We may disagree but we cannot lose our unity
NEW YORK – Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt faced a palpably apprehensive audience on Wednesday when he introduced former White House adviser Jared Kushner, son-inlaw of former President Donald Trump. The ADL awarded Kushner at its conference for his involvement in the Abraham Accords. Greenblatt began his introduction with a disclaimer: his relationship with Kushner has been disagreeable, as was the administration in which he served.
Attendees shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Some left the room, others rose for a standing ovation. People bristled as three protesters stood up at different points, but Kushner carried on with his prepared remarks. Some loudly booed when he spoke directly about his father-inlaw when he stated that Donald Trump is not an antisemite.
The Jerusalem Post sat down with Greenblatt on Wednesday after Kushner’s keynote address. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Do you stand in your choice to have Jared Kushner here today?
We’ve always sought to bring a range of speakers to our events, certainly across the spectrum. But we also bring people who are in political roles. So this year, for example, Attorney-General Merrick Garland is speaking. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, a special envoy for global antisemitism also spoke earlier [Tuesday]. And indeed, we had former White House adviser Jared Kushner.
Now, I stand by that decision for a few reasons. First, Jared has been explicit that he has no role in the current campaign. He said publicly he will not serve in a future White House and is very focused on his business. So he made the right statements in terms of not being a political actor.
Did he used to be on the campaign and even the White House role? Yes. Same with me. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t do other things. And very specifically, this award was about the Abraham Accords. And it is indisputable, in my opinion, that they were super positive – in terms of demonstrating the possibilities for peace in the region, in terms of enabling the sort of people-to-people connections that we didn’t see after the Camp David Accords or even the Israeli-Jordan peace agreement.
Particularly, they have been positive because they’ve allowed Israel to maintain open channels of communication with other countries in the region, despite the war.
So, for all these reasons, I felt good about bringing Jared here. Now, I want to be clear that just because he spoke today doesn’t absolve the prior administration for issues that we had with it and it doesn’t preclude us from taking positions with a future administration. Garland and Lipstadt both work for President [Joe] Biden. Jared is not working for former President Trump, and Biden is running again. We need to have both sides. That’s the kind of unity that we need to model here, that we won’t allow those political differences to get in the way of seeing the bigger picture
What does that unity look like if there are very real differences politically when it comes to the US’s involvement with Israel’s future?
First, recognize that the fight against prejudice shouldn’t be political and that the push against antisemitism shouldn’t be somehow anchored to your partisan leanings. That, to me, seems like a simple statement of fact. Second, we can have a kind of unity among the Jewish people, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to agree. So, you can have different views about a future Middle East peace arrangement, and domestic policies here. That shouldn’t preclude us or prevent us from finding ways to work together now.
I spoke with someone who questioned your decision to come out and say off the bat, I don’t agree with Jared Kushner at all - but here he is. She said if you have somebody you’re giving an award to, then you should come out and unabashedly proclaim, here is the winner of this award.
Our country generally, and the Jewish community specifically, has been very divided in recent years. Irrespective of voting patterns, I go synagogue to synagogue, community to community, and I hear people tell me, ‘Oh, I no longer see those friends. We go out to dinner, but we don’t talk about politics. I no longer talk to that member of my family.’ I hear this everywhere I go, enough that it’s not anecdotal; there are deep divisions in our community.
I did not hesitate to call out Trump when he did things with which I disagreed; when I worked in the Obama White House l called him out as well. My job at ADL, and our role, is not to play for the red team or the blue team. It’s to call balls and strikes, that’s material to this line of conversation. Because, again, I didn’t agree with many things that Trump did, but I thought he did some things with which I agreed.
When I talk about the importance of unity, the importance of getting past these political issues, I am modeling that value myself, that we’re modeling that value
as an enterprise. So I felt the need to explain to make sure people understand this is the logic, – what are you doing to build community?
You’re in a position of leadership and power to make a bold gesture of unity and togetherness. We hear those words all the time, and they feel almost meaningless, because what action can tangibly be met?
It’s a good question. I think it behooves all of us to try to reach across the divide. I was sharing with you the stories
of family members who don’t want to talk to people they disagree with. How do you do this as an ordinary person? You need to see that guy for dinner, you need to talk. We all need to do our part to reach out.
All of us can find ways to reach across the divide. You don’t need to be running a 4,000-person conference and inviting former White House advisors to be part of your program. You can do it at the kiddush table, or you can do it
over a Shabbat meal. You can do it with your family members and friends. It doesn’t necessitate a grand gesture.
Sometimes the most meaningful things are not the grand gestures. It’s the small micro-interactions if you will. Another way you can sharpen that skill is to read something new, watch something different, flip the channel, or open a different media outlet. It’s not hard to get exposure to the kaleidoscopic information environment we live in.
In conversations you have across the country, do you find that this is work people want to do? It’s not easy work to challenge yourself to sit with those uncomfortable emotions and experience discomfort at that visceral level. That’s something I’d assume that most people, if having the choice, would choose not to experience. The skill set to bridge a divide is complex.
I think it is up to those of us in leadership roles at whatever station to find ways, whether you’re modeling for your kids, your constituents, or your supporters. I think it’s super reasonable for you to point out, ‘Well, this stuff is hard for people to want to do.’ And I know this is not necessarily a first order of priority for everyone.
But I deeply worry about the division in our community. I also think it is easier than we might suppose. There’s some degree of specialization around people who do this sort of cross-community work. At the same time, this is stuff you learned in kindergarten – how to get along with people who are different from you, and how to share in the sandbox.
I think the biggest challenge is possessing the ability to listen and talk around something with such high emotion, process and make sense of your own emotions, and then be able to hold space for somebody else’s equally challenging emotions.
We have to figure that out. I think – and maybe I’m overstating it – but I just think we’re Jewish, our entire tradition is based on dissent.
It is certainly true that these are intense feelings. But it is also certainly true that over centuries, there were different schools of thought, different followers of different rebbes who shared strong opinions, but they always knew they were Jews.
So I think we can come back to some of that, and it is simpler than we make it out to be. And I hope that our rabbis and our chazanim and our synagogue presidents can model some of that behavior for those of us who are adults. I hope that Hillel directors and the Chabad emissaries on campuses can model that for some of our younger people, or the BBYO executives.
It’s not as hard as we might think, but it takes practice. So lets start young; we can build this kind of muscle memory so we understand how to deal with people who are different from us. Turns out, as well, that’s not just a good skill to be present as a fully developed Jewish citizen, it’s a good skill to have as a fully developed person in American society. I think these are skills that require practice, but with some degree of refinement, I think they have to have application inside our Jewish community and extensibility beyond.