- [Narrator] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

Support for this program was generously provided by: Regions Bank, Ian Black Real Estate, Manatee Community Foundation, Tidewell Foundation, Pinellas Community Foundation, Gulf Coast JFCS, The Barry Alpert Family, The Alan Bomstein Family, The Richard Dobkin Family, The Sam Samelson Family, The Elizabeth Sembler Family, The Geoff Simon Family, The Jennifer Williams Family, Jewish Federation of Florida's Gulf Coast, Jewish Federation of Sarasota Manatee, and Tampa Jewish Community Centers & Federation.

Hate crimes are escalating globally with a rise in targeted attacks against all identities.

Next gen hate is exploding on social media platforms, making vigilance incredibly complicated.

Most minority groups are under threat but the Jewish community carries a unique and new antisemitic burden.

There's no denying.

We live in a reality where justice for all isn't a guarantee.

How do you fight this battle when the very existence of your marginalization is being erased?

(upbeat music) (soft music) - Hi, I'm Ray Suarez.

And in the next hour, we'll hear from our local Jewish community on the multi-faceted rise of antisemitism in 21st century America, we'll share stories of antisemitic hate incidents in our own backyard.

We'll hear from on the ground security agents implementing unprecedented measures to protect our Jewish neighbors.

We'll explore what it's like for Jewish college students to live in the traumatic shadow of fearing for their own safety, and we'll reveal how past histories are still relevant for the present moment.

We start with a story from our neighbors in Sarasota, Florida, where in the summer of 2020, a synagogue's preschool was defaced with violent antisemitic rhetoric causing early morning drop-off to become an emotional battleground.

(soft music) - As the Director of Early Childhood Education at The Gan at Temple Sinai, I oversee all of the preschool activities, programs, staff, families, and events that go on all the time here.

We also have a summer camp program that continues our school year program.

We have been closed since spring due to COVID.

We were very excited to reopen in July and I arrive early before everybody comes and the building was covered with terrible language and symbolism of hate.

(soft music) I had to put off all of my emotions because I knew in about an hour I was greeting preschool aged children and their families, parents in tears, trying to hide that from their children.

This was meant to instill fear and make us uncomfortable.

I had to have several meetings with our families about how we were going to make sure to continue to protect and make this a safe home away from home for their children.

- There was just a lot of hate and anger in the vandalism.

It wasn't just paint.

First thing we did is increased security in and around our building, even though 99.9% of police officers are really incredible people and do wonderful important work, there's still a fear from different minorities in our community and putting a police officer in front of a building doesn't feel welcoming to everyone.

So we were scared and we debated it, but ultimately decided we needed the security.

So we have security officers at our entrances and that's whenever people are in the building now we put in, you can see these kind of boulders in front of our different entrance ways so that nobody could you know, God forbid somebody wanted to drive into the building they, this would stop them.

Every Friday night I the service begins, I say Shabbat Shalom.

Welcome and I have a few announcements that I make, you know, the bathrooms over there, please turn off your cell phones.

And suddenly one of the announcements I was asked to make was please be aware there are four exits in this building.

That's heartbreaking.

That's not how you wanna start your worship service.

You wanna start by bringing everyone love and happiness and kindness and a sense of calm and peace and instead you're starting with this fear.

- I'd say the parents felt a very big mix of rage and sadness.

It's disturbing and it's heartbreaking and it's completely unacceptable.

And I think talking about antisemitism or hatred or exclusion in any way is a conversation every family should have.

In general I can say that I'm glad they're so proactive.

I'm glad that they take measures immediately to shield children from something so disgusting and disturbing, and that they work as a team to implement changes immediately for a better outcome.

- We have a lockdown drill that the staff and I know exactly what it's called and we prepared for and trained for.

The children do not know.

They think it is a game that they play where they hide from me.

We don't use the word lockdown with the children so as not to frighten the children.

- I just remember just feeling this feeling of just depression.

And I just remember driving up to the school and actually seeing it on the building.

We live small town, Sarasota.

It's just, it blew my mind.

I like I couldn't believe it.

- I mean, this is a place where they grew up and they call their home.

It was so sad having to explain the situation to my daughter at the time who was three that something like this could have happened.

She saw the building, she saw the splotchy paint all over the walls.

I had said to her that there were naughty kids who came during the night and painted on the building.

I just don't want them living in a world with hate and prejudism.

I want them to live in a world that is safe and there's peace.

And that's what I tried to portray and implement.

- I'm a rabbi, but I'm also a millennial.

I'm part of this generation of Jewish-Americans who grew up kind of tired hearing about antisemitism.

And when organizations would talk about it, it was a trope that I thought oh, just stop.

You know, and it was important for us to know what was going on in the world and to care about Jews all over the world.

But it never felt like something that I would have to address as a rabbi, three times now I've had to offer sermons on the topic of antisemitism because it was very relevant and present and people were asking for it.

It's horrifying to think that this is not just in you know, a single incident of hate from one person, but that our kids who are growing up today in Sarasota, most of them have experienced at least some form of antisemitism.

This past year, we talked about having a patrol out in front of our house during Hanukkah, and should we get private security because we're the Hanukkah house in Sarasota and it's just such a visible Jewish site.

We shouldn't be there in our world.

We should be at a place where people can have different views and different opinions without needing to harm or hurt.

We're human, just like everyone else.

We're people just like you.

It's easy to overlook antisemitism.

I appreciate so much that you are looking into it and talking about it because it is still here and still painful and still very dangerous.

(soft music) - We're kicking off our first panel discussion at the Florida Holocaust Museum, examining the fundamentals of antisemitism and the nuances in the digital age.

For that conversation I'm joined by Erin Blankenship, the Interim Executive Director of the Florida Holocaust Museum, Sarah Emmons, the Florida Regional Director for the Anti-Defamation League.

And Joe Probasco, the immediate past President of the Tampa Jewish Community Centers & Federation.

Welcome to you all.

I'd like to get your impressions on why you think it is antisemitism is treated differently, is not centered in the way that other historic hatreds are in modern America.

- I think there are a lot of folks who don't understand antisemitism, who when we talk about racism over the past year and 1/2, the media has really done quite a bit of work to talk about racism as they should in the incidents around racism.

But I think that there's really an opportunity for us as a community to talk more about antisemitism and what's happening to help our communities understand the context of antisemitism.

So not just modern antisemitism, but really the history of the Jewish community, how many times the Jewish community has been displaced culturally over time.

I think there's just a lot of work to educate our community.

And that's something that ADL is currently doing and working on, is helping to work with the media to make sure that our communities really understand antisemitism and can speak out against it.

- Joe, what do you think?

- We're, I think in a very interesting place at least from the Jewish community's perspective, and I think traditionally you would see it from one segment of society and not necessarily the other.

And what I mean by that is you're familiar with antisemitism on the right.

I mean, the right in terms of political terminology, we're now in a place where you have antisemitism coming from the left as well.

And also kind of the third leg of that stool is just extreme Islam.

And so the Jewish community is being hit with these issues from all sides.

So if you ask the right wing, the alt-right or whatever you care to characterize them as what's wrong with the Jews?

Well, the Jews are the socialists.

And if you ask the far left, well, what's wrong with the Jews, it's the Jews are the capitalists.

And so what you find is this conflict that depending on whoever wants to trade in antisemitism will find a way to articulate some antisemitic trope and they'll use it oddly, the both extremes of the political spectrum will use the same types of tropes to further their narrative on whatever that might be.

- The Anti-Defamation League has found a worrying uptick in those incidents.

What do the numbers tell us about recent years?

- Every year ADL conducts and publishes an annual audit of antisemitic incidents.

And in 2020 while we saw a national decline of antisemitic incidents by 4%, the numbers here in the State of Florida are actually quite different.

We saw a 40% increase in antisemitic incidents in Florida in 2020.

That increase is incredibly alarming for our Florida community and makes the work that the ADL and other groups do so important to combat antisemitism.

- This museum was the target of a vandalism attack, Wasn't it?

Tell me about it.

- It was.

On morning of May 27th early, very early.

I was called to be made aware that the museum was a victim of an antisemitic hate crime where the vandals graffitied Jews are guilty with swastikas on the side of our building.

I was lucky enough that by the time I came to work that day, the St Petersburg Police Department had already put up barriers, painted over it because words like that are extremely hateful.

But I would say that it really recharged all of our staff and our board because we know how important our mission is here at the Florida Holocaust Museum to continue to use the lessons of the Holocaust to educate people about the inherent worth and dignity of all human life.

And I would also say that even though our staff come from all walks of life it was very personal to each one of us.

And it just confirmed our mission all the more.

- Joe Probasco, when something like that happens in a place of symbolic significance, does it still send a kind of electric impulse through the Jewish people who live in this area?

- Tremendously.

And I believe it being marked on this particular facility had a more probably grateful impact than it would otherwise.

Again, the challenge we have here with antisemitism is rarely does it start with violence.

Rarely does it start with graffiti.

It usually starts with respect to the internet and dialogue online.

And as that increases, people become more emboldened.

This is not something and I think this is a mistake people make consistently, this is not a Jewish problem.

It impacts Jews, but it's not a Jewish problem.

And by pure numbers and I'm not educating anybody here about this.

We cannot defeat antisemitism as a community on our own.

We can't, we are absolutely reliant on the non-Jewish members of this Tampa communities, St. Petersburg community, United States to stand arm in arm and tell the world, this is just not acceptable.

And I think the challenge also people forget and if you study your history, you will see this is pretty consistent is in the same was what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.

And what follows after that is hatred expressed again.

Well geez, if we can get away saying this about the Jews, let's say it about the Asians, let's say it about the blacks.

And I think you've seen that happen in this country over the last five to seven years pretty consistently.

And it's really, when will the silent, the silent majority, the moderate standup and say this is not my community.

My community is one where we welcome the other, where we're comfortable with the other and embrace that.

And that's the biggest test, litmus test for me is how does the non-Jewish community react?

And I will tell you personally, in 2018 with the Tree of Life Synagogue shootings, the non-Jewish community reacted tremendously.

I was contacted by people all over the country of just, this is not my United States.

I am so sorry this happened.

What can we do to help?

I will tell you in May with the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas and what happened at the Florida Holocaust Museum, I didn't get too many phone calls, and that was very unsettling.

And I think that's something that continues to be very unsettling because the silence is what's gonna lead to again, more and more and more.

- Erin what do you think?

- It's sometimes hard to put your finger on, hard to define what antisemitism is until something big happens like the graffiti here at the Florida Holocaust Museum or something horrible like the Tree of Life shooting.

Media isn't covering it otherwise until something really major happens.

So again, it's back to education and us needing the Florida Holocaust Museum, the work of the ADL and others needing to educate people about what antisemitism is, about all of its forms so that we can fight it.

- Sarah has the digital world given cover to people who would never stand up in a public meeting and say Hitler was right which is in a common online message, but will go home and in their den or in front of their laptop type Hitler was right into a website.

- Yes, absolutely.

And I think we're both seeing online rhetoric.

We're also seeing that rhetoric more often in the in-person meetings.

We're seeing extremist groups come to school board meetings and speak out.

So one of the things we're doing at the ADL to combat online hatred is working closely with different social media companies to hold them accountable.

We recently came out with a report grading some of the different social media companies and their response and their policies around hate speech.

And we think that most social media companies have a way to go in terms of really protecting their constituents and our communities.

And that's something that we at ADL wanna be partners with them and helping them amend their policies so that they can better protect against hate speech online.

- I wanna thank you all for a terrific conversation.

Erin Blankenship, Sarah Emmons, and Joe Probasco.

(upbeat music) We're talking about security for the Jewish community in America and here in Florida.

For that conversation I'm joined by Rabbi Mendy Dubrowski, he's the Director of the South Tampa Branch of Chabad, a Chaplain to the Tampa Police Department, and the Chaplain to the FBI.

Jonathan Ellis, Chair of the Tampa Jewish Community Relations Council, and Special Agent Susana Mapu from the Tampa Division of the FBI.

Well, there's been a significant rise in the number of acts of vandalism, harassment, physical attack.

Is American Jewry Special Agent Mapu in more danger than it was four years ago, five years ago.

Is that simply an objective fact?

- Well, we know from the recent hate crime statistics that antisemitism crime has gone up in general, not just antisemitism but in general hate crimes has gone up 64% since last year over the past five years it has gone up 25%.

- When you amass data like that, how does a National Law Enforcement Agency respond?

What tools do you have to respond to those numbers?

- The FBI looks at two different events.

I hate incident, which would be something that's pretty much maybe a freedom of speech type comment but that has racial slurs.

And a hate crime.

I hate crime we consider any typical crime that's solely motivated by somebody's religion, race, ethnicity, et cetera.

The FBI wants to know about both hate incidents and hate crimes, as you know the FBI's an intelligence based agency.

And we collect a lot of information.

That information is very important for us to know so that we can in our area of responsibility so that we can deter, prevent, address any incidents that may be happening.

If we are seeing a pattern or any issues, we will meet with the various individuals or if there's a specific threat we are mandated to let them know that maybe their safety there's a potential for an issue with their safety and we will knock on doors and advise as much as we can ahead of the threat.

And obviously we try to prevent them before it happens.

- Jonathan Ellis, does prudence require that you be aware of who's out there.

What they're saying, what they're threatening.

- There has to be a level of prudence.

You don't wanna close your eyes.

You don't want to pretend that something doesn't exist that exists.

You wanna take certain precautions.

So for instance, the Jewish community at least with its institutions, generally on any type of incident always allows, notifies law enforcement, whether it's an incident or whether it's a crime on an immediate basis, you need to take precautions.

So while people may not fear under the Bible they certainly have the ability to understand what's out there.

And they have a level of comfort when they're in an institution whether that's a police car, sitting out in front of a synagogue on high holy days or having a primarily Jewish event take place that there is actual law enforcement present.

You wanna make sure that those signs are there.

And those signs can a lot of times even if there would be a potential crime can prevent it just by the mere showing of law enforcement or by having proper security around the perimeter, such as only one entrance in, locked doors, security cameras, all of those things each Jewish institution looks at specifically, and they work with the FBI and they work with law enforcement to make sure they're properly prepared to the extent capable for these incidences.

- You're a chaplain to a police department.

You're a chaplain to FBI agents.

Are you a teacher as well as a spiritual advisor, keeping people on their toes, looking for the signs?

- I'm always a teacher, in every aspect of my life my goal is to try and educate and to share and enlighten.

And so when given the opportunity I jumped to be able to help them and empower them do their job, that can mean working through very challenging situations that they face.

They sometimes see the most ugly aspects of human nature.

It also helps them work through their communication strategies.

And then most recently I am able to serve as a resource to help them understand what the fight against antisemitism looks like.

What is going to elicit such a big response?

Why will people be sensitive to a particular caricature or a particular expression or trope so that they can be sensitive to it as well and hopefully stop it before it escalates.

- Special agent if someone sees something, a member of the community hears something that just doesn't sit right with them, where do you start when you hear about a hate incident that's being planned, hear of the organization of a group that may have hate at its core.

What should a member of the community do?

- We absolutely encourage the community to contact us whether it's by phone at 1-800-CALL-FBI, by email at tips@fbi.gov, they can call our office here in Tampa.

We have field offices throughout the states, 56 field offices so they can reach to any of our offices.

They can also contact the local police.

They will share that information with us as well, whichever way they're comfortable we want to know we take their information as confidential.

We protect their identity.

And if they are the victim of a hate crime, we have a victim specialists that will help them figure out their feelings, provide resources depending on what type of crime it was.

They will also let, our victim specialists will let the victims know of any legal proceedings that are occurring throughout the investigation and prosecution of that crime.

- You're not in law enforcement, so not the same question but a similar question.

Is it important for you to know if in the suburbs, in the many communities here something happens, is it important for you to know or does life just roll on?

- No, we want to, the community wants to know and works very closely with law enforcement.

So the first issue is whenever you see something like this is to report it to law enforcement, it's surprising what law enforcement may know with everybody communicating to law enforcement that an individual person doesn't see.

They may only see the antisemitic spray paint.

They may not be able to put together this is one of 15 incidences, or that there's a growing trend.

Law enforcement can keep track of that and put that together.

And then we'll generally let the community know when there are issues and when you need to sort of raise security or problems.

And by working very closely with law enforcement it's imperative that there be open communication which I think our community has not only with the FBI, but also with Tampa Police as well as the Sheriff's departments.

- And Rabbi, is that an assignment for everybody?

Not just for Jews worried about themselves, but a community worried about its own soul.

- I've seen this on a personal level when I myself was targeted and was able to work with law enforcement to address the threat.

And I've seen it on a communal level and sometimes law enforcement isn't the only tool in our arsenal.

So you have to work with lawyers, you have to work with educators, and of course with law enforcement, but first and foremost, we need to make sure that there is a response.

When you see something bad, you see something that is wrong, that it's called out and that it's addressed.

And law enforcement, leadership, rabbis, community presidents, everyone, every human being has a stake in that responsibility.

- Thank you all, Special Agent Susana Mapu, Jonathan Ellis, Rabbi Dubrowski.

(soft music) College campuses can be beautiful spaces for promise and potential, but they're also some of the worst microcosms of extremist recruitment and unchecked hate incidents.

Often the canary in the coal mine for society at large will go on campus to get a first person look into the lives of Jewish students who live under a persistent threat.

(soft music) - In previous years, Jewish students faced antisemitism predominantly coming from the left.

We're at a point now where antisemitism is coming from all angles.

- Antisemitism is the oldest hatred, and it doesn't seem like it's going away anytime soon.

- I can't walk into a place where I'm visibly Jewish and not have a plan of escape.

- It shocked me 'cause I had never experienced such blatant antisemitism before.

- I experienced my first bit of antisemitism when I was about five.

There was a bully in the class and he immediately said, I hate Jewish people.

So I went home and told my mom, and that's when she told me that that's not just something you just pass off.

You need to take it seriously.

It's upsetting, but it's something that you're sadly used to as a Jewish person.

I'll never wear my star of David in a place that I'm not comfortable.

I will never speak about me being Jewish or having Israeli family because I don't know who's gonna judge me for that, but it's something that you were kind of used to at this point, it's kind of second nature.

- It's really a rude awakening.

It is absolutely traumatic.

I oversee pretty much everything and anything to do with Jewish life at USF.

We are an award-winning advocacy campus who aim at creating peace through education and dialogue.

Our USF Hillel general programs center around social or religious functions.

The most important element of my job is to be front-facing with students and be there for students.

Our students are very accustomed to hearing really inflammatory, horrible things about being Jewish and the State of Israel.

A report came out a couple of days ago that says in the United States of America over 50% of American college students have encountered or experienced an antisemitic incident on a college campus.

We've had students who've had coffee thrown at them for wearing a USF Hillel shirt.

We've had students followed.

We've had students called murderers.

- ISIS hasn't even killed that many students, and you wanna have dialogue?

- Okay you're gonna have to leave.

- Any other form of hatred we know is wrong, people call it out.

People follow through with the accusations, but now if it's Jews it's sort of, oh okay.

If you wanna talk about the canary in the mine, Jewish students on American college campuses are the first canaries.

- I was in seventh grade.

I was talking to one of my friends Muhammad and an entire bus full of kids told him that he shouldn't be talking to me because I'm Jewish.

My synagogue has had multiple bomb threats.

So every time I'm in a Jewish setting I'm always ready to leave.

Following the Israel Gaza uptick in violence, I felt the most uncomfortable I have appearing Jewish since eighth grade.

I'm scared to be identified as Jewish.

I'm not sure if a student's going to not be willing to work with me on a project, that a professor's gonna grade me differently.

I'm not sure if a student's gonna assault me and all these things are just, it's scary.

Judaism is my connection to my ancestors as well as our religion.

It's what my ancestors fought for 4,000 years to maintain.

And it's what I hope future generations will do.

But when I'm being told that I'm a baby killer because I believe Jews have a right to self-determination, that's pretty harsh and frankly antisemitic.

I really love this country.

I believe that this country is good for the world.

I believe that so much good has come from us and seeing the path that we're going down and seeing the normalization of anti-Jewish hatred is I don't really have that much hope as things are going right now.

- There's a commandment in the Torah to treat others like you would want to be treated.

There can't be hate.

For a Jewish student or even a non-Jewish student to support Israel does not mean that they support everything that Israel is doing.

It does not mean it supports everything that's going on there or that it supports the government that's in place there.

Being pro-Israel does not mean you have to be anti-Palestinian.

I can hope that antisemitism will go away, but without some major things changing, I don't see it happening in the near future.

I think if it continues to go unchecked, it will become incredibly hostile.

They can come out and condemn antisemitism.

They can come out and condemn the antisemitic instances that are occurring on campus.

They can do more to protect the Jewish students and all students.

- Students don't come to USF to fight for Jewish autonomy and Zionism and Jewish advocacy, students come to USF to get an education, to get a degree, to expose themselves to new ideas and create the person they want to become.

- I am either looking into environmental law or continuing into a field of geology.

- I'd like to go into software programming.

I had a lot of experience doing cybersecurity as well.

- I graduated in the year 2017 with a bachelor's of science in health sciences with a dual concentration and biological and behavioral social health sciences.

- Hillel has become a second home.

It's definitely a place of community for me and many other students.

- Have to educate on modern forms of antisemitism.

It doesn't end here.

It goes somewhere.

It's a matter of whether or not we catch that.

(soft music) - Welcome back, in this part of the program we'll be talking about what you might call next gen antisemitism, the struggle on college campuses.

Joining us for that conversation Michael Igel, the Board Chair of the Florida Holocaust Museum and the Chair of the Florida Commissioner of Education's Task Force on Holocaust Education.

Laureen Jaffe, she's cohost of the Podcast Third Opinion, radio host activist and lay leader in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Ed Rosenthal, Executive Director and Campus Rabbi for Suncoast Hillel which oversees four Florida college campuses, and Sam Friedman, a junior at the University of South Florida and the Chair of Religious Life there.

Welcome to you all.

And Sam we met you during the report we just saw, you know it's I hear it all the time.

You don't really have to worry.

This generation of young people is the most diverse ever, the most comfortable with difference ever.

A lot of those problems that we had getting along are in the past because of who today's young people are.

And that sounds like it's a little too simple.

- Yeah.

I mean, that's a pretty significant understatement.

People my age really enjoy feeling like they're doing something and putting on a show that they're doing something without actually doing anything difficult.

They will post on social media talking about how the various social issues are relevant to them, but they would never actually put themselves out there to deal with it.

They'll talk about easy issues, issues that are common and people will be on their side, but they won't go out of their way to actually fight a difficult issue.

Antisemitism is one of those issues that's very rarely talked about especially outside of Jewish community, but it's one of those burdens that it's become so natural to you to live that it's you can imagine what it's like not to have that burden.

When you're able to find communities and you're able to find places where you don't feel that burden, it's an unexplainable relief.

- Rabbi what do you hear from your students?

What are they experiencing that makes this a sort of 21st century experience?

- You know, I think we experienced the honeymoon period following World War II and the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, the six day war where there was a sense of oh, the Jews, look what they've experienced.

And it was not fashionable to be antisemitic.

So especially in the United States we experienced a long honeymoon period.

And now over the last 20 years or so, we've seen a new form of antisemitism arise and that's replacing antisemitism because it's not socially acceptable to be antisemitic, but Israel has taken the place of what was traditional antisemitism.

So you can express your antisemitism through claiming to be an anti-Zionist or an anti-Israel when it's really just a a new form of an old hatred.

- Laureen, is there any legitimate channel for criticism of Israel the way you'd criticize something that France does or Russia does, or China does, or is a lot more of it than we realize masking for just old fashioned dislike or hatred of Jews?

- Certainly, I think the majority of what we hear today in social media with social, with influencers and Hollywood musicians and others in on the college campuses is modern day antisemitism.

So you had the National Education Association just this year, July 3rd, 2021.

They had two resolutions that were up for vote.

And one of the resolutions talked about condemning Israel for engaging ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

And ethnic cleansing is a falsehood, right?

This is one of the key criticisms you hear from many of these organizations.

We know through the Palestinian own census bureau that the Palestinian population in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem has increased 400% since 1967, ethnic cleansing is a factual impossibility.

But the problem is that most people do not recognize as Rabbi Ed was just saying that as antisemitism because the majority of Americans including college students and the younger generation are not informed on the Middle East.

They're not informed on the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

And the fact of the matter is that Jews are the only ones predominantly out there voicing support for the Jewish world.

And we're a small minority.

And even in the lightest conflict in May of this year, many in the Jewish world were very afraid.

They were afraid to speak out on social media because if you do, there's tremendous backlash.

And backlash in these intersectionality circles and the progressive circles that Jews have always felt comfortable in.

I mean, Jews historically we lean to the left.

We are historically liberal, have been very active in many of these movements on the progressive left, and we are being ostracized.

- Michael Igel you stand at kind of an intersection in the two hats you wear here at the museum and in helping guide the curriculum that's taught in State of Florida schools.

There's been antisemitism in societies all over the world going back centuries.

We're arguably sitting in one of the most educated polities in the history of the world.

And if we thought more education would fix this, antisemitism would have been a dead letter a long time ago.

- That's a great question.

And I'm so glad you asked it.

(laughs) You know, I think that it's one person at a time, and I know that sounds like an extremely tall order, but to describe we use the Holocaust for example obviously at the museum and with the task force, it's where the core of the educational curriculum.

And when you use numbers like 6 million, that is next to impossible if not impossible for a civilized person to absorb.

I mean, so I'm the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, and my aunt and uncle were survivors as well.

And other members of my family survived.

Most of it did not.

So I'm a miracle.

My family survived genocide, and the reason I'm here and the reason I do what I do at the museum, I call it my real job, my second job, what I do with the taskforce is because what came before me and my story and my family's story is the key to the education for example, what we do here at the museum and what the taskforce and what the educational curriculum does is it individualizes stories.

People understand other people.

And I live it because when I give tours to children, I give tours to adults, and when I weave in my family's story, that they were hidden by non-Jews who didn't even know them, who were executed for not giving up my grandparents, there's education in that, you're teaching the bullies not to bully anymore.

You're teaching the bullied that there'll be okay, you're teaching perseverance.

And then I talk about my grandparents and how they taught my brother and me not only about the depths of people, but the heights of people too.

And they would use these stories to teach us those things.

And then on top of that they said, look our story didn't finish when we survived, we came here with nothing.

We rebuilt ourselves, and we made a family, and we had grandchildren, that there's education in all of that.

- At the same time people were upset about COVID restrictions and bringing in all kinds of problematic and offensive World War II parallels, were some of the pressure that you were feeling as a student relieved by a year of a distance learning?

- Absolutely.

I mean, it's so much easier to not have to have think about whether or not someone's thinking of you as a Jew rather than whether or not someone's thinking of me as Sam.

And it's nice not having to think about that.

When I'm sitting in my dorm, in class online, the professor doesn't know I'm a Jew.

My classmates don't know I'm a Jew and I don't worry as much, but having my learning disrupted, having my college experience disrupted was the safest I felt from antisemitism in my life.

- If I'm just gonna add, it's examples like that that are so bad that you felt more comfortable being isolated at home or in your dorm room, that is such a disconcerting form of antisemitism because you can't be comfortable in your own skin.

You can't be out there as an American, and be just as comfortable as the person next to you.

And so I think that's our form of antisemitism.

I mean, it's not that Pittsburgh didn't happen.

I don't wanna minimize these things 'cause they do.

But there's so much of that.

It's a client of mine in my day job saying, well Mike, I know you wanna get paid.

I'm behind but I know you wanna get paid 'cause you're a Jew.

It's those types of things that we are also really need to work on.

And there's so much easier to teach them that these are, and we say there's this interesting thing about antisemites.

You talk to one and he'll tell you that the Holocaust didn't go far enough, and you talk to the other one and he'll tell you it never happened.

And there's this so it's really, I mean, that's the fallacy of all of this anyway.

(laughs) - Absurdity of it.

- I mean, we're talking about antisemitism, but I will say frankly, it's not something that while it is ever-present and we're aware of it, we don't dwell on it.

It's part of who we are.

I tell my students don't be bitter, be better.

And are we gonna remove antisemitism?

I don't think we'll ever remove antisemitism, but that's not the issue.

The issue is what are we going to do?

And I believe that the best way to combat antisemitism, yes, it's education.

We have to educate people.

But the best way to combat antisemitism is to do good.

Show that we have always been as a people, that we are a guiding force, the Torah, our history, our heritage is about doing good.

I mean, v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha love your neighbor as yourself.

We gave that to the world.

So I mean, the focus of what we do on campus is not let's fight against antisemitism.

Let's fight for Israel.

We do that.

But what we really do is about teaching to be proud, to be proud Jews, not just because Israel is an amazing country, not just because we've experienced persecution throughout for thousands of years, but because of what we've contributed to the world for good, for what we do in our daily lives to bring light into the world.

The Torah says that we are the Ohr L' Goyim to be a light into the nations.

It doesn't mean that we're better than anybody else.

It just means that we have responsibilities and that's how we fight it.

That's what I teach our students, not to be bitter, to be better, and to make the world a better place.

- Laureen are you using the tools of modern communications to push your way into the scrum, give a counter argument, after all the show's called Third Opinion, - (laughs) Right.

- Can you use those same tools that are used to spread hate, to spread misinformation, to win the argument or just make sure there's a Jewish voice in the argument?

- Well you know, I think it's two-fold.

I think the Jewish voice in the argument's really important, not just for the non-Jewish but also for the Jew, because I think even in the Jewish world many feel very uninformed and ill-equipped to speak out against all the antisemitism that they confront in social media, in the workplace, in school, on college campuses, et cetera.

So I think it's very important for the Jew and non-Jew, but I do think that there is some winning of the argument when you do put out facts and going back to what Rabbi Ed said justice and mercy, they are core values of Judaism.

And I think as Jews the most important thing we could do is speak out out of a place of love, compassion, but justice and mercy.

- Sam if you're a member of a small people inside a very large country, like the old song says, you gotta have friends.

This is just a lifelong slog, unless you can depend on non-Jewish allies not only on campus but throughout the rest of your life.

- I think the dream scenario for me and any Jew whether you know of any age is to be able to have that relief no matter where you go.

And that would be done through non-Jewish allies.

If I get to feel that same relief when I went to class, if I could feel that same relief when I was walking around campus, when I could feel that when I do anything, that would be an absolute game changer I believe for every single Jew in their ability to live, to survive, to work, to thrive in this country and in every country, by creating that larger space where you can relax, we could actually have that significant progress where Jews are much more comfortable to announce that they're Jewish.

They are not gonna think about whether or not they're wearing Kippah.

They're gonna be able to have those conversations of this is what it's like to be a Jew.

This is what we've experienced.

And that's snowballs.

You feel that in one space, you teach one person, your space gets a little bigger, and that process continues no matter where you go.

And ultimately that's how the entire country could become a place where you don't need to think about that.

You're an American and you're Jewish.

You're not a Jewish-American.

- Thanks a lot of everybody, it was great talking to you all.

Michael Igel, Laureen Jaffe, Rabbi Ed Rosenthal, and Sam Friedman.

(upbeat music) In this next segment, we'll hear from our neighbor, Sigmund Tobias, a Polish Jew who escaped with his parents to Shanghai from Berlin after the terror of Kristallnacht.

- My name is Sigmund Tobias.

I was born in Berlin, Germany in 1932.

I remember being caught up in a Nazi parade where everybody was yelling, heil Hitler.

And I was shocked to see my parents raising their arms in the salute and also saying hail Hitler.

And when I asked them about it later on.

They said they had to do that because otherwise the crowd might have turned on us.

And then of course was Kristallnacht, the night of shattered glass, that was one of the more horrifying nights.

We heard the shattering glasses outside.

And every time that happened, we realized that some Jewish business or store had been vandalized.

And it was clear that the lives of Jews were in danger in Germany, constant danger.

And I suddenly realized that there was no safety for us anywhere.

Fortunately, my father recognized that as well.

He was stateless so he couldn't get out of Germany, but he decided to smuggle himself into Belgium thinking that if things were safer there we would join him there.

He was caught on the border and the Germans imprisoned him in the Dachau Concentration Camp, 46,000 prisoners in Dachau died in Dachau.

My mother heard that he could be released if he left the country within I think 48 hours And we found that the only place which did not require visas was the Japanese occupied portion of Shanghai.

It was not difficult to leave Germany.

It was difficult finding a place to go.

And six months later my mother and I joined them in Shanghai.

Well, life was very difficult.

Malnutrition was rampant.

Food was scarce obviously.

And my estimate is that we lost perhaps 1/3 of the population of what arrived.

The Japanese insisted that all the Jews move into a small part of Shanghai which we obviously called the ghetto.

For all our time in Shanghai I and my parents shared one room.

We ate in that room, we slept in that room.

We cooked in that room.

When the war was over and we felt fortunate of course to have survived.

And then we heard about the Holocaust.

14 aunts, uncles, and cousins of mine had not survived.

These are not just names to me.

These were people with whom I had lived, laughed and cried.

And we were devastated.

At a time when my people who were being killed in Auschwitz and other sort of places, we found safety in Shanghai.

And I thank the Chinese people for letting us live safely among them during those terrible years.

Because if we hadn't, I would not be.

One of the reasons so many 6 million Jews were killed was not because they didn't wanna go and flee.

they wanted to flee.

They couldn't find the country to accept them.

If there had been under Israel, there would not have been a Holocaust.

Minorities are often reviled.

My suggestion to that is that rather than think about the strangeness of minorities, or I might think about the diversity they add to our country, to our culture, to our institutions, to our literature, to our theater.

And they bring to that a richness of diversity which is an asset to the country.

I became an American citizen in 1955.

And I'm internally grateful to have received the education and the opportunity to succeed in this country, which I would not have received certainly in Germany or in any other country.

I guess in some sense you might say I've become proud to be an American.

- [Kahn] Activist Yotam Marom said, we are all shaped by the systems around us until we do the work of uprooting them.

Antisemitism might have extraordinarily deep roots, a virus that can never be truly eradicated, but we can flatten the curve if we work together and take the threat seriously.

To my Jewish family, be strong, be strong, and we will be strengthened.

All of us need to be clear and vocal as we call out antisemitism wherever we see it.

It's easy to call it out when we see it from those we don't agree with, but if we really hope to make a difference, we need to start talking to our friends, our politicians, and our community leaders when they use antisemitic tropes, we younger Jewish Americans need to stop avoiding stories of discrimination and cruelty from the past and realize we're not living in a place where antisemitism has stopped.

We must report hate incidents and crimes, but we must also build bridges across political, racial, religious, ethnic, and cultural divides.

Only by building a community of acceptance and justice, can we make sure our streets, synagogues, boardrooms and courtrooms do not allow hate or prejudice.

To our non-Jewish neighbors, we cannot fight antisemitism without you.

Education is imperative.

Learn about Jewish culture and Jewish identity.

Ask a Jewish person why Israel is important to them, about the hope and values the Jewish state represents.

Seek to understand what it means to live in the shadows of the Holocaust, to be a people who had virtually nowhere to go at a time when we were victims of one of mankind's worst crimes, don't like, retweet and share posts that you haven't researched yourself.

You must dig with vigilance for truth and facts.

Revisionist history cannot be the norm.

And let's be clear, nothing happening in Israel can ever justify brutalizing, threatening or harassing Jewish individuals.

Bari Weiss said, "In these trying times, "our best strategy is to build without shame, "a Judaism capable of lighting a fire in every Jewish soul "and in the souls of everyone "who throws in his or her lot with ours" Let's speak up, speak out and do this together.

Eyes open, voices heard.

(soft music) - To view this program again, and for more information, visit wedu.org/talk where you'll find helpful resources for combating antisemitism, educational efforts and more.

I'm Ray Suarez.

Thank you for watching.

(soft music) - [Narrator] Support for this program was generously provided by: Regions Bank, Ian Black Real Estate, Manatee Community Foundation, Tidewell Foundation, Pinellas Community Foundation, Gulf Coast JFCS, The Barry Alpert Family, The Alan Bomstein Family, The Richard Dobkin Family, The Sam Samelson Family, The Elizabeth Sembler Family, The Geoff Simon Family, The Jennifer Williams Family, Jewish Federation of Florida's Gulf Coast, Jewish Federation of Sarasota Manatee, and Tampa Jewish Community Centers & Federation.

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