Next two installments of ‘Crucial Conversations’ slated for May and June

By Michael Sudhalter

A significant flight delay from Los Angeles to Dallas couldn’t prevent a world-renowned Holocaust expert from sharing his expertise during the first night of the “Crucial Conversations: Challenging Antisemitism” program at the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum on Monday, April 7 before an audience of 225 people.

Dr. Michael Berenbaum, project director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., lamented the nine-to-10-hour delay, which caused him to miss about two-thirds of the first of three “Crucial Conversations” programs this spring.

The “Crucial Conversations” program started in 2020 with a series on racism and continued in 2021 with the roots of antisemitism, dating back approximately 3,500 years.

The series will continue with Session 2, “Campus Antisemitism at Home and Abroad,” on Tuesday, May 13, and Session 3, “(Strategies for) Combating Antisemitism,” on Tuesday, June 10.

Berenbaum, despite missing nearly all but the Q&A portion of the 97-minute program, made up for time on the tarmac with a brilliant, rapidly delivered address during his relatively brief time on the panel.

“I traveled about nine or 10 hours to give a 12-minute speech,” Berenbaum said. “If you want to understand antisemitism, you have to understand four words — source, goal, priority, stability. The sources of antisemitism differ: religious, political, economic, social, cultural, racial. Depending on what the source is, the goal differs.”

Berenbaum said a society’s stability, or lack thereof, has a direct correlation to the safety of its Jewish community.

“Our grandparents accepted the notion that it’s difficult to be a Jew,” he said. “For my generation, it wasn’t difficult to be a Jew. We have to teach and educate ourselves and the next generation of Jews about the majesty, the mystery, the glory, the sacredness and the sanctity of being Jewish, so they are capable of assuming the burden. They will live in a world where being Jewish is a burden.”

His fellow panelists, Dr. Charles Asher Small and Dr. David Patterson, also shared profound insights. Before Berenbaum’s delayed flight, Patterson was slated to be the moderator. Instead, the Museum’s Barbara Rabin Chief Education Officer, Dr. Sara Abosch-Jacobson, served as moderator, and Patterson joined the panel.

“The panelists are all brilliant,” Holocaust Museum President and CEO Mary Pat Higgins said. “They have slightly different opinions, but they all deeply understand the roots and origins of antisemitism.”

“We felt it was really important to have a new series,” Higgins continued. “The number of antisemitic incidents has more than doubled since Oct. 7, and it’s increasing around the world. The second session will focus on college antisemitism because that’s where it’s really manifesting itself in the United States right now.”

The emphasis on college campuses came up significantly during the first session.

Small, the founding director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP), said anti-Israel propaganda, demonstrations and even curricula on college campuses are largely funded by the Qatari government in an effort to “weaken and isolate” Israel.

“We have to define ourselves based on Jewish values and not allow those who hate us to define us,” Small said. “Social media has become a super-spreader of the antisemitism virus. Antisemitism is an attack on human decency.”

ISGAP has an investigative team of forensic accountants that follows the finances of efforts to spread antisemitism affecting academia, media and politics. Small specifically referred to radical left-wing university professors as “intellectual clowns.”

He added that Israel is proof of the Jewish people’s miraculous return to its homeland.

“Zionism, to me and to the Jewish people, is the greatest movement of the emancipation and the reclaiming of the indigenous people on their land,” Small said. “It’s astounding. Despite all of the empires, we have been able — in our lifetime, which is an incredible miracle — to have a free, sovereign homeland for the Jewish people, where we speak our language and connect to our land.”

“We are so much removed from our wisdom and teachings. For a Jew to be free, you have to be rooted in the Land of Israel and connected to something higher. This is our teaching. Israel continues to be an inspiration for the entire world — maybe not for the Ivy League universities, but for the rest of the world, it’s resonating.”

Small opened the program by stating that antisemitism can be understood in three different phases.

“Antisemitism is inherently genocidal, which makes it different than other forms of hate,” he said.

The first phase, dating back to ancient times, was religious in nature, with Christians believing the Jewish people were delaying Christ’s return. This led to forced conversions, exile and violence.

The second phase was racial antisemitism, where Jews were targeted as a separate racial group, regardless of their religious beliefs. The hateful rationale of “purifying the white race” culminated in the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The third and current phase of antisemitism is the attack on Jewish peoplehood and self-determination in efforts to demonize and dehumanize Israel by falsely characterizing its citizens and supporters as “white expansionists” — just two generations after 6 million Jews were murdered because they were not considered “white.”

Patterson, the Hillel A. Feinberg Distinguished Chair in Holocaust Studies at the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, spoke about the evil effects of the 1903 Russian fabricated book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

The book contributed to stereotypes that fueled hatred leading up to the Holocaust. It has since been printed around the world, including the Middle East, and continues to contribute to today’s variant of antisemitism.

In addition to a 122-year-old canard such as The Protocols, there’s also the negative side of the 21st-century development of social media, where hatred largely goes unchecked.

“Humanity lies in our responsibility, and social media is a great place to hide, as there’s no reckoning,” Patterson said. “When human beings are absent, hatred flourishes.”

Patterson said antisemitism obviously existed prior to Oct. 7, but it’s now “more orchestrated and systematic.”

“Antisemitism is about a radical disconnection. Jewish teaching is about a radical connection,” Patterson said.

The program, which included a pre-event reception, was supported by Ronit and Haviv Ilan. Community partners included ADL Texoma, Congregation Anshai Torah, Dallas Afterschool, Greenhill School, the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, Southwest Jewish Congress, Temple Emanu-El, Temple Shalom and the Texas Holocaust, Genocide and Antisemitism Advisory Commission.