Organizers of an interfaith effort between a Presbyterian church and a Jewish synagogue hope a two-day program will shed light on the history of antisemitism and the danger it poses today.
Brendan Murphy, a longtime history teacher at the Marist School and a speaker on the holocaust and antisemitism, will discuss “Why the Jews? The History of Antisemitism,” from 4 to 6 p.m. on Sunday and from 6 to 8 p.m. on Monday in the Great Hall at St. Luke’s Presbyterian Church, 1978 Mt. Vernon Rd. in Dunwoody.
Murphy said he wants to create an awareness of the history of antisemitism, which encourages listeners to respond to contemporary antisemitism.
“Antisemitism thrives in a community of indifference,” he said.
The free event is co-produced by Temple Emanu-El in Atlanta and is an outgrowth of a years-long relationship between the two houses of worship.
That relationship only strengthened after the 2018 attack in which a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and killed 11 people.
Shortly after the attack, St. Luke’s Senior Pastor David Lower wrote a note to Rabbi Spike Anderson of Temple Emanu-El, expressing his horror at the attack and support for the Jewish community.
Then, most recently here in Georgia, there were incidents of antisemitism.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
On June 23 extremists stood outside Temple Beth Israel in Macon where they hung a life-sized doll of an observant Jew in effigy, waved swastika flags and shouted epithets at members of the congregation.
The next day neo-Nazis brandished Nazi flags and hurled antisemitic messages outside the Chabad of Cobb in East Cobb.
Lower called it “a very painful expression of hatred” and called it an attack on “our friends.”
“It’s a difficult history to revisit, but it is important learning for all of us,” he said. He said it’s essential to understand how antisemitism emerges and how “wrong and misappropriated theology” can perpetuate that mindset, sometimes in destructive and even deadly ways.
“We have to embrace, welcome and befriend others, rather than judge and attack them,” he said.
Anderson, of Temple Emanu-El, said the upcoming event stands out because it’s not a synagogue inviting Christians to come and hear about antisemitism. It’s the other way around. “it is a Christian church and Christian clergy who are raising the banner that antisemitism is wrong...Jews have been doing this in an echo chamber.”
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