horrifically bring to life, I think this particular initiative is vital, and I think today more than ever, we have recognized it in our church, the sufferings of our Jewish brothers and sisters. We have recognized it globally. We have recognized it in our country, and we experience it in in my community, Scranton, relatively, you know, small city of about 100,000 people, you know, we it's sadly, it's sadly everywhere. I believe this moment is a bit of a clarion call for all of us to walk a little bit more authentically and closely with our Jewish brothers and sisters. It's one thing to have issued a document 60 years ago. You can forget the intensity and the significance that document was and meant 60 years ago, 50 years ago, maybe even 40 years ago. But as time goes on and generations pass, we sometimes need to refocus our attention, don't we? And we need to recognize the fact that as our society, becomes more secularized, we can't possibly circle the wagons to just preserve what we have. Every one of our congregations, many of yours and many of mine, are diminishing in terms of numbers since the pandemic, but also before that as well. And I think sadly, what you see in many congregations is this sense of trying to preserve what one has and therefore excluding others. Not just, I certainly don't necessarily mean from being in a church or a synagogue or temple, but I mean excluding from life by one's attitudes and one's actions and one's words. And I think we are, at this moment, really at risk of losing a sense of what we learn and how we grow from dialogue.  I'm here to tell you today that I am so much richer personally because of this opportunity that I have been given to be a part of this initiative, frankly, to even prepare for today. It's just been a wonderful experience for me that has really re-energized me. This wonderful mission. But it's also reminded me of how much people who are involved in in faith traditions, in a leadership position, can be somewhat academically connected to something. It's it's got to be translated to the heart, and I hope that that's what happens here. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned that you were just a child when Nostra Aetate came about. Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing and when you heard the calling to seek ordination and become a priest? Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   I grew up in a Catholic family. I didn't have a lot of Jewish friends. There weren't a lot of Jewish people living in our community, although I did develop friends as as I went off to college. Okay, when I when I got the call to be a become a priest. I was actually at the University of Pittsburgh with every intention of becoming a dentist. It was kind of the family business, okay? And and I got involved in an ecumenical Christian campus ministry program. But, you know, it was just an experience that really called me to develop a deeper sense of authenticity, I think, in my faith journey, and, and, and so that's what ultimately prompted me to go into the seminary and become a priest. Did you grow up in Pittsburgh? I grew up in Scranton, where I serve as bishop, which is very unusual. So I my mom, who, at 97 still lives nearby. We I've spent my entire ministry in the Diocese of Scranton, and 15 years ago was appointed Bishop. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Wow, wow. That that is indeed rare, and that is indeed rare. So you get to see the parish in which you you grew up. Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   I do. I do, yeah. And I've journeyed with this community, there's, there's pluses and minuses to something like that. You know, sometimes people say, What's the best thing about being bishop in your home diocese? I say, you know people, and they know you and and what's the most challenging thing? You know people and they know you. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Well, Bishop, thank you so much for sharing what the church’s teaching now and how it's collaborating with AJC to build bridges and educate your flock. Thank you so much, and thank you for joining us. Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera:   It's been a real pleasure.