Safeguarding Our Future: Alliances or Isolation?
The Jewish community has traditionally relied on alliance-based causes (such as workers’ rights, civil rights, feminism, and gay rights) to secure its place in American society. After October 7th, however, many feel abandoned by their longtime allies and question the wisdom of alliances. Is solidarity still the best strategy, or might isolation serve the community better? Or should we just choose our allies more carefully? Watch now as panelists at Z3 Conference 2024 examine the evolving landscape of Jewish security in the US diaspora.
About our Moderator and Panelists:
Alana Zeitchik is an Israeli-American Advocate, Writer and Executive Director of the Narrow Bridge Project based in Brooklyn, NY. On October 7th, six of her family members were taken hostage at which point she dedicated herself to fighting for their release. She has written op-eds in publications like The New York Times and the Forward, made countless media appearances, given speeches at The UN and March Against Antisemitism, and built a supportive and engaged social media community. Her compassionate voice and nuanced approach to advocacy deeply resonates with a wide range of people inside and out of the Jewish community.
April Powers has spent her professional career helping organizations manage differences through training, recruiting, and diversity & inclusion strategy. A Los Angeles native who is the great-granddaughter of Jews who fled pogroms in eastern Europe and Black survivors of chattel slavery in the US, April co-launched Jewbian Princess to increase belonging for all in Jewish communal spaces. After experiencing extreme online antisemitism, April joined Project Shema to do her part to ensure that antisemitism education is folded into robust DEI programs. She is also the Managing Director of First Impression Rx, a full-service consulting firm that helps companies manage differences through training, recruiting, and diversity & inclusion strategy.
Izabella Tabarovsky is a Senior Advisor at the Kennan Institute (Wilson Center), a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP) and the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism (LCSCA), and a contributing writer at Tablet. Her research and writing focus on Soviet antizionism and contemporary left antisemitism, Soviet Jewry, Holocaust in the USSR, and Stalin's repressions. Izabella holds a Master of Arts degree in Russian History from Harvard University and Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder. In addition to Tablet, Her writings have been published in Newsweek, The National Interest, Forward, Times of Israel, Fathom, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and others.
Tyler (Tye) Gregory is a California LGBTQ+ Jewish community leader serving as the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC Bay Area), the largest collective voice of Bay Area Jews, and Executive Director of Bay Area Jewish Action (BAJA), JCRC's affiliated 501c4 political advocacy organization. In the year that followed the devastating Hamas terror attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing wave of antisemitism it brought upon the Jewish community, JCRC has become a leading Jewish organization addressing the unprecedented headwinds facing Bay Area Jews. Working with elected officials, law enforcement, and leaders in K-12 and higher education, he and JCRC advocate to ensure the Bay Area and California remain great places to live authentic Jewish lives. Previously, Tye served as Executive Director of A Wider Bridge, the LGBTQ+ Jewish organization combatting antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, and advancing equality in Israel through international support and cooperation.
Tye Gregory: So good afternoon, everybody. People will continue to file in. There's the elevator that you saw. So we'll just get this party started. So I'm Ty Gregory. I'm the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council, JCRC for the Bay Area. And the conversation that we're going to have is really something core to the work that I personally believe in and the work that JCRC does day to day, which is we're in the business of building friendships.
And a lot of us have felt tested by that over the past 14, 15 months. So before we dive in, let's poll the audience. Let's start with the positive. After October 7th, were there people in your lives that you didn't expect that called, texted, reached out to you from various parts of your life and said, I'm thinking about you.
I hope you're okay. Raise your hand if that happened to you. Okay. But it did happen, right? I like to start with the positive. Now let's flip the question, which is, were there people in your life that you expected to hear from outside of our community that were met with radio silence after October 7th?
Okay. So that's probably why you chose this session. Because we're all looking for answers, and I think we're going to get some provided.
April Powers: You're not going to say your friends that harassed you incessantly to go flip for the other side?
Tye Gregory: Yeah we'll talk about them. They're special. But I think it's important to hold both, right?
And maybe it does take more courage to be an ally of our community right now. But we owe it to think about them too, because we need some hope, but we need to also think seriously about what's happened over the past 14 months. And more importantly, what led up to that's leaving us in large part, grasping for straws about where our friends have been.
So the way that I want to start off this conversation is actually to have our panelists introduce themselves by giving a little bit of a storytelling about what things have been like through this bridge building lens. over the past 14 months for them. So for start, we're going to go to April Powers.
Tell us what these past 14 months have been like for you.
April Powers: So I am a Black Jewish woman who was canceled after the last Hamas conflict. I have led DEI for some of the largest companies in the world. And and antisemitism for the first time, I was canceled. So I've already experienced what that was. And so after October 7th and I do work in Jewish communal spaces with my organization, Jewbian Princess, and I teach antisemitism with Project Shema.
But I go into corporations and non profits and other spaces to talk about antisemitism and how Jews and Jewish identity fit into DEI spaces. So I work in coalition and in conversation with non profits. with a lot of different groups, and October 7th was a bit of a trickle, I feel, like people just didn't know what to say.
There was a few, there were a few things here and there, like, how are you doing no bad reposting from close friends of mine, a couple of bad reposting from different people, and I just, for my own mental health, having gone through this already I decided for some people I was going to unfollow them for my own mental health.
And then there was the Black Jewish Solidarity stuff for me, which, Black Twitter didn't stand up for me in 2021, so I wasn't expecting Black Twitter to stand up for me in I know that surprised a lot of people. But what was delicious, As you come around the corner, is there are Black folks standing up and speaking out in support of the Jewish community.
Van Jones is one of them. Believe it or not, the co founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors, is also a What? Oh, get ready. Get ready. Get ready. You're going to hear some different voices on this panel. It has launched, co launched an entire black Jewish solidarity community that I'm a part of.
She is putting a ton of time, effort, and resources. I heard a Black trans woman say, when I go out and speak, I speak up for everybody. And when I go out to speak out as a Black trans woman, nobody stands up for me. And I see the same thing happening to my Jewish brothers and sisters over there. So when it started as a trickle, I have been harassed by close friends that are no longer invited to my funeral.
And if you think I'm kidding, I called every close person. I was like, he is not allowed at my funeral. Just know that. So yeah, the worst thing for me, the worst betrayals were from close friends. The surprises. really warmed my heart and soul. And so it gave me so much hope for humanity and for, as Jewish people, it gives me hope for redemption because I believe in redemption.
If we cancel people forever, I'm anti cancel culture. I always have been. Which is one of the reasons why if you say, What? Patrisse Cullors? Yeah. But she had also left Black Lives Matter before the parachute. I'm pretty sure she did. Somebody can fact check me on that. Yeah. Anyway.
Tye Gregory: You did great.
I just want to add to that really quickly, which is, we have amazing Black leadership in San Francisco that have been great leaders. for the Jewish community. Our district attorney, Brooke Jenkins in San Francisco, rock star, she prosecuted the Golden Gate Bridge protesters. She stood for Jewish public safety, London Bridge.
She was voted out of office. She's been a very vocal supporter of the Jewish community, by the way, discovered she's half Ashkenazi a few years ago during COVID, took a 23andMe test. So don't say that we don't have a strong pro Jewish Black leaders, even here in the Bay Area, which is a challenging area, right?
There, there are, it's important to treat no community like a monolith.
April Powers: At all. Except and we're talking about Black Jewish solidarity, please don't, how many Black Jews do we have up in here? Please don't forget us. We're like the ones having these conversations at our Thanksgiving tables. And I could go through every single multi ethnic Jew, and then we'd find, have somebody from each section here.
So that is another thing, that people have these conversations in these silos of Blacks or Jews and they're not thinking like black Jews live at the intersection and we're having the difficult conversations quite regularly. So I had to say that.
Tye Gregory: Amen. Alana, I want to make sure we all give you another round of applause for what you said on stage.
Is this on? Yeah. Okay. It's on. You gave us so much of your heart wrenching story up there and, but you are living in New York. And so you're having conversations with your concentric circles of dear friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc. Play out the last 14 months as you've made the case, as you've lived this reality.
Yeah. How have you experienced it?
Alana Zeitchik: Oh, how have I experienced this? It has been, I can say for sure that I am not the same person I was on October 6th. My entire life changed on October 7th, but I was already very I was already very aware of especially in young, liberal, I used to work at BuzzFeed in young, liberal, millennial kind of progressive spaces that the Palestinian cause had become very important to that community.
And in the war with Gaza in 2021, I had already felt people around me, turning their backs while rockets were hitting the Nir Oz. My family, luckily, wasn't there at that point. And I was like, what's going on here? But I was, as an American Jew, as someone who lives here, was able to coast, because it's not part of the everyday discourse in, in our culture, usually.
On October 7th, I knew that it was going to, that was going to happen again. I remember I looked back actually recently I started posting on Instagram literally on October 7 being like, my family is missing, they are gone. And I remember I looked back and I shared something where I said, this is not resistance.
This is a terrorist attack. This is not resistance. And my initial experience in the beginning was being a New Yorker and living in Brooklyn and walking around my very liberal spaces and feeling very lonely and very confused, walking into coffee shops and not knowing if I could put up a poster in there and my brother and I would put posters up around Brooklyn and of our family's faces, right?
And they would be torn down instantaneously. And I saw, of course, I got, On a positive note, a flood of messages from people who I hadn't spoken to since college, like tons of people sending me messages to express their love and their support. My Palestinian friend, whose family lives in Haifa, messaged me immediately to share her concern. But it was other people in New York,
people who have no skin in the game, as we say, who very quickly turn to their backs. I also live in I live in Bed-Stuy, in a very Black community. And one of the local communities on that day, I remember, put out a statement supporting it as resistance, and I was horrified. And this is a, was an eye opening moment for me, because I thought to myself, how are we living in this world?
Because how are, how have people dehumanized Israelis or celebrated resistance to the degree at which they think taking my family hostage, my, the children, babies in my family, that could be justified. And how could they do so so quickly? And I wrote an op ed in the New York Times about this, about my confusion about why no one in my community could help me hold my grief.
But what this moment did for me was it demanded that I ask questions rather than saying forget all of them. I said, why are they acting this way? What is happening? And I started to ask myself these questions. What have I been missing? Not that anything that was coming from the far left is justified by any means, But in order to take that, and there is something happening that got to that place.
So I started to ask questions, and I started to ask myself, why don't I have any more Palestinian friends? Why don't I have Palestinian allies? Can I speak to someone from Gaza? Because the people of Gaza and the hostages are two sides of the same coin. And I started to question myself, and I started to seek out
Palestinians, people in the peace activism world, Israelis Israelis for Peace is an organization who started after October 7th in, in New York. And I started to develop relationships with the enemy. And I have, an incredible amount of Palestinians in my life now. People who support me, support the hostages.
People who don't agree with on a lot of things. There are many things we don't agree with. And sometimes they say things that I don't like that make me uncomfortable. And sometimes I say things to them that make them really uncomfortable. But, I feel that, one, we had to show unity, that the people of Gaza and the hostages, they need to be saved together.
There's no separating them in this. And the same goes for Israelis and Palestinians. There is no future without Israelis, and there is no future without Palestinians. So it's our job to work across our divide, and to sit and have those really uncomfortable conversations, and make friends with people who were once our enemies.
Tye Gregory: It's really beautiful. Thank you. Isabella Tabarovsky, you're a senior fellow with the Z3 Institute. Tell us about what the past 14 months have been like for you.
Izabella Tabarovsky: So first of all, I want to say that I've, I have a background that perhaps makes this whole notion of allyship a little bit more complex in my worldview.
So I grew up in the USSR, moved to the US. 35 years ago almost. And then the last four years I've lived in Israel. So I was in Israel when October 7th happened. And so the kind of the interactions with people outside the Jewish community were few. I of course noticed, who sent me messages, who didn't send me messages.
But it wasn't such a big, bigger priority. The thing about it is, the thing about allyships, as I used to think about it even before - I write a lot about the experience of Russian speaking Jews, RSJs, ex Soviet Jews, people who grew up in the USSR or come out of families that, that come out of the USSR.
And I think I feel pretty comfortable saying, on behalf of the community, that in general, this group did not really expect progressives, the far left groups, to be our allies. And I think that there are many reasons for that, but I think that American born American Jews look to what have been called, educated and trained and conditioned to look exclusively toward the right as the greatest source of danger.
Whereas if you come out of the USSR, you understand the danger from the far left really well. And the language that we have been hearing over the last few years, and especially since October 7th, this whole anti Zionist language, this is what I write about a lot the whole, the equation between Zionism and racism and apartheid and Nazis and fascism and colonialism and imperialism.
This is the stuff of our childhoods. I came of age, I grew up in the 70s and 80s. To me, I feel like I'm back in the USSR, honestly, when I hear this language here. And when we, when RSJs, like myself, look to the left, and we, it was very hard for us to overlook the anti Israel language, the anti Zionist language, and to continue, to view those groups, as allies.
And so my overwhelming emotion in the wake of October 7th, in this regard, aside from the trauma and everything else, was just profound sadness at seeing and recognizing the betrayal from my American-born Jewish friends. It reminded me of the experience. I once went to the Washington Holocaust Museum in D.C There was an exhibit years ago called Some Were Neighbors. And it talked about how German Jews like one of the most painful experiences for them that they discussed after the Holocaust and told their interviewers about that was the sense of, suddenly, their German friends just disappeared.
Their dance partners, and their friends in their choirs, and their, I don't know, lovers, probably, school friends, suddenly they, disappeared. And that sense of betrayal, think about it, they carried it through the this is after the Holocaust. After horror of the Holocaust, they still remembered the betrayal.
And after October 7th, I just felt really sad and crushed to see that our community was yet again living through a betrayal and that we allowed it to happen. And so I've been thinking a lot about, who, how do we choose our friends? Who do we turn to? And we'll probably get to that.
Tye Gregory: Thank you. And I'm gonna give my own truncated answer to this. Some of you know me as the head of JCRC, but for a long time I've been part of the LGBTQ Jewish community. And I personally, and many of my friends, I see Justin's here, have had stories about having slurs, anti Jewish slurs, antisemitic slurs, leveled at us in gay bars, in the Castro, in West Hollywood in Chelsea, in New York.
And that is a feeling of isolation. For At the same time, so many of my friends have come out of the woodwork to support me. I heard from dates from, I don't know, eight years ago texting me. I haven't heard from that. Maybe I didn't want to hear from them again, but they're like, I'm so sorry for what happened.
So there's two sides of the same coin. But it's really troubling to me. Some of you know about Senator Scott Weiner in San Francisco, who's been the most vocal supporter of Israel in the LGBTQ community. Perhaps. on the Western states. And some of you read there where there was a pumpkin carving that he did for his constituents.
Every election cycle, he has a pumpkin carving fundraiser. And there were kids there. And Queers United Against Israeli Terrorism, Quit, as they call themselves. Quit what? I don't know. Drugs? Okay. They basically did a march to this pumpkin carving and actually the inverse of what they intended happened because, There were parents there that knew nothing about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, had no position on the war, and these people were yelling at kids.
And so the, we have seen a process of dehumanization, where Jews or people that associate with us have become legitimate targets because they've convinced themselves we're no longer human as Zionists or as Jews. And that's a process that we've seen repeated itself. So I decided early on, after October 7th, that I would not be a Jew with trembling knees.
That I was going to show the community who I was, and then our community needs to show our broader surroundings who we are, and let's let the rest fall into place. Those that admire who we are and see us celebrating our Jewishness will gravitate towards us, and the others, we'll see them for exactly who they are.
And that's been my theory of change. Over the past year plus, and I think my mantra as we try to figure out the way forward, and that's what we want to talk about next. Before we get to the outside world, I think it's really important that we take the temperature of where Jewish unity is today.
Because we've talked on the main stage and over lunch there's so many ways to feel good about how united we are right now. But there are those underlying fissures that seem to like they're coming back to the surface, or maybe they never really went away, or maybe we papered over them in that moment of trauma, or that continues to be traumatic.
How do we view this moment in time in terms of Jewish unity? What internal bridge building do we think that we need to do right now? Let's go in the reverse order.
Izabella Tabarovsky: Sure, so internal bridge building is something that's very near and dear to my heart because I've really spent a lot of time again explaining, I think the RSJ experience because I felt like it was really important.
The one thing about RSJs that's really important for the current moment is that they are, we are unapologetically Zionist and unapologetically pro Israel. And I saw it already in 2021. I wrote an article about that then, where, you could see during that conflict with between Israel and Gaza at that time, the, ex Soviet Russian speaking Jews were out there with, Israeli flags and just arguing with the anti Zionists, while a lot of American born American Jews were shocked, because that's when that anti Israel rhetoric really began to explode.
So I think that there are communities in the, in our broader community that perhaps should be brought more into the center. And I think that the, this is one group, I think Iranian, Persian Jews need to be brought more into the center, I think. But in turn but I want to just say about unity I think it's, look, I think we as a people, as a Jewish people are, it's in our book, right?
We're an argumentative people, right? We all have opinions. We argue with one another. We even argue with God. So the question is how do we define unity? I think, in fact, I think that this kind of our habit and our skill at disagreeing serves us well, and actually Einat Wilf, who many of you probably know who she is, she likes to say, when people say Israel, Jewish or democratic?
And she would say that, I hope I'm not misquoting her, but she would say that essentially Jewish cannot be anything but democratic because we are arguing with one another. We are, we have that kind of, we have that culture, we have that habit. I think that it's one of our strengths.
I think it's excellent that we are, I think we could do better at. allowing different, more different opinions, more diversity of opinion within our community. But I think it, it, in general, it's our strength. The question is at what point do we get to to a place where disagreement becomes animosity, right?
At what point are we at each other's throats? To, to where we start to fear like we're really falling apart as a people. So somewhere in there, I think we need to find a line That we shouldn't be crossing and I think a certain perhaps we need a certain mindset adjustment where At the top of the, of our list of priorities we place peoplehood, right?
Jewish peoplehood. And it's gonna sound like a cliché, but really brotherly feelings toward each other, or love toward one another. That needs to be at the top, and I think that is something that our community leaders really need to prioritize. Because, as everything began polarizing over the last few years, you, we saw it.
Including our spiritual leaders taking political positions and demonizing and excluding others. So I think that guarding this kind of overarching understanding that The wholeness of the jewish people is critical. I think that's really important
Alana Zeitchik: Our community is fractured, and it's fractured generationally.
It's fractured across political divides and people are having a really hard time talking to each other. I've spoken to a lot of people who have an anti Zionist, let's say, nephew, who won't speak to them at all. And at the same time, you have people who are anti Zionist saying I just want to be heard, and if they say anything about ending the occupation, or criticize Israel's actions in Gaza, they're shut out by Zionist Jews.
So we're not talking to each other and we have to talk to each other because neither of us are going anywhere. I have done a lot of outreach amongst in the peace community, which has led me to people who identify as things like non Zionist and post Zionist. I recently, or at some point a few months ago, I actually like I polled people on my Instagram and I think it was like, 12 percent of the people following me are people who identify as either non Zionist or post Zionist or anti Zionist, which most of them don't like.
I think we are doing a disservice by not having conversations with each other. I don't see how we can ask people to stand with us as a community if we are not increasing alignment with each other about our history so that JVP stops revising our history or they're seen as doing such.
And at the same time, I think we have to allow anti- occupation voices, anti occupation Israeli voices, actual voices of peace. Because they're in Israel. They're not so much in America, but they're really in Israel. And so we have to bring groups like Omdim B'Yachad standing together to the forefront, or at least to have them be heard by more Zionist Jews in America, for example.
And so this all led me to figuring out asking myself, how are we going to do this? And I came upon, a rabbi, as one does in my kind of journey who ran a program called the Narrow Bridge Project at Brown University. And she started it there to bring the anti Zionist and Zionist Jews together to have curriculum based facilitated dialogue.
And the program worked phenomenally. The students aligned the increase. I don't like to say consensus because the truth is, are we ever going to all agree on everything? No, but we need to increase alignment on our peoplehood, on Zionism, on anti semitism and Israel Palestine so that we can work more effectively and our activism becomes more effective.
Because, for example, an anti Zionist Jew, let's call them, if they're in spaces, they should be able to fight for us, too. They should be able to fight for Jewish peoplehood, and they're not. And this requires a level of education but also, and relationship building. We have to build relationships with one another again and learn to develop a lot more respect for each other so that we can actually move forward in unity, not uniformity.
April Powers: Thank you. We're 15 million people. 1. 5, we know this, 0.2 percent of the world's population, which means most people have never met a Jew. And we cannot afford this, my friends, I can't speak to the political divides in Israel, I don't live there, I'm headed there next month, if anyone's gonna be there, but here in the U.S alone, just this past election, I don't know, how many of you are not speaking to friends or family, post election? How many of you were worried about Thanksgiving? Or Pesach or any of the holidays post election. I think we cannot afford to allow, especially our political divides. I know that many of us are disappointed, and that's a very nice word, in some of the decisions that friends and family have made in this past election cycle, whatever your politics.
But to allow that to stop us from reaching across the aisle for unity, not uniformity is a big mistake. I think we have to figure out maybe one table at a time, how to have those conversations. We have to get in the same dictionary also. What does Zionism mean to you? Because even in with Jewish young people, sometimes I'm like, What is Zionism?
When you're saying you're an anti Zionist, what does that mean to you? I'm anti occupation. Great, okay. What does occupation mean to you? It's the West. Bank Okay. So you're a Zionist, my friend, right? So I also think sometimes people are saying, signing up for the anti Zionism or post Zionism.
I'm not sure. I'm not questioning the intelligence of your followers, but I have actually, not at all. I'm just saying, I've actually spoken with young Jewish people and I'm like say more about this. So I think I would like us, I'm actually going to be doing a post on this soon. I've defined DEI and I'm defining Zionism.
I'm not the definer, of course, but I think we do need, in order to be having the same conversations, to be in the same dictionary. And to not give up on each other, and to continue having conversations when it's hard to do. Many of the speakers this morning asked us to do a few things.
I'm going to ask you to reach out to somebody whose political differences aren't the same whose views are politically different than your own and have a conversation and how, see how they're feeling. How are they feeling about Israel? How are they feeling about October 7th? How are they feeling post election?
How are they feeling about the election? And we have to be the bigger people because if we're not we're A, we're not following our cultural heritage and our who we are as a people, but we'll also become even more fractured and that is not something we can afford to do right now.
Tye Gregory: Thank you. You asked about Thanksgiving, I raised my hand. So I'm the guy that's supposed to promote civil discourse, but I have my own moments of weakness. I have two step siblings coming home to Thanksgiving. They're both involved with IfNotNow. So when my mom says they were going to come down for Thanksgiving, I went online and I ordered my IDF t shirt to wear to Thanksgiving but I still might do that, but it's not the right reaction, right?
We need to be able to have, intelligible conversations. And I think the best way to do that is start by asking questions. What's this past year been like for you? Where have you thought your attention? And I think the same thing is true with our national election, right? Democrats are saying, no, you're the problem.
You're the reason we lost. You're the reason we lost instead of just stopping and listening for a hot second and seeing, okay, what, what actually just happened here? So I think we do need to bring a concerted effort back to civil discourse. Because I don't really think, a lot of us are thinking about.
How is this new administration going to change the local and the national environment? And it seems right for us to bring civil discourse back to our Jewish community. About eight years ago, JCRC led a year of civil discourse across the Bay Area Jewish community. We're talking about bringing that back because we know how many congregations and JCCs and local grassroots groups that are fighting on on their WhatsApp groups and driving everyone nuts, right?
We need to find ways to bridge past that and stop talking past each other. So thank you all for that.
April Powers: Can I say one more thing? I'm sorry, I can't. I have been attacked more by Jews than anybody else, my friends. What is going on? What are we doing? I just had somebody, I did a post and somebody was like what are you doing for social security?
And I'm like, I, that is not my lane. That is not my area of expertise. What are we talking about? And so it's that other thing. It's I know we're in this situation where we're all watching each other and listening to each other, but we also have to sometimes call each other in. If you see somebody attacking another Jewish person, it's my friend, let's like, especially if they're friends of yours, like now is not the time. And it is also in those moments. Now is not the time in October 8th. Now is not the time, right? We have to also pick our and choose our moments of when we need to uplift each other and call each other in and call each other out.
And some of these other things, it's just been bizarre for me.
Tye Gregory: Couldn't agree more. About half of you were in the room in the beginning when I polled the other half were on Jewish standard time, which is fine. And the first question I asked is, were there people that reached out to you and, that you weren't expecting to ask if you were okay after October 7th?
And then the second question was, of course, were there people that let you down? And most people raised their hands twice. Not everybody, but most people raised their hands for both. So I think it's important to start from a point of what went well. Where have friendships lasted? Or where have we identified new friendships and new allyships?
And let's study those for a minute. Here in the Bay Area, We've had a lot of success with the API community in the South Asian community, the Hindu community. And I think one reason that we've had a lot of success is it has not been a transactional relationship. It's been about shared values. A lot of the grassroots groups focused on our public schools have found common cause with those communities in terms of the direction of our public education system when it comes to things like ethnic studies.
And so there is a broader shared value or values that were identified that extend beyond the issue of Israel Palestine or anti Semitism. There's a bigger picture to study there. And if you look at the recalls of the Oakland mayor, Goodriddance, and the Alameda County District Attorney, who started those recall campaigns?
The Asian and the Jewish communities of the East Bay, right? And so when I'm looking at my own study, and I'm going to ask you for each of yours in a moment, of where we've had success? It's where it's been more about beyond our needs or the other community's needs. It's about a shared vision or a shared set of values that extend beyond any one incident that's taking place.
And you sure as hell can't build Rome in a day. If these incidents take place and those friendships aren't already there, you can't scramble to build them when you need them. And that's why this work has to be evergreen. And so I'm curious, let's go back in this direction. Where have you found success and what patterns or lessons have you learned where as we go back out into the world because we're all going to go build more friends for the Jewish people after this panel, where have you found success and what can we learn?
April Powers: Nobody's going to want to hear this. But DEI, I, hear me out. I, as for those of you who are on Jewish Standard Time, I, I introduced myself and I've led DEI for some of the biggest companies in the world. DEI is not affirmative action. It's a different, segment. Affirmative Action is inviting you to the party.
DEI is, are you playing my music, letting me DJ, and am I having fun while, when I get here? So DEI is the place, diversity, equity, and inclusion, is the place where we can talk about antisemitism at work. And As I'm trying to spread my message of what antisemitism is, who Jewish people are, how do we handle this topic at work?
Some of the best partners I have had have been the heads of DEI, the ones with big hearts and big minds that know that they need to, that they don't know what they don't know. The smartest people in DEI have invited me in. If we're talking about the Bay area, I think LinkedIn is up here, right? LinkedIn, you can go to LinkedIn learning.
I'm their course on antisemitism, Salesforce, Airbnb, pick some of the biggest companies up here. They have had conversations with us. The school districts that are doing some innovative things. Be surprised. And also be surprised that when I went to the DNC and Hersh's parents, Hersh Goldberg Hersh's parents came out.
To speak there. It was standing room only. Everyone knew who they were. And as they told the story, there were people who were shocked with what they heard, which tells me that when people know better, they do better. And we've also seen more voices come up in the black community that want to renew that covenant between the black and Jewish communities.
I use Van Jones as an example and surprised everybody with Patrisse Cullors earlier, co founder of black lives matter. But if you have questions about DEI and antisemitism, please come ask me. But that, believe it or not, the smart and impassioned people in DEI want to have more understanding and want to bring that perspective in.
Alana Zeitchik: So I, like I said, I turned in a different direction. I looked towards Palestinians. I looked towards people who are more directly affected, including Israelis who are on the left of the Israeli political spectrum. So I have found a great deal of, I've needed a lot of comfort and support along the way.
And so for me to find hope, to believe that there would be something, even beyond this, that we have a future I needed to break through the noise, because I will say, something I learned is that really obnoxious people are really loud, and they are not the majority. They are not. People want us to believe they're the majority, but they're really not.
I've heard from people of every race, color, anything. Nationalities, varieties of people who have sent me messages constantly to share their support or express their support for me, but they don't necessarily share it, because we live in a world that everyone decided that they were, had to be an activist, which is not the case.
We really don't need everyone to be an activist. And I've heard from all different kinds of people, but I have found Palestinians to be the ones that give me a lot of hope because they show me there is a partner on the other side. In a hopeless place where you feel like there's nothing there, where you feel like only Hamas and the PA and their corrupt leadership and, Islamism has taken over.
infiltrated the entire society and then you meet a guy like my friend Hilal who's from Gaza who has lost so many family members and who sits here telling me I want you to be safe. I want us to be safe I don't hate israelis. I don't love the occupation. I don't like the IDF because my experience has been war That's my experience with the IDF but I don't want you to be you don't deserve this your family needs to come home right now and so when I talk to those voices and I hear, and look, he's someone who says the word genocide, because he's a boy from Gaza, and he lives in New York now and that's what he believes.
And it requires that I accept that, in this context. It requires that I don't use what you said before, there's a time and place for everything. I'm not going to tell the person who's lost 30 people and their family, that it's not a genocide in that moment. Maybe sometime in the future we'll break that down.
But right now it's not the time. And and I find strength in that. And I've also been illuminated to Israelis who sit more on the left than the majority of Israeli society, which is pretty much everyone. But people like unacceptable, the, group that's based out of here who are fighting for, they align with me the most pro democracy they want to save Israel and save Israeli democracy.
And I have found such a great allyship and relationship with that group that I didn't really know existed until all of this. And so that has been really a gift for me.
Izabella Tabarovsky: So I I found a really interesting alignment with with a group that I never even thought about. And what I want to say is that perhaps I think a lot of times we even in this conversation, I think we are, talking about groups that we are all typically thinking about, groups that are familiar to us.
But, for example, last year, in but what I want to say is that there are others that perhaps we can think about. Last year, I don't know how many of you have heard about indigenous Embassy that the indigenous embassy that opened in Jerusalem So has anybody heard about that?
No. Yeah So so that was it was the whole thing was started by a friend of mine who is a Maori from New Zealand And she has worked for years and she has organized. I mean She's really stands at the center of this whole indigenous movement of the indigenous people from around the world who stand with israel and who really is dislike the way their narratives are being used in anti Israel propaganda.
Those of you who follow this probably know that kind of strand that, the indigenous people should be standing against Zionism, against Israel, etc. But here's a group that, that includes, I don't know how many people, lots of people from around the world who come to affirm that, Jews are indigenous to Israel and they believe in it and they come and they support and they march in our in support of us.
And there was a beautiful opening in Jerusalem and then just recently they organized she, her name is Sheree, She organized an academic symposium under the auspices of the Jerusalem of the indigenous embassy in Jerusalem. And again, brought a lot of a lot of really interesting speakers. So that's a really interesting and important ally for us on one particular issue, and this is where we can be making friendships.
I've heard since I've come to the Bay Area, I think I see my good friend Maury Shapiro over there, who I know has worked with the Hindu community. That was interesting. I had never thought about that. And I would say, I'll add one more thing. I think Another thing that we tend to do is we tend to focus on what's going on the coast and in the big cities and in the places that are really radicalized a lot of times, right?
These Ivy League campuses, etc. But you know what? There is a vast country in between that may not be so radicalized, right? They may not have had so many encampments, and therefore, they don't draw our attention. But I think we should be going there, and we should be telling our story, and we should be educating people about us.
Because, left on their own, first of all, I assure you, and I know it, that that the anti Israel movement is reaching out to those campuses and to those places. But also, where do you think they get information about us? If you look at Wikipedia, at what Wikipedia writes about Zionism and Israel, it's horrible, right?
5.5 billion people access Wikipedia every month. That's basically the entire, just a vast amount of the world. This is where they will be learning about Zionism. So even if these people, that, the fly over country, right? Even if they they don't have any reason to dislike us, but this is where they get the information from.
It's terrible. So I think we need to be reaching out there, to places that are not radicalized yet, where people are willing to have conversations with us and about us.
April Powers: And I just want to add one thing because you mentioned the Hindu community. And if you've looked at Hindus on campus recently, what we're seeing is the same radicalization, the same language, the same animosity that they're using towards us, they are now flipping onto the Hindu community.
So I have myself reached out to Hindus on campus and some of the other organizations that are, watching what's happening to us, the same line of attacks are being levied against them on campus. And one more, one of the asks that was asked of me, that I'm just sharing with all of you, Hitler never said swastika.
A swastika is a really important religious symbol for the Buddhist and Hindu and other communities. He said crooked cross, or hooked cross, excuse me. Hakenkreuz, I think is the word. And I'd love for us to consider. Reframing that for them because for them it's their own symbol has, in a way of allyship, or at least reminding people that Hitler didn't use that term.
But I think the Hindu community is going to be one where we, because they had an October 7th in Bangladesh. Is anybody talking about that? No. Yeah.
Tye Gregory: We actually had a primary debate for the local member of Congress race that Sam Liccardo just won here. And there was an Indian American in the race and he made a great joke.
He said, if the Jewish and Indian communities stand together, will be 1. 2 billion strong. And I got a kick out of that.
April Powers: And not to compare anything to October 7th, that was a bad analogy, but they did have a horrific thing happened to them.
Tye Gregory: They did awful in Bangladesh. So we wanted to start high, but we know that the reason a lot of us are here is wondering where our allies went.
So we want to ask the opposite question, which is and we'll start with you and go this way. Where have we seen the failures? What are the patterns of those failures? And often we can learn more from our failures than our successes. So what are you internalizing about how this has gone for us? I am
April Powers: Really, as a mother of K 12 kids, I'm very concerned about our educational system.
People are talking about DEI. I'm worried about and cancelling DEI. I'm worried about cancelling, like, how do we get rid of the systems that are now indoctrinating young people with lies, basically. Whether it's Wikipedia or some of these other things. that we have entire systems that are ready to go to teach my kids something that is absolutely patently not true.
So I worry about that. That's not about allyship. That's just, it's a system, right? It's a system that's going to fail us or is currently failing us. And how do we integrate ourselves? I'm very concerned with K through 12 because once the kids get to college, they're not, and that includes Jewish students.
They are not ready to resist being taught. the draw of antisemitism, right? It's one of the world's oldest surviving hates for a reason. Getting, making sure that we're running for school boards, running and being engaged in our local elections. I know that's not part of this topic, but that if you're asking me, what am I most concerned about?
It's that I am concerned about minority communities seeing What's happening in Israel Palestine, and we overlay the black white dynamic, and we're overlaying U.S. Political systems and things like that on top of other countries, inappropriately. That binary, that false binary of oppressed oppressor, it leaves a little room for empathy, and it's actually, it's not true, it's inaccurate, and it's totally, wholly inappropriate to be able to to lay, to overlay the U.
S. experience onto Israel. And so I'm hoping that we can find ways to avoid that.
Tye Gregory: Thank you. One sec. Roni was passing around cards. This is our last question of the group. If you'd like one, please let her know. And if you have them, you can either hand them to her, just pass them towards the front and we'll grab them.
Alana, please.
Alana Zeitchik: I think I can build a little bit on that because I think breaking out of the binary and breaking minority communities like the black community out of the binary I think in america the black and jewish alliance is It was the strongest and it is important I think we all saw out of this election.
A lot of people have seen that Blacks and Jews voted very similarly in this election and what I see a lot of what terrifies me is not just within minority communities, but also across social media and amongst young people and Gen Z this inability to recognize bigotry And xenophobia. I am horrified by the amount of times I see israelis targeted our businesses and I just saw a video the other day of someone going into a self defense class and when she discovered that it was Krav Maga, which is Israeli, she ran out and made a whole video posting about, and I was like, are you, how do they don't see, they don't see that this is bigotry, that this is racism.
Sometimes I will say using the word antisemitism is it's too complex. It gets in the way of showing this is xenophobia. You are afraid of people who are from a different nation than you because you have a bias about them. And I saw that within the Black community because of this oppressor oppressed binary, I shouldn't have had to walk around my predominantly Black neighborhood and feeling like I can't wear a David on my jacket, and I do feel that way in my neighborhood.
At the same time, a lot of people in the Black community do feel a strong connection to the Palestinian cause, which is a righteous cause at its core, and we can't demand that they let go of that in order to be our allies. They should be able to fight for both of us. We should strengthen our bond with them by allowing them and showing them that you can support the people without their support.
Being anti Zionist without demonizing Israelis on the whole and show them a path, a different path so that we can work with them.
Izabella Tabarovsky: So I want to say as a, because this, the notion of demonization reminded me of this, that I think I think we as a Jewish community, first of all, I think, need to get, to be careful about not demonizing each other, and I think we do that, there are categories that have it's become okay to demonize them, and I say this recognizing that probably most of the, group here is liberals.
I, by the way, consider myself a liberal Jew as well, but I feel increasingly uncomfortable when I see people demonizing the settlers or even demonizing Netanyahu. It's it does when we allow any group within the Jewish community To be demonized and by the way, you could say that in israel, the right wing demonizes the left, you know They call them traitors So when we allow any group within the Jewish community to be demonized when we're doing that we open the door to be For the entire community to be demonized and I think we need to dismantle this thinking in our own minds You know who like and the best way to do it is to actually get to know real people So that's something I wanted to say. On the You On the question, I think we, I'm just going to build on what I already said, I think we should be reaching out, I think perhaps my kind of, it's not a regret, but I think what could have, what could I have done or could, what could we have done as a community is I think it's more of a sin of omission, it's failing to reach out to groups that could be our allies now, but don't know enough Christian Zionists, I know it's another for a lot of people, it's another problematic category.
I think everybody should be making friends with them because they stand by us. And by the way, the young people in that group also are now being approached and and approached by the anti Israel movement. So they are turning against us. So I think we need to be overcoming our own barriers, right?
Be they political or however, religious, emotional, whatever it is, in order to speak to groups who are willing to support us. But because we are not open to being with them, and we have not approached them, we have not opened the door, perhaps alliances are not happening.
Tye Gregory: Thank you. I'll tell a quick story, and then we're going to turn to questions.
I was leading a group to Israel through my last organization, A Wider Bridge. So I was bringing LGBT leaders to Israel, and we went to an Ethiopian absorption center near Tsfat. And it went terribly wrong. We had several African American queer participants. We get to the gate. They see this big fence surrounding the Ethiopian Absorption Center.
They look up and they see the Israeli flag is tattered. And then we go in and we meet with the group. And some of the white participants started taking pictures with the kids without asking for permission. And here the intent was to show the diversity of Israel, the multiculturalism that exists, the vibrancy of Jews from around the world making this place amazing.
And the visual cues turn it on its head. They saw the fence and thought that this was a bad place. They don't know that unlike the American flag, where we keep it pristine, the Israeli flag in tatters is a sign of resiliency. And of course there were some cultural competency issues in the group. And so what was meant to be a really impactful
site visit had the opposite effect of what the intent was. And that was a really important for me as a Jewish leader, bringing trips that intent versus impact are two very different things. And if we do not have the cultural competency to engage with non Jewish communities, even if we put our best foot forward and we put our heart out there and we get vulnerable, it won't necessarily work.
So we have a right to be angry about those that have let us down. Okay. But that doesn't mean that we also don't have more work to do. Because there are other moments of acute vulnerability for other communities that they've also felt isolated. And now we know what it's like to have that shoe on our foot.
So the message I would say is, I'm really upset too. There are a lot of people that have let me down personally and professionally. And we have to keep learning too. As hard as that is. So I have a few questions here. And ideally it's one volunteer per question, but if someone needs to get the word in, they need to get it in.
The first one is there's parts of the organized Jewish community that have strengthened alliances with the conservative Christian community and organizations, many of which are opposed to issues that if we're talking about coalition building with a left, like reproductive rights, LGBTQ rights, racial justice work, stand in contrast to that.
So how do we think about movement building with Christians who care about and support Israel as we're holding these alliances with some progressive groups that we're also trying to court? How do we hold all of that? Does anyone want to take that question?
Izabella Tabarovsky: Everybody looked at me, so.. So I think that, my take on this is now is not a time to be applying purity tests.
I don't think that we should be expecting complete agreement from our allies. These are not, we are not necessarily looking for friends who will be, there's a difference between political. alliances and friendships and I think if our, if we have set as our priority as our top value in this case the support for Israel, then I think that if this is, if they agree with us on that, then we should accept it gratefully.
And we can't expect people to agree with us on everything when we want support. This is what's important for us.
Alana Zeitchik: Can I ask a question though about that?
What if those people are allowing for Israel to move further to the right towards fascism? Because that's a threat to Israel and to the Israeli people.
So I struggle sometimes with how do we then, if those people are condoning behaviors within Israeli society, the government, forget the society, within the radical extremist settler movement that is moving Israel towards becoming a fascist society, then how can they be our allies?
Izabella Tabarovsky: First of all, I don't, I really don't think that Israel is moving toward a fascist society.
I truly don't. My take on this is, Israelis have a very vibrant democracy. They really do, and I think that, The Israeli people are making their choices and I'm not sure that, somebody from outside can really move the Israeli society in one way or another. There are a lot of internal issues that Israelis make their decisions on.
And I see it now that I live in Israel, from the inside, you understand that there are so many issues that are not really, Translating to the outside world. They are discussed in Hebrew, they are published in Hebrew language press. You have to be on the ground to really understand how these decisions are made.
So I don't see, just because they become allies, I don't think that they can influence voter behavior. I don't think, Israelis vote, right? They vote their leaders in and they have their considerations. So I that's,
Tye Gregory: Alana, I'm going to volunteer you for this question. Coming from a high school senior that feels isolated sometimes in a public school with little to no Jews, what can I do?
How do I inform people that I don't know if they care?
Alana Zeitchik: You just say it really honestly to them. How do I inform people that I don't know if they care? That's the question, right? I think, and maybe this isn't a practical answer, but you have to speak from the heart. You have to say, what I find we do in the Jewish community is we feel really protective, and we don't want to say how we really feel, which is, I'm really afraid, I feel personally attacked, I feel like my identity and the person that I am is under attack from society.
That's what I'm experiencing. And I really need to say, I need support. I need to know that not that, not politically, but that you can support me as a person. And you have to start asking people a little bit more directly if if they're willing to support you. And it's hard, but you just have to be vulnerable.
For saying what?
No, I'm really sorry that happened to you. The person in the audience. There's the risk that you take, but.
Tye Gregory: I'm sorry that happened to you and maybe we should talk offline after the session about how we can help you out with that. I have a what about question for you. Are we doing what about ism?
We're doing what about. What about the Jewish colleagues of Black Lives Matter who were kicked out for being Jewish and we can add the Women's March to that. We can add different progressive movements, I think it gives us hope for you to talk about the co founder of BLM.
April Powers: Yeah.
Tye Gregory: What do we do about, what about some of the broader sticking points within these progressive movements that how do we navigate those two truths?
April Powers: So I think it also, this relates also to the question that you first answered, is keep showing up. Obviously, if you're fired, you're not going to keep showing up. If you feel, if you've been physically threatened, you're not going to keep showing up. I had tickets to what I thought was going to be Hillary's inauguration.
I have tickets to what I thought was going to be Kamala's inauguration. And I went to the Women's March anyway, knowing that there might be Factors that were, factions that were antisemitic. And I will show up and I will speak anywhere, almost anywhere. Because I'm still going to say what I'm going to say, right?
Did I, and you're still going to hear some of those voices. If you really care about bringing different voices in, you're going to, you're going to bring different voices in. Obviously, this is, if you're firing Jews from Black Lives Matter, if you're getting, If you're uplifting antisemitic voices in movements like the Women's March and another DEI event I went to recently, same person, was highlighted in both cases then, I showed up and I went and I spoke to the creator of at least the second one and I said, Hey, have you considered anti Semitism in your work?
I didn't address the fact that they had a rabid anti Semite on their panel. I simply said, Because I'm a black Jew and I would love to talk to your audience about anti semitism and he, and why, and he hadn't thought about it. So if we're not showing up and if we're canceling everybody, then they're not gonna see us, hear from us, or think that we care.
And I also want to encourage all of you. Leverage your multi ethnic Jewish voices. Invite in your Jewish queer voices, your Jewish liberal and progressive voices. And that will also help you manage some of these ideas about us, of being white colonizing oppressors. Who knows what people are saying.
But I speak up and I speak out. Continue doing that. Continue showing up, even when it's hard to do.
Tye Gregory: Thank you.
April Powers: Say more. Someone said it really works.
Yeah, saying quiet never, has never helped us. Unless you're hiding in a basement. Does not help. Or an attic, excuse me. Speak up and speak out, and be loud and proud. And people don't often, don't always know we're Jewish. They're just, make a lot of assumptions about us, and then they realize this person that I've worked with all this time, they, I love them, and they're really cool, and they're not whatever, and they're a Zionist, too.
They're not at all what I pictured a Zionist to be, right? So yeah, I think people are products
Alana Zeitchik: of what they're exposed to, so expose them to you.
April Powers: Legally.
Tye Gregory: Love that.
I'm a firm believer that we shouldn't waste our community's efforts where there's a firmly closed and locked door. There are a lot of people we can be building relationships with. If they're not interested or they just simply don't like us, there are other places we can turn our attention.
But my question is, when is that door unlocked or just ajar? How can you identify someone that we've had differences with, we've been hurt by, or has a very different opinion than us, but you think that there are signs that could be someone successful to engage with. What do you look for when you're trying to determine someone that is outside the tent or just on the margins of the tent that we think is worth our time?
How, what would you be looking for when you process, your emotional energy towards this and think about, is this worth my time? How do you process that?
Alana Zeitchik: Respect. Are they willing to respect me? I try to maintain boundaries with people who want to talk to me or want to lash out at me. And I always say, I'm not your punching bag.
If there is someone who cares passionately about let's say the Palestinian cause, but they want to use me as their punching bag, then that door is not open because they are not receptive. You have to look for people who have a level of emotional intelligence and self awareness and ability to reflect and say, Oh, maybe I'm wrong.
There are a lot of hard headed people out there who are just unwilling to hear you. They want to be heard, but they don't want to hear you. So you think these are really just so sociological, behavioral cues that you have to, and I have learned to get attuned to and to pick up on. I do some sort of I'll test the waters, and I'll If they lash out at me, I will go back to them with something really personal and emotional that isn't like arguing with them But it's like the way that you're speaking to me is extremely upsetting and I'm not sure why you're attacking me this way Is there a different way that you want to have a conversation with me?
And I will pose a question back to them to see if and if they will reflect and say you're right I'm so sorry. I was really heated and I've done this with Palestinians before we'll keep going. So you have to just, you have to give people the benefit of the doubt, but don't let them ever dis, disrespect you.
Izabella Tabarovsky: I'll just I want to tell a story. I completely agree that I think you, you look for signs this is a person who is intellectually curious, first of all, because someone who is, whose mind is filled with slogans, they're not gonna be, they already have a perfect picture of the world, right?
In which everything, Exactly like everything Israel does is motivated by evil designs, and so that's already that picture is closed I was recently speaking at the at Carleton University in Ottawa, which is a very difficult campus in terms of anti jewish sentiments And at the public talk, I gave two talks to students, and then there was a public talk and at the public talk, so I was giving a history of Soviet anti Zionist propaganda, and how so much of it, the channels through which it was directed to the global left, and what it was, what was called the Third World back then, and then from there, descended down the generations from the 60s down to our time.
Anyway, so this guy came up, and he said, I'm from Syria, And I grew up with what you're describing, all of these anti Zionist slogans. I was taught that when I was growing up. And then I realized that it was propaganda when I moved to Canada. And I said how did you understand it?
I was really curious. What is the point at which your mind begins to change? And he said, it was one wonderful experience. I was invited, I met a Jewish person. It may have been the first Jewish person ever he met. And they invited him to Shabbat. And they had a really good conversation and they gave each other a hug at the end.
And he said, you know what, that hug dissolved years of propaganda. And so I think that these are, but he obviously was open enough, right? To go to take up the invitation and go to that Shabbat dinner. So I think that these are the kinds of people we're looking for.
Tye Gregory: Thank you.
Isabella, last question goes to you. And I'm reframing your question, David, which is we saw the attack in Amsterdam. Horrific. And it's no secret that a lot of the anti Semitism we're seeing there is from Muslim immigrant communities. But I think we as a community are often afraid to talk about this because we don't want to be perceived as Islamophobic or being anti Muslim.
But we have to be honest about where a lot of that threat is coming from. So how do we navigate that issue while also being mindful of how we show up as a community? Anyone else welcome to take it also. Go ahead.
Izabella Tabarovsky: So I would say. that, we do have to address it. And I think one way to think about it, and this is my, a new thought for me, and by the way, I'm not an expert on, on, Islamist antisemitism, but I've seen some investigative journalism that's been done in Israel, a really amazing report that was done already 10 years ago by a journalist who came, an Israeli who came out of an family came out of an Arab country, so he speaks perfect Arabic, and he goes underground and inserts himself into the, a lot of these communities in Europe.
And what I understood, in order to understand, what are they doing, how are they thinking, and what I understood is that it's not so much that it's, just Muslims, right? But it's actually, it's Muslim Brotherhood, which is a particular movement with its ideology. And I think that perhaps if we address it that way and begin to speak in those terms, because that's an ideology that, by the way, I think would gain us some allies, because a lot of people in the Gulf States really understand the danger of that movement.
So I think that is perhaps one approach.
Tye Gregory: That's time. I want to thank Alana, April, and Isabella.
And all I want to say before we go to break is, don't give up. This work has gotten harder, but it is still essential, holy work, and part of our mission as the Jewish people. So think about where you have an open door, where you can make a difference. You can follow these three on social media, they're doing great work there too.
But keep up the good work everyone, we have to keep our heads up. Thanks for being here.
