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Okay, hello, my name is Grace Stewart and I'm an intern at the Houston jewish history archive at Rice University today is March 11th 2022 I'm here with martin Kaminsky, the president and ceo of interfaith ministries. How are you today, martin? I'm doing well, Grace glad to

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be with you, glad that you're here. Um Alright, so I figured that we could go ahead and start with the basics. Um so if you could tell us a little bit about where you grew up, different influences on your, your jewish life growing up, if there

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were any um if anything in your childhood or teenagers influenced your future career, anything like that. Well, my name is Martin Byron Kaminsky and I was born in Houston texas at Methodist Hospital. Uh and I grew up for the most part from ages six to about

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18 in Pasadena Texas. My mom worked at Sanderson, a college as the Dean of Health Sciences and at that time they required her to live in the taxpaying community of the college. And so that took us to Pasadena. Uh there were about 40 or 50 Jewish

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families in Pasadena believe it or not, although at that time there was not an active synagogue. And so my parents did a lot of carpooling with some of the other families to get us from Pasadena to congregation emanuel and then back again. Um My um school

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life was primarily in a non jewish communal setting. And so I was constantly asked to explain Hanukkah and Passover all those holidays to my non jewish friends. Uh my best friends uh in my school years were all non jewish. But um it was well received uh

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and I was quite welcomed and ultimately became, you know, the the junior class president, senior class president, Mr Pasadena High School. So I, I think all went well having said that um, there was a bookstore in Pasadena, the knights of the ku Klux Klan that had

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a big sign on it as you went down Red Bluff Road and then on Shaver Street was the uh, you know, national Socialist Party that ran Nazi like messages on a recording. So I'm sure that some of the people that I came into contact with were

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not favorable to jewish participation and jewish life, but that didn't stop me. And fortunately I was able to go on to University of Houston for a bachelor's degree in journalism and to southern methodist university for M. B. A. And uh, I have, you know, sort of

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made my career with those credentials and background. Okay. Um would you say that the jewish christian relations in Pasadena were pretty positive when you were growing up? Yes, I think they were uh in terms of race past Tina was predominantly a white anglo community, uh there

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became a larger Hispanic community around that, but uh there were very few african americans there at the time. So it uh it was welcoming and there was an active national council on christian jewish relations that functioned and been a breath for adults at least functioned as

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well? Um Although the the youth activities were really centered at the Houston area. Okay. Okay. Um I don't want to skip skip ahead too much. Um But I I did remember from our previous meeting which I thought was interesting um that you were inspired by James

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Byrd Jr um in some of your your later work. So I was wondering if you could say a bit about that. Okay, so um I've had several different a wonderful career opportunities. One of them was with the Anti defamation League as its regional director and I

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served in that role for 16 years. The start of my career there was right after the um James Byrd Jr horrific murder in jasper texas and the A. D. L. Was quite concerned about that and ultimately took a leading and working with the family, working with

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the media, working with the legislature, trying to solve the crime, trying to address the hate that was emanating from that and the concerns that were emanating from that and ultimately to write the language for the creation of the James Byrd hate crime law in texas which

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ultimately passed and is currently the law in our state. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay, I don't want to skip ahead too much. Um So maybe going back a bit to your time that you have aged in sm you how did you make that transition? Because I know

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I know that you didn't go right off the bat from college into the nonprofit world. Right? So how did you make that transition um between college and then your career at first and then um your life at the E. L. Um and ultimately at interfaith ministries

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um and what what led you to make that decision and that change? Sure. Well, I was a very active student at the University of Houston beginning in 1976, when after I graduated from high school, um I learned to love the campus very much and it was

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celebrating its half-century celebration when I was there. And so I got a chance to work with some of the events that were happening on the campus, got to meet that the chancellor of the university now, it's called the campus president, but met the chancellor and worked

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very closely with him as a student, just trying to help do some programming during the university's 50th anniversary. And over time we became friends over the four years. I worked for him as a student assistant and he encouraged me to go off to grad school and

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get an M. B. A. And then said when you're done, call me. And, and let's talk. And so after he offered me the job of the director of the alumni organization, I said, I don't think that's quite the right job for this 24 year old kid

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right out of college. Um But uh he did ultimately offered me the chance to be his assistant and I worked as an assistant to the chancellor where I had a wide opportunity to learn about the university, about budgets, about state boards of regions, the state legislatures

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and it was a wonderful experience. Um My degree in my M. B. A. From S. M. U. Was actually focused on the arts on uh an M. B. A. And arts management which took me to work for the Dallas Symphony first and then ultimately um to

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come to you of age and then to work with an organization called Business Volunteers for the Arts, which recruited corporate business people to help nonprofit arts organizations with marketing, planning, accounting, finance and all those issues. So I became a consultant to arts groups using the degree

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and the way I had hoped to. Um until I got selected to be the national director and moved to new york city where I worked for five years and met my wonderful bride terry. And we met in new york city at congregation rodef shalom, a classical

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reform congregation there and made our way back to Houston after our wedding. So that that got me there other parts of my career when terry and I came back uh President Clinton and the AmeriCorps initiative was just being established and I really liked service and volunteerism

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and thought that AmeriCorps was a good opportunity for Houston at the time and I wanted to become uh its founder and director here and together with a very good friend and mentor and Godfather Vic samuels. Uh He helped me start the program, paid my salary for

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a year and got off a great program called serve Houston that while it uh took an intermission from after about seven years of its operation while I was working for the A. D. L. We're now bringing it back after my A. D. L. Experience to make

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it happen at interfaith ministries for greater Houston. Thanks to the Samuels family. Okay, great. So what year, what year did you start this program originally? Well the original program was in 1993. Uh that America was just getting started, I was there for about five years. Uh

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and then it continued on for a couple of years after I moved to the A. D. L. And for the A. D. L. I was the southwest regional director covering from el paso to Beaumont and kind of all points south. So I had Austin and san

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Antonio uh in the rio grande valley in el paso all in my territory, which as you know, el paso is halfway from Houston to Los Angeles. So it was a big portion of the state. And uh in addition to the work that I did in Houston

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was very proud to open an office in Austin texas which was new to the A. D. L. And thanks to the maze land family, Ray Meslin, we were able to get that program started and and founded there. Okay. Um so with AmeriCorps um starting out in

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Houston, what were some specific challenges that Houston faced at that time that you felt that America could help with? Well education has always been a challenge for Houston. Uh Despite being the fourth largest city in the nation and being a pretty wealthy community with an economy

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powered by oil and the ports of Houston and the medical center. Uh Houston has not done well in public education. And so my goal was to bring young people back into the classroom to help tutor and mentor other students in elementary schools. These were high school

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graduates that had a chance to give back. And so we recruited them. They also ran after school programs in elementary schools in a partnership with the Y. M. C. A. And so it built and instilled an experience of confidence, a commitment to service for young high

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school students that were then graduating. And then they got about a $5,000 education award to continue their education into college. So serve multiple factors help the community, help the schools, help the students, the young students and prepared the American members for a life of service ahead.

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Yeah. Yeah definitely. I can see how that would be really helpful in this area. Um So moving a little bit more towards the A. D. L. So you said that you were supervising areas that were not Houston. Right. So how are there any ways in which

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the the way that the HDL goes about its mission is that different in Houston versus the rest of texas. Are there different issues that Houston may or may not have that aren't shared in the rest of texas? Um What's your opinion on that? Well there's there's

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one A. D. L. Globally we're all offices of organization that is very well coordinated in its research and its planning and its policy and all of its writings. And so we worked together. My job was to both be an investigator and a conduit by which our

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national and international organization could learn about Houston and other places in our region but to also get the wise advice from my expert colleagues in new york city about how to best handle that and what tools we needed and could get to solve problems that I

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was bringing forward. So it was a very interesting job part investigative, part community relations, part interfaith relations and always standing up against prejudice and bigotry. And so yes different parts of the state were different but we were able to sort of report all of that and

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get a statewide view that I think helped uh the national office and the planning and the research around fighting antisemitism to grow and flourish. Um particularly I'm proud of the no place for hate program. Uh The name was created by our boston A. Dl office, but

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Houston really, uh, took the idea and made it into a community program with schools participating is no place for eight schools. And at some point we were up to about 400 schools in the Greater Houston Southwest regional area. And this was a situation where students in

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a school signed a pledge, a resolution of respect to commit that they were going to be respectful students and that they understood how to try to work together absolutely no bullying, to work together toward fighting any sense of anti Semitic or anti gay, all of uh,

00:15:16.750 - 00:15:35.020

of the prejudices and bigotry that people brought to the school. And our effort was to get people to commit to stop that and to work with their school and their school leaders. And so the students signed at the faculty signed it and it just became a

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symbol of what the school was going to work toward, where they're still challenges in those schools. Occasionally with with bigotry and prejudice. Yes. But there was a foundation there where the school had made the commitment to fight against hate and bigotry and students as well. And

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so it was much easier to solve those problems with their understanding of the commitment they made and the challenges that their school faced. Oh yeah, yeah, that's so important to start young. Um, what, what did that process look like if a school wanted to get involved

00:16:13.510 - 00:16:27.620

with? The no place for hate program Is did they have to apply or did you find them? How did that look like? So they had to apply and they had to do several things. One was that the whole school, all the students had to agree to

00:16:27.620 - 00:16:48.950

sign this resolution of respect that just committed to fighting aids and bigotry and stopping bullying in their school when they could. The faculty administration had to agree to that. And with that resolution then we would do some various educational programs, whether it was youth summits or

00:16:48.950 - 00:17:07.390

special no place for hate efforts. We had a resource guide that we provided each year to the schools with new ideas about how to build more understanding and more respect in each school. So it was a great program. It's still working now a nationwide and Susan

00:17:07.390 - 00:17:26.700

shaw who helped me create this and I are very proud of the impact that we hope we've made on thousands of students throughout the country to think twice before. Uh they express an act on any bigotry um in their schools and in their lives. Yeah, I

00:17:26.700 - 00:17:48.110

agree. Um Is this um all grade levels or specifically elementary or it was really k through 12. Um Middle school was our focus because middle school is the focus of a lot of name calling of bigotry and bullying. And so uh some of our greatest work

00:17:48.120 - 00:18:10.140

was done in the middle schools, but elementary and high schools were very important as well. The high school programs often delved into holocaust education and the opportunity for high school students, particularly in Fort Bend I. S. D. To make some major efforts to be aware of

00:18:10.140 - 00:18:33.110

the holocaust and to to fight that from ever happening again Sadly in this day in 2022, um the issues of Russia invading the Ukraine harkened back to some of the difficult circumstances of the Holocaust and the tragedy of the Holocaust. Yeah, it's been a it's been

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a hard year and it's only March, right? Um So what what was particular about for Ben that you mentioned them specifically? Well ford Ben had a very diverse community um for Ben County. Um and the greater Houston area are deemed the most diverse communities in the

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nation. Uh mainly because there are pockets of all kinds of people and that the distribution of minority interest and involvement in our community is very broad. There may be some that have a larger african american population or larger hispanic population. But what's unique about Houston is

00:19:19.600 - 00:19:42.310

that all three backgrounds, including asian americans as well uh that they're pretty evenly split in our city. And that that makes the power dynamic much more responsive to people of all backgrounds and you'll see, you know, in Fort Bend County, there's a lot of people of

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different backgrounds. The county judge now uh is hindu and from India. And so it's uh just was a wonderful place that was living this experience and just needed the support of the A. D. L. To build out a program where people could make a formal commitment

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to being respectful and have opportunities and tools to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Um Okay so you also mentioned um holocaust education in high schools and just because that's um pretty akin to what I work on here right? Uh because that's the privilege of being the interviewer.

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Is that I get to ask you. So what what does that look like in high schools then? Um what is your focus is your focus on historical accuracy? Is it on respect all of them? What does it look like in Fort Bend County? Just used as

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an example. I think it was Clements High School. There was a wonderful instructor there, Michael who uh really brought about a full holocaust memorial experience where young people read about the holocaust learned about it, created artwork and symbolism and reflections on the holocaust. And we always

00:21:03.810 - 00:21:29.570

brought in an amazing holocaust survivor named walter case who survived Auschwitz and was able to get out and got um he he was one of the the victims of the holocaust that was greeted by the americans that were able to free and liberate the different concentration

00:21:29.570 - 00:21:50.380

camps. And he was so excited to be liberated after an awful experience and losing so many of his family in the holocaust the soldiers brought Hershey bars and and for you know people that had not had food or nutrition and were treated so poorly uh and

00:21:50.380 - 00:22:08.680

horrifically during the holocaust just getting that candy bar was such a sweet message for him. And so he would go from school to school talking about the holocaust and his experience. He was um emotional about it every time that he did it, he cried but he

00:22:08.680 - 00:22:28.890

always brought some candy bars to remind people that after the holocaust there can be sweetness and he did his part to remind people of that and to create a more living world, more loving and living world. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine I imagine too that um going

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school to school and reliving those memories and the retelling might be pretty draining. So I commend him for doing that work. It was he always said to me, you know I can only do this once in a while because it really he he retold the story

00:22:45.380 - 00:23:06.380

time and again of his life of losing family members of of his horrible experience in it and ultimately being saved. He thought it was his sacred responsibility to do it. But it took a toll on him every time he told the story. Yeah. Um Does the

00:23:06.380 - 00:23:25.160

A. D. L. Ever work with like holocaust museums like the holocaust museum in Houston here sure many of the past board chair, people of the anti defamation league were involved in the formation of the holocaust museum marty fine who was a chair was a founder with

00:23:25.160 - 00:23:54.020

David Bell and others. So the leadership of the Anti defamation League and the holocaust museum overlap in significant ways. Um slightly different functions, but our work was a little more social action uh political and advocacy work to keep current laws and to keep the future open

00:23:54.020 - 00:24:13.460

for all humanity. The holocaust museum was able to use the history of the holocaust also as a foundation for reminding people that we're both one of us I think called it. No place for a the other was stop hate and not be a bystander would be

00:24:13.470 - 00:24:37.640

uh you know, someone that stands with people as an ally. And so our work was often coordinated. We were able to do educational tours for no place for eight schools with a great relationship with various holocaust museum leaders over the time. Right. Right. And that's um

00:24:37.650 - 00:24:56.130

that's no no place for hate in any form, right? So I'm curious about um if you have any words on the intersection between anti Semitism and maybe anti black racism here in Houston, um or the intersection between anti Semitism and other forms of hate, um whether

00:24:56.130 - 00:25:16.770

they're related whether um people who people who are sensitive to the ills of anti Semitism are also more likely to be sensitive to other other heat and other forms. Sure, well martin Luther King Jr said that an injustice against one of us is an injustice against

00:25:16.770 - 00:25:39.500

all of us. And so we were always reminded the mission of the A. D. L. Is to seek justice and fair treatment for all people. Uh and of course to fight anti Semitism, but we realized early on that we couldn't just stand for our own people

00:25:39.500 - 00:26:05.910

that we had to stand up for everyone because as you say um Grace clearly um anti anti humanity, anti anything is often connected to anti Semitism. And so there are too many people who harbor these prejudices um against the jews. We've certainly been in leadership and

00:26:05.920 - 00:26:32.410

anti Semitism because people have always found rumors and stories that somehow have carried forward over the years untrue you know about how the jews make Matzo with blood and kill christian Children. Things like the jews killed christ all those things are are incorrect but they are

00:26:32.420 - 00:26:57.570

assumptions that are made by people who are not as well educated and choose uh to be uncomfortable in their differences from others and fight for a homogeneous society and we are a very diverse world. And so those that are Racists are never going to be able

00:26:57.570 - 00:27:15.710

to find comfort in the world that we live in now. And so the A. D. L. Played a really important role in reminding everybody um to to be able to stand up and to find allies for their communities so we can all live in some degree

00:27:15.710 - 00:27:34.910

of harmony and peace in the United States. Yeah, I also wanted to ask you as someone with, I want to say for the record 16 years of experience of the A. D. L. right. Um I wanted to ask you in your opinion. These these rumors, especially

00:27:34.910 - 00:27:50.990

in the context of anti Semitism, there's so many rumors that are centuries old that make no sense and yet they're propagated. And so I wanted to get your opinion about how do these stereotypes and rumors stay alive even when they're not reasonable. And is there anything

00:27:50.990 - 00:28:19.390

in our world in 2022? Um that makes these stereotypes or rumors or stories more um more able to to convince people? Well I think there's a several answers to your question. One is that um when things are good things are are better for people uh that

00:28:19.390 - 00:28:41.030

experience prejudice and bigotry, but when anything in the world goes bad people begin to look for scapegoats and try to find someone to blame. And too often over too many years the jews have been the scapegoat for so many different things. Um and that has built

00:28:41.040 - 00:29:05.880

on its own some sort of momentum that people that when they get to these moments, they see success among jewish people, but clearly there's success among all people. There's failure among the jewish community and failure among others. But um sometimes they believe that the media, other

00:29:05.880 - 00:29:26.930

big business is controlled by jewish people and while there are many jewish business people I assure you we don't control at all. And so it just became an easy scapegoat to come upon. The other thing is that, you know, rumors just continue. You can see even

00:29:26.930 - 00:29:45.500

in current times the big lie and some of the things that have happened in the United States over the last few years that people choose to believe these things because it fits with their um their sort of understanding of the world, uh they don't see the

00:29:45.510 - 00:30:11.490

breadth and the all the different good things that come from people that may live differently differently, Act a little differently. Um so it's easy when you're scared of differences and are unfamiliar with customs of others to just push it away and that push away often becomes

00:30:11.490 - 00:30:34.440

a nervousness and anxiety and is manifest and prejudice and bigotry. Yeah, yeah. Um I also wanted to ask you um if you had a particular perspective on the the Colleyville synagogue situation that we had a couple um a couple weeks ago um for anyone who might

00:30:34.440 - 00:30:56.880

be watching this in the future, there was a hostage hostage situation at a synagogue in texas um that luckily everyone, everyone survived. But I was wondering um as someone who works to fight anti Semitism and who who works towards interfaith relations, what is your perspective on

00:30:56.880 - 00:31:15.230

that situation and you think it could have been handled better? No, I don't think it could have been handled better and we have a lot of pride in the rabbi there that was able to um, to make the most of a horrible situation. I think we're

00:31:15.230 - 00:31:35.610

a conflict here because the jewish community wants to be welcoming some of our faith tenants or that we will welcome the stranger, that we will care for the poor and the elderly. And we can't sort of demonstrate that open heart without being open to different possibilities.

00:31:35.610 - 00:31:55.520

And I think that Rabbi charlie, who um was the rabbi of that synagogue, um, you know, he saw a person at the door, they asked for tea, they asked for help and it was his, his graciousness of wanting to share the abundance that that we have

00:31:55.530 - 00:32:17.640

with others in need. And little did he know that that person was gonna turn out to create terroristic threats and to hold them hostage. I think it's very difficult to sort through that. I've been through lots of training with the FBI with Houston Police Department to

00:32:17.640 - 00:32:34.060

watch for that to see the signals of that. But when it comes down to it, um, you have to best train for what happens when it does happen. We do our part to try to prevent it to begin with. But Rabbi charlie was able to get

00:32:34.060 - 00:32:54.850

the training that he needed in dealing with active shooters. And he followed the playbook well, and ultimately wore the shooter down to where they could uh make a run and escape that. So it's horrible. It's horrible that we have to think about those things. It's horrible

00:32:54.850 - 00:33:16.870

that temple budgets now include the hundreds of thousands of dollars for security for Shabbat police officers, for resources of putting up gates and fences and all these things that we'd very much rather um put into our, you know, Children's education and to jewish learning and not

00:33:16.870 - 00:33:34.560

into police officers protecting our our lives and our property, but that's what the world has come to at this point. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Um I went to uh I went to a Shabbat service last week in the amount of security there that was increased recently.

00:33:34.560 - 00:33:52.050

I was like God, this is where we're at now. It's it's um it's disheartening, I think, to say the least. Um but I'm grateful for your willingness to talk about it. I know it's a difficult no, it's I mean it's sad yesterday we had um a

00:33:52.590 - 00:34:13.110

uh community gathering of unity for the people of Ukraine that are being horrifically attacked by uh President Putin and Russia and by the Russian armies. And we had to think as much about the security of having the event and what we needed to do to protect

00:34:13.110 - 00:34:33.410

ourselves as much as we were able to reflect on what it was that we were hoping for and praying for and how we could could meditate and find the right support in our bodies minds and souls to help us help the Ukrainian people just sad that,

00:34:33.420 - 00:34:53.280

you know, the police are now a box that you have to check off when you do any event in the jewish community. Um alright, so to maybe move toward a more, maybe a lighter topic, um I want to make sure that I get to talking about

00:34:53.280 - 00:35:15.840

your time with interfaith ministries um as that is where you are now. Um so maybe maybe a good question to ask next is what were there any particular projects or initiatives at interfaith ministries that kind of drew you from the radio toward? I am or what

00:35:15.840 - 00:35:37.670

led you to make that switch? Well, um, I was ready for something new. I got to work under the great leadership of Abraham Fox Hman at the Anti defamation League. Uh we were getting a new uh ceo and president in Jonathan Greenblatt who is an exceptionally

00:35:37.680 - 00:35:57.440

gifted person, but it just seemed that this was the right time to make the break as the organization was going through its own leadership changes that I wanted to make that life change for myself. I've always cared about interfaith relations, My experience growing up in Pasadena

00:35:57.440 - 00:36:16.200

texas led me to, to having to deal with that and to trying to understand other faiths, to try to go to church with my friends and understand where they were coming from and how they were growing up while also bringing them to my bar mitzvah and

00:36:16.210 - 00:36:34.520

jewish things. So it was a comfortable thing for me and I talked to my first grade teacher just the other day is in her nineties now. And she reminded me that even when I was an elementary school student in the fourth grade, that she would ask

00:36:34.520 - 00:36:53.430

me to go to other teachers classrooms and to talk about Hanukkah and to bring the Menorah and you know, sort of explain the story. And so it was, I didn't really remember doing that, but she said that several times that I came back from the fourth

00:36:53.430 - 00:37:13.180

grade and told the story to first graders. So, um, that kind of concern and wanting to share and help people understand our faith led me to believe and want to understand other people's faiths and I am was the great place to do it, starting first as

00:37:13.180 - 00:37:36.090

a protestant organization, as protestant charities, then becoming Houston metropolitan ministries as it brought jews and Catholics to the protestant support group and then ultimately becoming interfaith ministries for greater Houston, where it now incorporates people of all faiths and people of no particular faith but have a

00:37:36.090 - 00:37:54.490

humanistic interest in our world. Yeah, yeah, I know that's something that I'm particularly interested in and I get to ask because I am asking the questions, um, something that I thought was interesting about, I am was that y'all do a lot of work with refugees, right?

00:37:54.490 - 00:38:10.990

And assess refugee needs and help them out, which I think is is a is an issue very close to my heart and also a very special issue that we have in texas. Um, I was wondering if you could describe some of the things that I am

00:38:11.000 - 00:38:43.180

does for refugees? How Sure, Sure, Well, I I was a young uh teenager when the soviet jury situation was changing and um Russia agreed to let jews out of the soviet union who were um you know, at best inhibited from observing their religion and you know,

00:38:43.180 - 00:39:05.980

at worst many other kinds of things. And so my family helped sponsor a Russian immigrant family to the United States that came as refugees. And the jewish family service was the wonderful matchmaker that helped, you know, jewish families from Russia connect the jewish families in Houston.

00:39:05.980 - 00:39:28.900

And to this day we are still closely associated with the family that my parents chose to adopt. And I think that it's just the wonderful spirit of jewish life is to you know, embrace the stranger, to try to give a hand to others, to try to

00:39:28.900 - 00:39:53.890

help care for elders. And so it was quite natural to come into an organization that now um was the largest senior service organization Uh in the city providing hot meals and and more to 5000 seniors in the community and for helping resettle thousands of refugees. In

00:39:53.890 - 00:40:16.440

2021 alone uh settling um about 2000 refugees. You know, each of those uh folks are part of a family and the family has to be resettled. We have to find apartments we have to provide health care, provide food allowances, so they can survive in the early

00:40:16.440 - 00:40:37.970

days before they're able to get a job, we have to find them apartments and housing and we try to find them sponsoring families or synagogues or mosques or churches that will take that on. So um interfaith ministries under my leadership became even more active in service

00:40:37.970 - 00:41:02.310

and volunteerism and civic service. And we're very grateful to the Vic Samuel's family who gave us a very important gift to not only remember Vick's legacy, but to create that legacy in service, whether it's casual volunteering, AmeriCorps National Service, corporate volunteering, um, all of those things

00:41:02.320 - 00:41:23.680

we do in vic's name to try to engage the community. We've grown um during my leadership, I have a lot of people to be grateful for, for that. An excellent board of directors and a terrific staff. But we've grown significantly and built new programs in the

00:41:23.680 - 00:41:45.180

last five years of my leadership and I'm hopeful for another good five or six years ahead. Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's that's what's really great about interfaith organizations. Is that no matter your question or muslim or another faith or no faith at all. Um, we

00:41:45.180 - 00:42:00.340

can all argue about theology and like get into the details, but at the end of the day, we all believe in helping the stranger, like helping the needy. Um, and those basics, I think are really beautiful and it's really great when, when people of different backgrounds

00:42:00.340 - 00:42:25.160

can come together. Um, I think that's, you know, I'm not a religious scholar theologian, but my interest in interfaith relations is helping bring service to people and bring people to service uh for others. And so it's wonderful in this organization that we're not, we're not debating

00:42:25.160 - 00:42:47.500

theology. We are trying to understand people's customs and beliefs. We're trying to share that with others. We have a welcome to our house tour where we visit houses of Worship either in video or with real people. And we get to expose people to the other worship

00:42:47.510 - 00:43:06.100

and belief experiences of others. But in the end, we all kind of find the strength of shared beliefs in the service that we want to do for others. Uh, and this organization provides lots of opportunities, whether it's refugees, whether it's working with the elders, whether it's

00:43:06.100 - 00:43:24.960

working with animals and the pets of elders, or whether it's working for volunteers that want to commit their time to do something more for the City of Houston. And that's very fulfilling for me. Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering if you could say a few words also

00:43:24.960 - 00:43:45.900

about, and this is an eternal problem with many organizations. And so it's I understand it's complex, but I wanted to to get a sense of whether I am um deals with people um like the A. D. L if they deal with people who are not predisposed

00:43:45.900 - 00:44:04.200

to believe in um the equality of religions and the sacredness of all human beings. Um Whether you encounter difficult people who are um who are opposed to the i to I am beliefs and how, I mean you can't you can't force them, right? So how do

00:44:04.200 - 00:44:26.730

you persuade them um through kindness? How can you maybe change their mind? Well, our building has a illuminated banner across the whole front side of it that has respect in 13 different languages. And so we really try to promote that. We really try to promote that

00:44:26.740 - 00:44:49.660

understanding and learning about others is the best way to build respect for them. And so we do things like the House of Worship tours to show people different customs and rituals. We have healthy debates in dinner dialogues and other kinds of dialogues between people of different

00:44:49.660 - 00:45:11.320

faiths. We have lectures where one or more religious leaders will talk about the issue of current interest through the lens of their own faiths. So it's all about trying to build understanding. Um We um you know, it's really A. D. L. That focuses on that every

00:45:11.320 - 00:45:34.910

day and they do this work in the schools and they do work with law enforcement where they're training police and FBI and other folks about people of different faiths and trying to make sure that everyone understands differences in faith and why, you know, if uh you

00:45:34.910 - 00:45:55.350

know, policeman offers somebody a ride on Shabbos and they don't take it, you know, what is that message? And you know, they're in our Orthodox jewish community in Houston. I think it's was really interesting early on that the police department didn't understand some of our customs

00:45:55.350 - 00:46:16.990

and rituals and found it difficult to do community policing in a neighborhood where they didn't understand those traditions. And so a big part of my work and the work of my working partner, Jodie Bernstein has been really trying to help law enforcement understand those differences and

00:46:16.990 - 00:46:42.630

not make assumptions based on mainstream Christianity that everyone is, you know, in the same system of beliefs. Right. Right. Right. Okay. Okay. Um are there any, are there any specific, like how do you have a favorite project that you've worked on? And I am a favorite

00:46:42.640 - 00:47:04.270

um a favorite contact you have at a synagogue or a church or a mosque? Um I want to talk about the favorites. I see. Well, uh some of my favorite projects over the years, certainly no place for hate was a fundamental transformational activity for for school

00:47:04.270 - 00:47:25.910

school students. And uh people acknowledging that they were going to be aware of their own biases that they would go to workshops and programs to learn about that to read about it and to try to be um just a more thoughtful, careful person to others because

00:47:25.910 - 00:47:46.700

of that understanding. I think that I am really what we're doing now in the area of civic service and trying to show people that one of the best ways to break down the barriers of different faiths even of socioeconomic divisions of racial divisions is to stand

00:47:46.710 - 00:48:05.920

side by side with folks that um share a willingness to help someone else and find that when we do that together, we have our best chance at building the kind of respect that all of us want. I'm fortunate um as a former staff member of the

00:48:05.920 - 00:48:27.650

A. D. L. Too have been very active in the jewish community and to get to me almost all the rabbis in our community, although new ones come often. But um I, while I grew up at congregation Emanuel uh and had wonderful years there. Um and now

00:48:27.650 - 00:48:50.080

I'm a part of Chamakh as well as congregation Emmanuel, I find that my rapport with all the rabbis in town gives me great comfort, allows me to walk into any synagogue and and feel good and welcomed um even to do so in christian and muslim and

00:48:50.090 - 00:49:14.430

buddhist and sick and uh all kinds of communities that I have this wonderful opportunity to know people in all those faiths and to feel at least comfortable walking in and participating and supporting the diversity of faiths in our community. Absolutely, yeah. Okay, so for the last

00:49:14.430 - 00:49:33.590

couple of minutes, um I save, I think my favorite question for last um so we we here in Houston, we have a diverse community. Um I love Houston, but we've got a lot of issues too. And so I was wondering if you were able to tell

00:49:33.590 - 00:49:58.400

the whole community of Houston what we can do to create a more ethical, inclusive pro diversity society here in Houston, what would be your advice on how to do that? Well, I think Houston has the most diverse city, has learned a set of skills for people

00:49:58.400 - 00:50:25.180

to thrive in this community. Um, there's still too much difference between socioeconomic groups. Uh, and in some places, as has often said that, you know, the weekends are the most divided days of our society because the muslim the christian, the jewish the different traditions celebrate differently

00:50:25.180 - 00:50:45.890

and sort of congregate together whether in person or now by zoom. Uh, and so uh there's just always that sense of if we could bring more understanding immunity when we're together in prayer and meditation worship that we could make the difference. And one of the projects

00:50:45.890 - 00:51:06.860

the ideal used to do were public exchanges, um where christian minister might go to a jewish synagogue or a muslim imam would come to a christian church or something and um just you know, give a chance to give a message to the congregation of learning of

00:51:06.860 - 00:51:28.340

teaching and of respect and those are always wonderful things. So I think we just have to keep working at it, having thoughtful progressive mayors that have encouraged that has helped us a lot, whether it's having african american mayors or having um gay and lesbian mayors, uh,

00:51:28.350 - 00:51:47.930

they have provided openings for understanding people of all backgrounds and have reminded our community that we can all live together, that we can all lead together and ultimately will make Houston a much better place when we do that. All right, well thank you so much for

00:51:47.930 - 00:52:08.860

your time, um, and thank you for thank you for speaking with me today. Great, great, well, pleasure to speak with you and I have had a wonderful past in the jewish community and I look forward to continuing to try to pay it forward to work and

00:52:08.860 - 00:52:13.200

help our community and others be a great place to live. Thanks