“Growth comes from having that uncomfortable conversation so I think we should do that here.” -- Rabbi Bob Barr

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ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. I'm your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. It's an honor to have a friend, a business partner of mine and Founding Rabbi of the Congregation Beth Adam, Bob Barr. -- I’m glad to have you on, man.

RABBI BOB BARR
Thanks, Rob. I'm glad to be here. It’s exciting. Well I know you've been doing this for a while and I’m just really pleased to be a participant… be a guest on your show. Thanks.

ROB
Yeah. Well I was on your show. You started in this whole podcast world way before I did. You got a head start on me. I'm learning as I go here. I was glad to be on your show.

On your show, we were discussing “Black Lives Matter,” really, how the Jewish and Black community can and should see each other as allies. We had a great discussion there and I was glad you can join me. And now I found an opportunity for us to have that same conversation, really, on another side.

RABBI BOB BARR
Just let me note that if anybody wants to, they can go to Beth Adam which is B-E-T-H A-D-A-M.org (bethadam.org) -- that’s the congregation website -- and under “Learning,” at the top, at the header, there's one that says, “Racism in America” and they can listen to a conversation that I had with you, our conversation that you're referencing. So I invite people to do that.

There's a conversation with also Pastor Daniel Hughes about racism in America as well as Dr. Gary Zola from the American Jewish Archives. It’s an area that we've been focusing on recently a lot. I'm glad you were on it and I'm glad to be on with you now.

ROB
Yeah. Something is in the water in America right now. There's been a lot of conversation about black lives matter, rightly so. We talked about it on your show. But there's been just some weird flare-ups recently.

DeSean Jackson, who is a famous NFL player, made some just outrageous and anti-Semitic statements. I don't know where they came from but this is essentially what he said… declaring that white Jews will “blackmail America. They will extort America. Their plan for world domination won't work if the Negroes don’t know who they are.” He basically said that statement over again and I just don't know where it came from.

Apparently, there's a Black Israelites group that I don't know much about. They call themselves the “Black Israelites” and they say things that are outlandish and that are anti-Semitic. I’ve started to learn more about them and I did for this podcast.

I guess my first question is, “What was your reaction to that statement?” Is this something that being… This is me educating. Like I had to work with you, educating you about what it is to be black in America, being Jewish in America and really, in the world. Have you heard these type of statements?

And then when you think about it, how do you go about educating people about how these statements are hurtful and how they affect your community? I mean that's just for me for education and for the listeners.

RABBI BOB BARR
Sure. Sure. Anti-Semitism has been around… As long as Jews have been around, there's been some version of anti-Jewish hatred. I don't want to go into long history lesson because it’s in different times through different reasons.

ROB
Well you could take us through stuff. This is Disruption Now. We got a little time. At least give us the cliff notes. Give us a few minutes’ cliff notes about--

RABBI BOB BARR
The Jews, we represented something very different in the ancient world. When people moved to Christianity and Jews didn't, there was hatred that the Jews were rejecting the Messiah.

Even in the Gospels, the Jews killed the Messiah and some people took that literally. These were political documents being written in a specific time. The Jews weren't in power to do that.

And some Gospels had more anti-Semitic references than other ones because they were written by different authors at different times.

You go through history, Jews, once we were kicked out of, what we call “Canaan,” that world of Middle East in 70 CE, what's called the “Diaspora,” Jews then have wandered. We've been in different parts of the world.

One of the problems is we weren't allowed to be citizens anywhere. We were always guests in whatever country we were in. There was expulsions, 1492, Spain. From other countries, we had these expulsions.

And what DeSean Jackson was referencing, this notion of Jews having an international conspiracy, there was a famous faux document called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which posited that the Jews had this international conspiracy -- the Rothschilds were involved -- and that we were--

ROB
How long does that go back? I’ve heard this several times now, Bob, and so I'm like… When did that document come about and what was the origin of that document because that document is being… We're going to talk about this later. But Nick Cannon just put both his feet in his mouth and fell over them and lost his contract as he should for saying very similar statements. Where does this seed come from?

RABBI BOB BARR
It was written… I think it’s in 1800... I can't remember exactly, frankly. I’d have to really look up the date.

ROB
Sure.

RABBI BOB BARR
But it was written in Europe around the 1800s, I believe… or maybe later -- the late 1800s-1900s -- that posited this notion that the Jews were in control and that they were wealthy banking families.

I'm in Detroit. Henry Ford republished it in his newspaper. “Dearborn Independent” I think was the name of his newspaper. He reprints it. So this notion that Jews were… we were all powerful has been around for a very long time. It keeps on popping its ugly head up in places and people use it as a way to say, “See? Look, you can't trust Jews. They're a secret group--”

Now what's bizarre about it is we are an incredibly small percentage of the population. There's maybe 14 million Jews in the world. We’re in Cincinnati right now doing this. The Cincinnati Jewish community couldn't fill up Paul Brown Stadium. It couldn't fill up the football stadium. There's not enough Jews here. We'd all get at least two seats… probably two and a quarter to fill up that stadium and yet there's this notion that we're powerful.

It keeps on coming back and it's totally inaccurate. It's inaccurate. There are poor Jews. People don't realize that. There's a notion that all Jews are rich. It's absolutely not true. We have some of the poorest people in America -- a lot of elderly Jews; poor Jews who haven't been able to do it who are really suffering.

The other thing, too, that is… when people say this, particularly now--

We're still living in the shadow of the Holocaust. Six million Jews were murdered. I’ve had the opportunity to go to Auschwitz and to Dachau and walk… And I studied it. When you walk there and you see the evidence and you see literally piles of shoes and you see hair and glasses and you begin to think about the numbers, it's overwhelming. And we have members of our congregation whose parents were survivors.

ROB
Wow. So this is a real thing. I mean this is like something that… Of course it’s real. But this is something that still really touches you… touches people that went through the experience that can still tell you about it, that is close enough. So it’s not like this is 300 years ago where you're just a distant memory to someone. This is real.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. And what's happening now is that generation of survivors is dying out because… If you think about it, the survivors, unless they were like World War II vets, that whole generation is dying out. There were some younger survivors who are still alive who can tell the story and then their children have taken responsibility for it and they've been affected by it. I mean I have friends whose parents were survivors. I have one friend who will never go out without a passport and he says “because you never know when you need to leave. That's what my parents told me.”

ROB
I’ve heard some of my Jewish friends say that they never feel completely at home anywhere at some point, some nation, when people may decide, “Well you're not welcome here. We need to get rid of you” which is why we talk about why it's so important, when you see these statements being made, to immediately react, immediately reject it and have a strong reaction to it because… If you talk about this document, you talk about the Rothschilds and also the nonsense of the New World Order and Jewish people--

RABBI BOB BARR
The protocols of Zionists, that sort of attack.

ROB
Okay. Okay, the “Protocols of Zion,” that stuff has been going on since the 1800s. And despite being rejected, despite everyone telling you over and over again this is not true, despite evidence showing this, it still resurfaces over and over and over again. And such is the battle of hate… And I'm going to get to the Kennedy later but I want to have this response to what--

I want to at least play this for you. Let me share this for the audience. I want to play what Julian Edelman who is the… He's the teammate of DeSean Jackson, what he said, and we'll talk about it on the other side.

VIDEO

JULIAN EDELMAN
I’ve been getting hit up by everyone asking me about this DeSean Jackson post and I wanted to take some time before I responded because it's a complicated issue and I wanted to be thoughtful. I wrote down some of my thinking.

I’ve seen DeSean play in his career, make outstanding football plays. We've communicated over social media. I’ve got nothing but respect for his game.

I know he said some ugly things but I do see an opportunity to have a conversation. I'm proud of my Jewish heritage. And for me, it's not just about religion. It's about community and culture as well.

I'm unusual because I didn't identify as Jewish until later in my life. Whenever I encountered hatred, it never really felt like it was aimed at me. It was only after I was part of this community that I learned how destructive hate is.

Anti-Semitism is one of the oldest forms of hatred. It's rooted in ignorance and fear. I remember experiencing a little bit of this hate in 2011 when I was called a “Kike” on the football field.

There's no room for anti-Semitism in this world. Even though we're talking about anti-Semitism, I don't want to distract from how important the Black Lives Matter movement is and how we need to stay behind it.

I think the Black and Jewish communities have a lot of similarities. One unfortunate similarity is that they are both attacked by the ignorant and the hateful. It's really hard to see the challenges a community can face when you're not part of it.

So what we need to do is we need to listen. We need to learn. We need to act. We need to have those uncomfortable conversations if we're going to have real change.

So to that end, DeSean, let's do a deal. How about we go to DC and I take you to the Holocaust Museum and then you take me to Museum of African-American History and Culture. Afterwards, we grab some burgers and we have those uncomfortable conversations. This world needs a little more love, compassion and empathy. Take care. [END]

ROB
I played the whole thing because I thought it was thoughtful and I thought it would give some context. So that's a person he plays with all the time and he did take him up on his offer.

His teammate, African-American, I don't think he did himself any favors either. Malcolm Jenkins, who was really great on Black Lives Matter issues, said, “Jewish people aren’t our problem.” This is what he said. “We aren't their problem. Let's not lose focus on what the problem truly is and that's that black lives still don't matter in this country.”

I think that's a false choice that we choose between saying that… Well we need to say, “Reject those who don't understand that black lives matter. We also have to reject anti-Semitism because the two are connected.” They’re cousins fighting for the same family strain of hate.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. I agree with that. I think racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism are all facets of the same germ. They're all pieces of hate. All of us who have been marginalized, rather than competing over our marginalization need to recognize that together, we're all getting the short end of the stick. The problem is, often times… I mean the Jewish community certainly has not always been… They’re great on Black Lives Matter issue or the African-American community. There have been times that the Jewish community and the Black community have marched together.

ROB
Absolutely.

RABBI BOB BARR
It’s a complicated relationship. But the mistake, I think, is when we attack each other, we weaken each other and hatred wins out. When they were marching in Charlottesville about the Confederate statues, they're yelling, “Jews will not replace us.” I mean their racism is also fueled by anti-Semitism. And for the racists, these things are intertwined, unfortunately. I think what happens is there are members of the Jewish community and members of the Black community who are prejudiced against one another…

ROB
Absolutely. No question.

RABBI BOB BARR
…and they shouldn’t be the ones who are driving the conversations.

ROB
No. That’s very well said. They shouldn't be the ones driving the conversation. This has awakened me to say, “We clearly haven't done enough and we got to say more.” And there is a strain of anti-Semitism that runs within the Black community whether we realize it or not. And we have to reject hate if we want to move forward and actually have people respect “Black Lives Matter” because, like you said, it's the same people. It's the same principle.

We can't say we want people to understand that Black lives matter and at the same time perpetuate these false theories that have been put forward. I do think it's a false choice and I don't think anybody should accept it as that.

But let me talk about the kind of latest, I guess, Black celebrity to step in. This is literally like yesterday.

RABBI BOB BARR
Yeah, right.

ROB
And this was like after I talked to you about doing this so maybe this is God's exquisite timing for us to get together and talk about this stuff. I don't know.

Okay, so Nick Cannon… I'm sure you know who Nick Cannon is. But for the audience, he's been on Nickelodeon for like 15 years and he's done a show called Wild 'N Out, kind of a fun goofy show.

Some comments that he said resurfaced. Essentially -- reading some off some of this -- he reiterated that Rothschild nonsense you just said and then said a whole bunch of other stuff about white people being savages and saying he's not being racist because Blacks or Jews… -- all types of just nonsense that were all poured together. I want to get your response for this.

But I’ll tell you, Bob, I’ve been, literally, just before this podcast, at Black Twitter… Black social media which is what it is. Social media is where people just react sometimes without actually having the facts. And they see Nick Cannon who just came out with a really powerful piece about Back Lives Matter, him being very pro-Black and they try to take that as if… They’re outing him and they're taking the opportunity with him because he's lost his job and everything, which he should have.

But people are, I guess, reacting because they see him as the epitome of what African-Americans should aspire to -- be an entrepreneur, having his own thing. This is how people view it. I don't agree with it. They say like, “Oh he starts being more pro-Black and now they kick him off,” not getting the full context of what he actually said because most people… I said, “Did you see what he said?” Like, “Before you're out here defending him, make sure you understand what he said.”

And that's the danger of social media. It gives you part of it. And after I corrected, some people were like, “Oh no. I don't defend that.” Some people still set up a false narrative. “Well Trump used to say this and say that.” I'm like, “Since when are we comparing ourselves to--“

RABBI BOB BARR
If that's the standard, we got the bar pretty low at that point.

ROB
Yeah. So my question is, “What is your reaction to that?” I guess similar to that is, “How do we go forward from here to have a constructive conversation that can get people to take off the blinders and see that this makes no sense?”

RABBI BOB BARR
Well I think Edelman was right. I think we have to have uncomfortable conversations. When you came and you were talking to the Jewish community mostly about being black and growing up and your dad telling you, “Be careful how to get home. Come home alive,” you telling your son that about driving, I think for the Jewish community, they hear that and they're beginning to get an insight into what it might be to be black growing up in America. I think the Black community needs to understand, too… When I look at myself, I don't think of myself as white. I know I present as white. I think of myself as Jewish.

ROB
Right.

RABBI BOB BARR
My son, he told me later -- my son is a big guy -- he was walking when he was in college and some guy went, “Hey, Jew” and my son just said, “Okay…” I mean he didn't get into a fight but it was really clear that this guy--

ROB
Right.

RABBI BOB BARR
He was identified that way. I think we need to have some of these uncomfortable conversations, talking about it -- talking about that legacy of, “What does it mean… the Holocaust and how has that felt being passed down from generation to generation.” What does it mean to have prejudice?

When my brother… I have an older brother and he's an attorney. He said when he got out of law school, he knew there were firms in Detroit that would not hire him because he was Jewish. There were businesses in Cincinnati that didn't use to hire Jews. There were country clubs and neighborhoods that they had -- what do you call it – [indiscernible - 20:01]… in their deeds that said that you couldn't sell to an African-American or a Jew.

So I think we need to have the uncomfortable conversation, not to say who got it worse because I think that that's the mistake. And I’ve been in a place as well, we argue, “Was slavery worse than the Holocaust? What's the legacy…” I think that's the wrong conversation.

ROB
And the Oppression Olympics is not a good approach.

RABBI BOB BARR
Yeah. We all got hurt. We all got beat up. We got smashed in the face. Rather than trying to figure out who got smashed harder, let's say, “How do we work to end it?” Let's talk about some of the nuances of it.

The other thing, too, is for folks who don't know the Jewish community, and I spend a lot of time out speaking at churches, Jews aren’t a race. I have a cousin who's Chinese. It’s three generations ago. Her mom was part of the Russian-Jewish part of our family, moved to Japan or China -- I can't remember -- married this guy--

ROB
Just like Ethiopian Jews, too, by my understanding.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. I met my cousin in Tel Aviv for the first time and she walked in and it was like -- the joke was funny -- “You don't look Jewish” because it was like--

And when you walk around Israel… I think a lot of people are always shocked when they go to Israel and they see Jews of all these different racial backgrounds who are part of this community.

In America, a lot of the time, when people are talking about the Jews in control, this Protocols of Zion, which I did look up when we had a quick break, 1903 was when it was published, is they don't… They're thinking about Eastern European Jews -- Jews who come out of Eastern European, that part of the world, or German Jews. They forget they were Jews living in Yemen, Jews living in the Middle Eastern countries, Jews living in Africa, Jews living in Asia. So their image of what we are is erroneous.

And the other challenge becomes--

So the Jewish community was an immigrant community. My grandfather… I mean all but one of my grandparents was European. Their first language was either Polish or Russian. They came here--

It was a serviette immigrant story. My father was the first person in our family to go to college. My grandfather… I don't think he had a high school education. He started out as a peddler and became an insurance salesman and sort of went through the thing.

The Jewish community really had that experience relatively recently but we were fortunate, probably, in part, because we enjoy some version of white privilege. There was enough that we could pass.

Though my family name on both sides… My mom's maiden name and my name, “Barr,” were not the names my parents were born with. They both changed my--

ROB
To sound less Jewish.

RABBI BOB BARR
To sound less Jewish. My uncle wanted to go to law school, on my mom's side, they… The joke is my grandfather, the one grandfather who died before I was born, who I had ever met, said he had a friend who was an Irish cop. He said, “Can I borrow your name?” So my mom's maiden name was an Irish last name.

ROB
Wow.

RABBI BOB BARR
My dad was born “Barsky.” I didn't even know that until my dad died and we were going through his papers. My dad, in World War II, was a dentist and we found a letter he had to write to the Navy explaining why his birth certificate and his dental degree were under two different names.

ROB
That is so fascinating because Black people share a similar experience in a way that when you could pass… So when you were light enough, even though you were black, what… I mean what people would do is they'd have to actually separate from their families because you can't--

There's no white privilege at all when people clearly see you're black. So when relatives would pass away, they would have to learn about it through an intermediary and then they would go down secretly at night and not even tell… Maybe they married a white man or it was a white woman that they married and they never even told them about their family or they just made it up about them.

So there were whole generations that were never connected to their family because they didn't want them to know they were black. It’s a similar… I mean there are some differences there but there are similarities.

I’d like to talk to you about the white privilege part though because I think that's interesting. How do you think we approach that because I think that's part of the tension here.

We talk about the uncomfortable conversation. The uncomfortable conversation is that, yes, there are definitely similarities and struggles. -- And I don't think we should get into the Oppression Olympics.

I do think we need to think about the nuances of the moment, thinking about how Jewish communities understand that though they are minority, though they have been through things, they still go through white privilege, and then understanding how they can help more Black and Brown-Americans as they go through things that are very similar what they go through.

How do you think we have that conversation? Is it what Julian Edelman said, like possibly going to a Holocaust museum with African-Americans going and then having Jewish people go to a lynching museum and having some understanding of what happened? What’s your general thoughts on this? I just love to hear.

RABBI BOB BARR
I think that that's one way to do it. I think it takes some work to get enough trust, to be able to sit and start… I think we need to come up--

I was a part of this many, many years ago. There was a small group of us and we developed a level of trust because you need to be able to be frank with each other, both our strengths and our weaknesses.

ROB
Agree. Right.

RABBI BOB BARR
I think exploring what that experience is would be part of it -- to see it, going to the Holocaust Museum and doing that. But even coming to my congregation right now, COVID--

ROB
And I'm going to go. So I’ll make a commitment. I'm going. It was a good time. I’d love to go.

RABBI BOB BARR
When we're open for services or religious school, we have armed guards.

ROB
Wow.

RABBI BOB BARR
So this is a bizarre thing. The High Holidays, which is the Jewish New Year's, we'd had an armed guard for 15 years. These are sheriffs. All the people were using our sheriffs. My cousins belong to the congregation of Pittsburgh, the Tree of Life, where 11 people were murdered.

ROB
Yes.
RABBI BOB BARR
Right? The Jewish community, what's weird is… And this is a really strange conversation. So when I walk on the street, I present white and most people don't think of me unless they know who I am. But in my building, and our building is identified as Jewish, we live--

So our kids walk in, all right, our religious kids come at religious school on Sunday mornings, they're walking by the police officer saying “Hi” to them and we explain to them… and we do some version of an active shooter. We don't do it exactly the same way. We're trying to figure out how you do that.

So that would be part of it too because it's not just the Holocaust Museum and that, it's also walking to our building that we have all these security features because we're worried about somebody coming with tattoos. We used to think it was going to be terrorism -- you know, international terrorism.

ROB
Yeah, because there’s terrorism. I still consider that terrorism. I consider the attack at Pittsburg--

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. But we're not talking about white supremacy. We’re talking about a different version of white supremacy. It’s like, “Who do we need to worry about?”

So I think it's exploring that and it's exploring with the African-American community, having those same…. showing us pieces of African-American… like black life or brown life that we wouldn't have experienced. Say, “Here's something that we experience regularly.”

I think it's normal to have an armed guard at my congregation. Other people walk in who aren’t Jewish, they go, “There's a guy standing there with a gun. What's going on?”

ROB
Right.

RABBI BOB BARR
And I'm sure there are things that are--

ROB
I think more African-American churches would do that now given the climate. I do think so. You're saying that's the norm of most of the congregations in Cincinnati.

RABBI BOB BARR
In Cincinnati, everybody does.

ROB
Wow. That’s not the norm of African-American congregations. Wow.

RABBI BOB BARR
Around the country, it depends on the city. Lots of places--

ROB
So you feel like you get a lot of hate here in terms of… Do you get hate mail? Do you get any of that?

RABBI BOB BARR
I have to say, Beth Adam, my congregation, we've been fortunate. We’ve not… Yeah, we get a weird mail every once in a while and we’ll get--

And it’s funny… Funny? It’s sad, I suppose. When I have a new administrator and they get these letters for the first time, they come into my office like really upset. “Bob, we got this bizarre letter with all the “Jewish should die”” and I said, “Let me look at it.” I’ll send them off to the FBI or some… But I'm so used to them over 40 years of being a rabbi, I say, “Yeah--”

We’re a little bit more cautious but we've been fortunate. We had the shooting in Pittsburgh, Poway in California. There was a shooting at a JCC. There was a shooting in San Francisco. There was a shooting at the Holocaust Museum in DC. So it doesn't take a lot, I don't think, to make us nervous -- to make anyone nervous. If you think there are communities under attack, it's a challenge. I think exploring that together, it also energizes the conversation in a particular way.

ROB
Yes.

RABBI BOB BARR
But I think the Jewish community doesn't get what the Black community is going through.

ROB
Yeah. I mean we feel the same way – threatened -- when folks saw George Floyd being murdered. That was no surprise to any African-American you talk to, the fact that an officer can do that and feel so emboldened. And yes, every day, when a Black man and woman steps out, we are nervous about our life in a very similar way.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. I think talking to the Jewish community about how you teach your kids how to drive, particularly your sons probably more so than your daughters, and what that must be like, how--

I did a podcast afterwards. One of my short podcast was talking about you talking about your son, how you talk to him about driving. I have to imagine, as a parent, how petrified you must be when your kid… a Black parent is when their kid goes out. I think parents all worry about their kids but the intensity of it certainly is different.

I think the Jewish community… I think the white community needs to understand what that must feel like, to be a parent of… to have to carry that kind of burden and that kind of worry around. And I think that kind of conversation, that's very… I think the first conversation is to move to that personal space.

ROB
I agree.

RABBI BOB BARR
I think, again, we can do some of this historic stuff. But I think the historic stuff oftentimes leads to sort of that stuff--

ROB
It leads to an argument between who had it worse.

RABBI BOB BARR
“Who had it worse,” right.

ROB
Yeah. We both had it bad and we got to figure out, I think more importantly, how to solve it so it doesn't re-occur because the truth is history -- I think James Baldwin says some version of this -- is always present. It's with us. We got to history but this is how we arrived. It’s present.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right.

ROB
And these feelings are still here that people have. Anti-Semitism is still here. People still deny the Holocaust despite clear evidence, right? There's lots of people that have this belief.

Bob, I want to talk to you about how you think you tackle this. There's a medium with social media that just pours gasoline on this conspiracy theories. And I think… I think the whole point is that social media would connect us, and it has done that, but it has also emboldened this new level of people that want to live in their own world that doesn't exist but they believe as reality. What is your plan to tackle that? I’ve asked this question to a lot of people. It's certainly fueling anti-Semitism, racism, sexism -- whatever “ism” you want to point.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. I think it's one of the great challenges right now. One thing that we've done at the congregation is having survivors speak. Spielberg, after he did the movie Schindler's List, he recorded thousands of hours of Holocaust survivors’ testimonies so that people would exist… If there's ever a chance before the survivors die, to hear what I think is incredibly important.

One of my mom's friends actually was a survivor and spoke, saying… This was in Detroit at a high school. They packed the auditorium because they recognized [it’s] important. Some kid raised their hand and said, “Why should I believe you? Why should I believe what you're telling me is the truth?” This woman had survived the concentration camp.

ROB
Wow.

RABBI BOB BARR
And she said, “You don't have to believe me. The Germans documented all this. They kept it.” We have to get this information out there. I think dealing with social media right now is incredibly complicated because… Who is it? “Lies travel around the world before truth ever gets out of the starting [plot - 34:30].”

ROB
Yeah.

RABBI BOB BARR
And I think the social--

ROB
“It takes 4,000 times to travel. You have to take 5,000 times to the truth” -- something like that.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. And I think trying to educate… You know, do quality education about what happened, how it happened, how the world stood by--

We had a Holocaust survivor speak at the congregation. He was a young man when he was in Dachau… No, he wasn’t in Dachau. He was in Theresienstadt. I’m sorry. He was in Theresienstadt which is outside of Prague. He was taken there. He’s Danish. The Danes dealt very well with the Jewish population. They rescued them. But he talked about upstanders. He said the world needs upstanders, not bystanders. You talked about George Floyd. There were--

ROB
“Upstanders, not bystanders” -- I like that.
RABBI BOB BARR
Right -- “Upstanders.”

ROB
Yeah.

RABBI BOB BARR
You know, where were those other cop[s]? What were they doing there? What was everybody doing just looking on? We need people who are willing to stand up and risk their lives, literally, to save the lives of people who deserve to be saved.

ROB
Yes.

RABBI BOB BARR
It’s going to take a lot of work on a lot of people's part because--

ROB
It really is, and it's painful. -- Finish up your point then I want to come in. Go ahead.

RABBI BOB BARR
I think this dividing us is giving the wrong people power. We're living in a very divided society. If you and I were fighting all the time and we couldn't get along, we're going to just beat each other. And the people who like that, who stir that… and there had been people in both communities, both the Black and the Jewish community. But the overarching is the white, this group of people who want to keep marginalized people marginalized. They want the minority cultures… We, as a minority… They want to keep their power. We're watching this… Turn on the radio. Listen to AM radio. It's white guys fighting about--

ROB
Yeah. Oh my god.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right? It’s about white guys trying to keep their power.

ROB
Yeah.

RABBI BOB BARR
Everything is infused with a bit of this anger in a gene--

ROB
And it’s always blaming someone else for the problem. It's blaming Black people for a crime which is made up or blaming Jewish people for controlling all the money. It's the same thin, right?

RABBI BOB BARR
Right.

ROB
I want to go back to the point you made earlier that I think is so important. The fact that Germany has documented what happened at the Holocaust and they highlighted over and over again, I do think that's the flaw of the United States in how they deal with slavery, how they deal with Jim Crow and how they deal with anti-Semitism, too, by the way, because there's not a real… Unless you are a deep diver in history, your impression of what the United States did during World War II is that they stood up for Jews. They did not. They did the opposite.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right.

ROB
Right? I mean they… “not basically” -- they let Jews get slaughtered. And there was enough evidence. There were ships that had tried to come in and they were turned back. They were turned away to their death.

Making sure we document what we've actually done and learn from it, including racism and anti-Semitism in a way that's pronounced, I do think would help us more. But I think America runs away from uncomfortable conversations.

RABBI BOB BARR
Absolutely. I agree. And what's interesting, in Germany, in Berlin, there are lots of… not the statues but art of things, public displays, that remember what's going on. So whether it's to the six million Jews or--

There's a particular place you can stand. You're within like a quarter mile of a memorial to six million Jews and there's a memorial to gays and lesbians who were killed in the Holocaust. There's a memorial to the politicians who Hitler killed. It’s scattered around the city, literally, in the walk. So there's cobblestones in front of houses -- the names of Jews who were taken out of those houses and where they were killed if they know when they died. In America, why don't we have monuments and memories to slaves?

ROB
We should. We have monuments to slave owners.

RABBI BOB BARR
We have monuments to slave owners.

ROB
And not only that -- Confederates, the people that portrayed that, it would be like the equivalent of having Nazis hang in Germany.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right.

ROB
To me, I see no difference. I tell people, going back to our earlier point, you got to be real careful when you compare anything to slavery or the Holocaust.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. But it's interesting--

ROB
But I think it’s pretty similar. It really is.

RABBI BOB BARR
It’s interesting, right near [indiscernible - 39:30] where you see these memorials, Hitler, his bunker is right near there. They covered it up. They covered it up and turned it into a parking lot. And they have a sign up and said… They did it intentionally. I mean they said, “This is not the history we want to remember.”

We have allowed people… Certainly, a lot of these Confederate monuments were done during that… You know, Jim Crow laws, they were put up not during the Civil War. They were put up afterwards…

ROB
They were put afterwards, correct.

RABBI BOB BARR
…to intimidate people to say, “Look, you think the north won? It didn't win. There may be up in slave--“

ROB
“Black people, you think you’re equals? You're not. You're below us.” That's what it was for.

RABBI BOB BARR
Exactly.

ROB
There’s no question about it. But people have this illusion they made in their mind that this is tied to their heritage even though Confederacy was five years. It was five years, right? But people have tied this into it because it's stories that they tell themselves that are not true.

Even the United States immigration test -- I'm not sure if it’s still this way -- allow options for why the Civil War happened. It happened because they were fighting slavery. States’ rights was about states keeping the right to have slaves.

We dance around these things and I really think it hurts us, to your point. I mean I just do. So I think it's a really great point. And as we think about that and close, I guess where do we go from here? What is it that you would want the audience to hear about the Jewish experience and how we need to move forward to really bury this hate because I think--

We talked about the fact that we have to keep bringing it up. I understand the human inclination to not want to talk about painful things. It is natural. Folks would rather move on and say, “That's over.” The problem is it's not over because people still have the beliefs and the beliefs can lead to habits, the habits can lead to actions, the actions can cause people to lose their lives. That's how I look at it. So where do we go from here in terms of--

What advice would you give people? Is there any reference or some articles that maybe can be read? Are there some videos that we could send them to, to make sure that we at least have some… that were more informed than we were prior to the podcast?

RABBI BOB BARR
A couple of thoughts. One -- and I know you have folks listening from different parts of the country -- there are Holocaust museums in many cities. I would encourage people to go to the Holocaust Museum. If they're in Cincinnati, they… I think we should organize... This may be is something you and I could do.

ROB
Oh that’s great.

RABBI BOB BARR
…a day to the Holocaust Museum and to the Underground Railroad Museum.

ROB
Let’s do that.

RABBI BOB BARR
We do it together and we bring African-Americans and Jewish folks together and we say, “We're going to go there. This is going to be the first part of it but our commitment--”

And I think you said it right. Our commitment is when we have some uncomfortable conversations. If all you want to do is talk about platitudes--
I did a program with a friend of mine -- a minister and a Muslim educator. I said, “Look, I'm not interested in talking about all the people we all like. I want to talk about crazy aunts in the attic that we're embarrassed by and mistakes that I’ve made.” I said, “That's where growth comes.” Growth comes from having that uncomfortable conversation. So I think we should do that here in Cincinnati, organize that.

ROB
Absolutely.

RABBI BOB BARR
It’s going to be a bit before the world--

ROB
We’re going to do that. I think we’ll start it locally. Finish you point. You just made me think of one more thought but finish your point.

RABBI BOB BARR
So I would do that. The National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC is a resource people can get information from. That's a place to learn about the Holocaust, probably has materials on anti-Semitism. The American Jewish Committee is an international organization that has materials about anti-Semitism as well. So those things are available. People can always write to me and contact me at rabbi@bethadam -- B-E-T-H A-D-A-M .org -- ([email protected]) if they want to--

ROB
You send that to me. I’ll put it all in the podcast.

RABBI BOB BARR
Perfect. And I'm happy to do that because I think the more conversations we can have--

And the one commitment I make and when I… because when I go and speak, I want people to ask me every uncomfortable question because people have assumptions about Jews. Somebody said to me, “Oh I heard whenever a Jewish kid is born, the Jewish community puts $50,000 in a bank account that they get when they're 18 so they can start their own business” and I went, “I didn't get mine.” I was really pissed. [Laughter] But what I said was, “I'm really glad you asked that question. If you've been carrying that around and you assume that every Jew that you meet is being bankrolled by somebody, I can understand why you resent me.”

ROB
But see, I really wouldn't… So let me ask uncomfortable questions. I feel I haven't asked any.

RABBI BOB BARR
Okay.
ROB
One thing I hear a lot is that the Jewish community tends to support each other. For every $1 spent, six dollars goes within the community which, by the way, I see nothing wrong with. Is it anti-Semitic to simply say that the Jewish culture is more, I guess, organized economically? Is that something that is anti-Semitic alone by saying that or does that--

RABBI BOB BARR
No, I don't think so. I think the reality is the Jewish community… Again, being a marginalized community, when Jews weren't avail… We couldn’t belong to country clubs so you start your own Country Club or if you can't be--

ROB
Which I have no problem… I think African-Americans can learn from that. You have more power, collectively, when a smaller group comes together. That's what Italians do too, by the way, and Irish.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. But what the deal was, for a lot… But there was a period of time that Jews couldn't be in certain philanthropic organizations and so as a function of that, they were more internal. Plus, we felt like we needed to support. Now the Jewish community is… That number, I’ve never heard that before -- that one that said--

ROB
Yeah. I don't know if it's true but that's something that, again--

RABBI BOB BARR
The Jewish community, if you think about… When people talk about anti-Semitism, they often name Jews like Soros who's giving hundreds of millions of dollars to non-Jewish causes. There are Jews who have always been--

ROB
He is somehow controlling the world.

RABBI BOB BARR
Right. This 80-some-odd-year-old guy who survived the Holocaust, again, is controlling. But the Jewish community, I think because of being marginalized and being an immigrant society, I mean I don't think people get that--

When my grandparents came here, they needed help and it was the Jewish who were here that might have helped them or when the Russians came here, the Russians who left the former Soviet Union, it was the Jewish community that provided them support. So there is that internal involvement.

But the Jewish community also is concerned because most Jewish organizations that I'm involved in like the Jewish Community Relations Council of Cincinnati understands that in order to have equity for Jews and equality, society needs to be equal for everyone.

An America that is broken is going to hurt Jews as well. Our goal isn't just working for the Jewish community. It's working for everyone. That's why the Jewish were so involved in a lot of the civil rights movement. Unfortunately, there were some reasons that Jewish community, the Black community divided back after the ‘60s. And I think it was a mistake. I think we lost a lot.

ROB
I think it's always a mistake.

RABBI BOB BARR
Yeah.

ROB
I think it’s always a mistake.

RABBI BOB BARR
Absolutely.

ROB
Yeah. I’ll just say that it's been an honor to have you on, Rabbi Barr. It’s been great. It's been great getting to know you, to develop our relationship.

Here on Disruption Now, we're about disrupting common narratives and constructs. And I’ll say we have to disrupt hate wherever we find it. And there are strains of anti-Semitism within the Black community and we can't be afraid to speak up even when it's people that we admire, even when we agree with them on points, even when they've done things that are in the interest of African-Americans.

When we see hate, we have to address it because it metastasizes. It'll spread and it always comes back on the marginalized which is African-Americans, which is people of color, which is Jewish people. And we are always stronger when we work together versus focusing on our divide.

I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate all that you do. And we are definitely going to do that. So now that we put this challenge out there that we're going to do this, now we kind of have to do it. [Laughter]

RABBI BOB BARR
We’ll make it happen. I’m looking forward to it. We’ll get COVID over and we're going to do it. It was great. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s my pleasure.

ROB
Thanks for coming on.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]