Persona: Community Members

By Rich Tenorio

After 12 years running Harvard University Hillel, Rabbi Jonah Steinberg has exchanged Cambridge for Boston, where he is now the New England regional director for the Anti-Defamation League.

Asked about his priorities in the new position, Steinberg said, “I’m really encouraged to see young people connecting with the more than century-long work of the ADL and continuing to do that in such constructive, uplifting ways.” And, he said, “Building partnerships, allyships with organizations in our Jewish community and between organizations in our Jewish community and neighbors in New England are priorities. It’s important to make connections in this quiet time.”

Steinberg knows that things have often been anything but quiet lately.

He cited the ADL’s “Hate in the Bay State” report, which tracked a 41% rise in antisemitic incidents in Massachusetts between 2021 and 2022, from 108 such incidents to 152. The latter number was sixth nationwide. He noted a June 16, 2023, incident in which the sole synagogue in Taunton—Congregation Agudath Achim, a progressive congregation that displays a Pride flag on its building—was defaced with a swastika and antisemitic, anti-Black and anti-LGBTQIA+ graffiti.

“It underscores how vital the work of the ADL is, how timely, how necessary,” Steinberg said. “Of course, I am concerned. All are concerned about the rise of antisemitism and other forms of hate that we see.”

Steinberg joined ADL New England shortly after the launch of CJP’s “Face Jewish Hate” initiative at TD Garden on May 15, 2023. He is ready to assist in the fight against antisemitism in the Boston area and nationwide, including through two initiatives announced in the first half of 2023: CJP’s 5-point plan and the White House national strategy.

Asked about identifying perpetrators of hate crimes and bringing them to justice, Steinberg noted the work of the ADL Center on Extremism, headquartered in New York.

“In some instances, we can be quite specific on who is behind an incident,” he said, adding that some perpetrators are “proud to leave a signature; in other instances, we can’t be sure unless and until law enforcement concludes an investigation and comes to a clear identification as to a perpetrator. But, in all instances, these actors, whether targeting people directly—most concerning of all—or targeting places in which people gather, are not only targeting the individuals themselves or those particular spaces, but our entire community.”

Steinberg comes to the ADL from a diverse background. His appointment is groundbreaking, as he is the first rabbi in his position. (He noted that he is not the first rabbi to join the ADL, mentioning fellow spiritual leader Ron Fish.) Like his predecessor as New England division head, Robert Trestan, Steinberg was born in Canada. As a teenager, Steinberg also lived in Vienna, where his father headed the regional office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee during the Cold War.

“Of course, in those years, that was as far east as you could get and still be in a Western capital,” Steinberg recalled. “It was the center of operations for what was then Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, a transit point for Soviet Jews, Iranian Jews, Persian Jews out of those countries.”

He said that in those days, Austria contained “a deeply antisemitic culture, a culture where antisemitism was deeply enmeshed,” to the point where its schoolchildren used the term “full Jew” as “an insult to one another, not so much me, my sister or members of my family. I heard it as an insult among Austrians. They never did the collective national soul-searching.”

Steinberg went on to become a rabbi, as well as a faculty member at multiple universities. He eventually headed Harvard Hillel for more than a decade—an experience that’s given him valuable perspective in his new job for dealing with antisemitism and anti-Zionism on campus.

“I would say, after 12 years on campus, I could see a unique focus on Israel,” he said. “It is really unlike the treatment of any other national, ethnic or religious community on college campuses. I think that former Harvard president Larry Summers was very right in calling it antisemitism in effect, if not in intent.”

In his new position, Steinberg said, “it’s important to us to work with deans and [diversity, equity and inclusion] offices to make sure we tackle antisemitism … along with tackling other forms of hate that manifest on campus.”

Steinberg is now ready to apply his lessons from Harvard to his new work in Boston and New England.

“I had one dozen wonderful years with the university community,” Steinberg said of his time in Cambridge, “and I hope now to be working with our entire community. I’m not leaving college behind or the university behind in the work of the ADL. This was the right call at the right time.”

Rich Tenorio covers antisemitism news for JewishBoston.com. His work has appeared in international, national, regional and local media outlets. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a cartoonist. Email him at richt@cjp.org.

Stay informed with our antisemitism newsletter

By Rich Tenorio 

As both the White House and Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston (CJP) have unveiled separate initiatives to combat antisemitism in 2023, local community leaders see common ground between the plans. 

“I do think there’s a great deal of intersection,” said Jeremy Burton, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. 

The White House released the first-of-its-kind National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism on May 25, 2023. Ten days earlier, CJP launched the “Face Jewish Hate” campaign in the Greater Boston area, which is part of the federation’s “5-Point Plan for Fighting Antisemitism.”

Both plans were unveiled in an atmosphere of rising hate nationwide and in Massachusetts. The White House plan referenced data from the FBI: While Jews number less than 3% of the national population, they were targeted in over 60% of documented hate crimes with a religious motivation. Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) tracked nearly 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the U.S. last year, an all-time high in the organization’s 43 years of collecting such data. Within Massachusetts, there were 152 such incidents in 2022, the sixth-highest total among the 50 states. The ADL also reported in January 2023 that almost 30% of Americans espoused six or more long-time antisemitic tropes. 

“As we see, antisemitism and hate in general are surging in the country and region,” said Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, the ADL’s New England region director. “It’s really a threat to democracy itself. While expressing gratitude toward the Biden-Harris administration and while we’re really glad about the White House strategy, it’s not about politics, but principle. The strategy is welcome—speaking up and calling out antisemitism now, and doing it under the highest leadership of the land.” 

Steinberg added: “Now, [the national strategy] calls for implementation. The work has only just begun. The work of CJP and the ADL has been going on for a long time.” 

Within the White House and CJP plans, two areas of convergence mentioned by multiple leaders in separate conversations were the issues of allyship and security.  

Cindy Rowe, executive director of the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action (JALSA), said, “The call for allyship in both of the documents speaks very strongly to JALSA’s work, JALSA’s focus, as we move forward.” 

“I think the Biden administration, like many of us around the country, is really seeing a very threatening rise in white supremacy, people trying to divide our country, trying to manufacture an atmosphere of division and hatred,” Rowe said. “We who are impacted by antisemitism have to realize how connected it is to other hatreds being manufactured and create a coalition [and] make connections between what is going on so we can fight back together.” 

Other Boston-area leaders agreed. 

“CJP’s 5-Point Plan has an explicit section on community relations with allies,” Burton said. “An entire pillar is focused on the word ‘allyship’ in combating hate. That’s exactly right, as it should be.” 

Another such pillar of the CJP plan, he noted, is safety and security, which also dovetails with the national strategy. 

“In the security space, we continue to see the [Biden] administration has been committed to funding nonprofits at the federal level,” Burton said, adding that the national strategy urges state and local governments to tackle hate crimes through multiple means, including restorative justice, mental health services and victim support. 

“The need for security, so important in the CJP plan, is affirmed here by the [federal] government plan on pouring more money into efforts that complement CJP efforts,” said Robert Leikind, director of AJC New England. Leikind also saw convergence in “the idea that we need to educate about antisemitism—more specifically, concerns Jews have, including about anti-Zionism.” 

In discussing both plans, Jewish community leaders identified a further commonality—the need for continued work to combat antisemitism. 

“I think these plans are not ends of themselves, but the beginnings of a long journey,” Leikind said. “I think the timing of the CJP plan and the timing of the White House plan is incredibly fortunate. We have to sit down and do the hard work.” 

“I think it’s an important moment in the history of the Jewish community of the country,” Burton said. “We need to use it.” 

Rich Tenorio covers antisemitism news for JewishBoston.com. His work has appeared in international, national, regional and local media outlets. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a cartoonist. Email him at rich@jewishboston.com. 

By Rich Tenorio

When academic and author Walter Russell Mead gave lectures as a guest speaker for the State Department to audiences around the world, he was surprised by recurring misperceptions about American Jews, the U.S. government and Israel. 

“People were constantly arguing that somehow American policy toward Israel was radically different than policies toward other countries and the only possible explanation was that the American Jewish community—maybe with some help from the evangelical Christians—was influencing the American policy discussion,” Mead said. “It just did not make sense to me, I have to say.” 

Mead has written a new book in response—“The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.” At over 600 pages, the book is a comprehensive examination of American policy toward Israel and Zionism, as well as a rebuttal of antisemitic beliefs about the perceived influence of the American Jewish community. 

A professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Mead wrote the book over the course of a decade, changing focus midway through the project. 

Along the way, he helped shatter some myths. Politically, Israel and America have not always been closely aligned, and when they have drawn closer, it was often through presidents who were unpopular among American Jews, such as the trio of Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Donald Trump, who acted more out of what they saw as the national interest and less about how they perceived American Jews would respond. When the American Jewish community did call upon the government to intervene on behalf of coreligionists abroad, they got nowhere—most infamously during the Holocaust. Conversely, some of Israel’s most important supporters throughout history were neither Jewish nor evangelical. In the 1940s, Israel got crucial backing from pro-U.N. progressives such as Eleanor Roosevelt, while today, Republicans who embrace the philosophy of Andrew Jackson represent an equally important constituency. 

“Over 50% of Americans are supportive of Israel,” Mead said, noting that this far exceeds the number of evangelicals and Jews in the country, while the idea that “one or both of these groups is driving the whole train struck me as just very improbable.” 

One creative motif that characterizes the book is the author’s references to Planet Vulcan—not Mr. Spock’s birthplace, but rather a purported scientific discovery from the 19th century. The French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier claimed he had found a new planet around Mercury. This “discovery” was accepted by many before it was disproved by Albert Einstein several decades later. Le Verrier’s belief in a planet that didn’t actually exist, the author posits, is similar to the way people across the world view U.S. policy on Israel. 

“I had talks with cabinet ministers and policymakers in countries around the world,” Mead reflected. “I heard them coming up with conspiracy theories that were almost something you’d expect from ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ This was not simply popular prejudice rooted in ignorance. These were actually intelligent, well-informed people, generally speaking, who just could not see something clearly.” 

Noting that even Thomas Edison claimed he could see Planet Vulcan, Mead said, “People following logic and reason, as they understood it, were seeing something that wasn’t there, for 30 years. I think it’s a useful analogy for people coming to the conclusion that Jews are responsible for America’s Israel policy.” 

To help readers understand the real sources of U.S. support for Israel, the author explores the history of American attitudes toward Jews and Israel, which he describes as overall friendlier than in Europe and warmly disposed toward a particular Protestant reading of the Bible. 

“American Protestants have been teaching since before the American Revolution, going back to the 1600s in New England,” he said, “about the ritual prophecies in Isaiah and other places [in the Bible] as well, about the return of the Jews to the land of the Bible.” 

According to Mead, starting early on in American history, “we see the idea of supporting a restoration of the Jews to their historic homeland.” 

The nation’s second president, John Adams of Massachusetts, once wrote to a Jewish friend, “I hope someday to see you at the head of an army returning to the land of your faith.” America’s 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, traveled to Ottoman Palestine as a young boy with his parents. In 1917, following his two terms as chief executive, he embraced the Balfour Declaration, Great Britain’s statement of support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. 

Mead acknowledged that America has hardly been free of antisemitism during its history, and that in addition to philo-semitism and geopolitics, American Zionists have also included antisemites who wanted to get Jews out of the U.S. 

He added, “A critical mass of non-Jewish support was available for the Zionist project. It was not available for other things Jews wanted to do.” 

Poignantly, he said, “If you look at the record of Jewish lobbying in America in the 1930s, what the Jews wanted was two things: Tell Hitler and other countries in Europe to stop persecuting Jews, and allow greater numbers of Jews to come to America from where they were being persecuted. They got nowhere; they got nothing.” He further noted that following World War II and President Harry S. Truman’s recognition of Israel in 1948, “Immediately afterward, Dwight Eisenhower came to power. Eisenhower actually sided with Egypt against Israel at the time of the Suez Crisis. 

“The idea that somehow Jews are in control, Jews are telling everybody what to do, explains our Israel policy, to me it’s a crazy idea with no serious foundation in history or logic,” Mead said. 

Rich Tenorio covers antisemitism news for JewishBoston.com. His work has appeared in international, national, regional and local media outlets. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a cartoonist. Email him at rich@jewishboston.com. 

By Rich Tenorio

At a hotel in the White Mountains, a man arrives to check in for his honeymoon stay. When he identifies as Jewish and asks if there is a policy against Jewish guests, he is told there is suddenly no vacancy, recommended to go to another hotel and ushered out the door. This is a scene from “Gentleman’s Agreement,” a 1947 Gregory Peck feature film about antisemitism that marks its 75th anniversary this year. It’s also one of 10 films spotlighted by experts as among the most significant to address antisemitism. Here’s the list—watch one, or more!

“Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947)

This film won the Academy Award for best picture. Peck stars as Schuyler Green, a journalist whose first assignment for a magazine is to write an exposé on antisemitism. Green, who is Christian, makes a daring decision: He will assume the identity of a Jew. Peck’s character makes a series of shattering discoveries about antisemitism in America—including “gentleman’s agreements” prohibiting Jews at hotels.

“[The film] reinforces the idea that antisemitism is un-American—good Americans, real Americans, nice people are not meant to have that sort of [antisemitic] viewpoint,” said Samantha Pickette, assistant director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, who received her Ph.D. from Boston University. 

Overall, “‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ really reflects this moment in American culture in the immediate post-war years,” she said. “This kind of reckoning with the fact that antisemitism had been and was still rampant within the U.S. There was a cognitive dissonance around the fact that the antisemitism that existed in American society was essentially the same kind of antisemitism at the root of what had just happened in Nazi Germany. It was difficult for post-war Americans to accept that they could be anything like Nazis.” 

“Crossfire” (1947)

Centering on a murder case with antisemitism as a motive, this film features Robert Young and Robert Mitchum. Like “Gentleman’s Agreement,” “Crossfire” marks its 75th anniversary this year. Pickette describes both as “probably the most well-known” films about antisemitism. 

“When you look back at films that have come out either addressing antisemitism or at least including scenes related to antisemitism, they should be included,” she said. 

“School Ties” (1992)

Set in a fictitious, upper-crust New England prep school during the 1950s, this film stars Brendan Fraser as David, a working-class Jewish student-athlete who conceals his faith. He excels on the football team and dates a debutante, but things worsen dramatically after his identity is revealed. 

Noted Pickette: “There’s a bit of a triumph in encouraging audiences to put themselves in the shoes of somebody who’s Jewish and experiencing these things. It sort of encourages audiences to be a little bit more empathic.” 

The actors portraying David’s tormentors include two men from Cambridge who went on to Hollywood stardom—Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. CJP president Rabbi Marc Baker had a bit role, and last year appeared on a panel when the Boston Jewish Film Festival screened it. Joey Katz, director of special programming for Boston Jewish Film, said they discussed how the film, specifically antisemitism in schools, is still relevant today. 

“Denial” (2016)

Rachel Weisz stars as Deborah Lipstadt, current U.S. special envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism. The film centers on an earlier moment from Lipstadt’s career—the 1996 trial that ensued when Holocaust denier David Irving sued her for libel in the U.K. 

John Michalczyk, director of the film studies program at Boston College and a documentarian with extensive experience in making films about the Holocaust, described “Denial” as “a very popular film, very well-acted.” 

“Mr. Skeffington” (1944) 

Leslie Epstein, former head of the creative writing program at Boston University, has a family connection to this film: Its co-writers and co-producers were Philip and Julius Epstein—his father and uncle, respectively. (Bostonians celebrate another member of the family—her son Theo, who in 2004 was the general manager of the Red Sox when they won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.) 

Back in 1942, Philip and Julius Epstein won the Academy Award for best screenplay for “Casablanca.” Two years later, they courageously made a film that addressed antisemitism, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. According to Leslie Epstein, his father and uncle not only tackled the issue at a time when Hollywood was reluctant to do so, they actually used the word “Jewish” in the film—a rarity during those years. “There was tremendous cowardice in the American and Jewish film community shown all through World War II, before and after—‘Don’t make waves, don’t make it a Jewish war.’”  

Asked how his father and uncle were able to defy this, he replied: “They were able to do ‘Mr. Skeffington’ because they were the producers. They were not just schmucks with typewriters, and because they were the producers, they had some leeway.” 

“Jojo Rabbit” (2019)

Taika Waititi not only directed this film, he won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay and appeared as Adolf Hitler. Waititi’s Hitler is the imaginary friend of a young boy named Jojo growing up in Nazi Germany. Initially a proud member of the Hitler Youth, Jojo becomes more sensitive to the plight of the Jews—first through his mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), and then from Elsa, the Jewish girl Rosie hides in their home. 

At Boston College, Michalczyk includes “Jojo Rabbit” in a course he teaches on film and art in the Third Reich.  

“Chariots of Fire” (1981)

Known for its stirring instrumental theme, this British film won the Oscar for best picture, best screenplay, best costume design and best original score. It dramatizes the real-life friendship between two U.K. track and field stars—Harold Abrahams, a Jew, and Eric Liddell, a Protestant missionary—and their memorable performances in the 1924 Summer Olympics. Played by Ben Cross, Abrahams is a student at Cambridge University, where his faith is the subject of some questionable comments from administrators. Overall, Michalczyk finds the film both powerful and positive. 

“Isaac” (2019)

This Lithuanian film addresses the massacres of Jews in World War II in what was then a Soviet socialist republic—and to what extent the local population was involved. Katz, of Boston Jewish Film, said “Isaac” has “kind of a different angle on antisemitism.” 

“Basically, it’s about this person who took part in a pogrom in Lithuania in the early 1940s, and then it’s kind of him coming to terms with what he’s done. He becomes a film director in the Soviet Union and guilt starts to take over. He incorporates it into his films and he writes his films about it.”  

“Witness Theater” (2018)

This documentary by Oren Rudavsky takes its name from a program in which Holocaust survivors create dramatic productions about their lives, in partnership with high school students. 

“I think it’s a fantastic documentary,” Katz said, noting that the survivors are “telling the stories of antisemitism, their experiences [and] making those connections to students, informing them.” 

“American History X” (1998)

Edward Norton and Edward Furlong take top billing as a pair of neo-Nazi, white-supremacist skinhead brothers from Los Angeles. 

“It’s a very disturbing film,” Pickette said. “Also, it’s an important film to watch. It really makes you uncomfortable. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable. It confronts the fact that this kind of bigotry exists in our society. It’s the same thing in today’s day and age, when antisemitism is on the rise with all sorts of different kinds of bigotry and racism.”  

Other films about antisemitism to add to your watch list:

• “The City Without Jews” (1924) 
• “The Jazz Singer” (1927) 
• “Abie’s Irish Rose” (1928) 
• “The Rules of the Game” (1939)
• “The Stranger” (1946) 
• “Rope” (1948) 
• “Jules and Jim” (1962) 
• “The Pawnbroker” (1964) 
• “Betrayed” (1988)
• “Music Box” (1989) 
• “Driving Miss Daisy” (1989) 
• “The Believer” (2001) 
• “Amen” (2002) 
• “Constantine’s Sword” (2007)
• “BlacKkKlansman” (2018) 
• “Masel Tov Cocktail” (short film, 2020)

Rich Tenorio covers antisemitism news for JewishBoston.com. His work has appeared in international, national, regional and local media outlets. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a cartoonist. Email him at rich@jewishboston.com.