Touro Talks: Christian Support for Israel

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[TEXT] TOURO TALKS TOURO UNIVERSITY, Christian Support for Israel, Touro Talks is sponsored by Robert and Arlene Rosenberg

[DESCRIPTION] Dr. Alan Kadish speaks to the camera with a plain background. Touro University logo is at the bottom right.

[TEXT] Dr. Alan Kadish, President, Touro University

[ALAN KADISH] Welcome. I'm Dr. Alan Kadish, the President of Touro University. Welcome to Touro Talks. We have two outstanding individuals with us today.

[DESCRIPTION] Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstei and Bishop Plummer join. Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstei has a blurred background, while Bishop Plummer has a library background. The three video displays appear in a grid-like formation.

[ALAN KADISH] Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein and Bishop Plummer. I'll begin by introducing the two of them.

Bishop Glenn R. Plummer is the first bishop of Israel in the 2,000 year history of the Christian church for any denomination. In this position, he officially represents 6.5 million members of the Church of God in Christ and resides in Jerusalem with his wife, Dr. Ruth Pauline Plummer.

Before becoming the bishop, he was a pastor for 20 years, pastoring two megachurches in Metropolitan Detroit. Bishop Plummer has been in the television broadcasting industry for 44 years and has been integral to the success and furtherance of Christian television in America. He is a former Chairman and CEO of the National Religious Broadcasters, the leading association of Christian commentators in the world. He holds a Doctor of Divinity from the Destiny Christian University in Winter Haven, Florida, and was also awarded an honorary PhD in Religious Leadership from ULS at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome, Bishop Plummer.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] Well, thank you so much and good to be with you, Dr. Kadish, and to be with my friend, Rabbi Adlerstein.

[ALAN KADISH] So Rabbi Adlerstein is an Orthodox rabbi who serves as Director Interfaith Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Adlerstein studied and received his advanced rabbinical ordination from Yeshivas Chofetz Chaim in New York. He is the co-founder of Cross-Currents, an online journal of Orthodox Jewish thought, and regularly contributes to that site. Rabbi Adlerstein also serves on the editorial board of Klal Perspectives, an online journal of issues facing the Orthodox community. He taught at Loyola Law School for many years before moving to Israel. Welcome, Rabbi Adlerstein.

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] Thank you. It's great to be with you.

[ALAN KADISH] So I'll first start--

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] And my friend Bishop Plummer again.

[ALAN KADISH] Excellent. It's good to see the two of you are friends. We'll explore that in just a bit. But I wanted to start with some basic questions for Bishop Plummer about some things that our audience may not be that familiar with. So we've heard a lot about evangelical Christians, their support for Israel, their role in American elections. Tell us exactly what evangelical Christianity is, and how it relates to other streams of Christianity, and what all that means.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] So let me paint the backdrop of Christianity in general, and then hone in on evangelicals.

[TEXT] Bishop Glenn R. Plummer, Bishop of Israel

[BISHOP PLUMMER] So, of course, this goes back to 2,000 years ago. And so the Orthodox Church makes a claim that they are 1,70-years-old. The Catholic, or the Roman Catholic Church, is about 1,000-years-old. So out of the Orthodox Church comes the Catholic Church, some hundreds of odd years later. 500 years after that was a break away from the Catholic Church, Catholicism, to what we refer to as Protestantism.

So the Protestant Church, separate from the Catholic Church, is about a little more than 500-years-old. And from the Protestant Church, there are several different breakaway denominations. And I think in more recent times, past couple of hundred years or so, evangelical, so-called evangelical Christianity, separates itself from Catholicism and even from traditional Protestant Churches, like the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church.

And so evangelical is primarily focuses-- so before I give you the true definition of an evangelical, let me say that that's been redefined in recent years in a more political term. And so many people, when they think of evangelical, they're thinking of, first of all, American, white, Republican, conservative. And so that is really not evangelical.

Evangelical is a religious phrase. And I think it boils down to say, three or four, maybe even five fundamental beliefs that evangelicals believe. First of all, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and is the Messiah of Israel. Number two, that the 66 books of the Bible are the inspired word of the Lord, as opposed to the Catholics who have 70 books, or the Hebrew Bible, who has a different number.

And so, Jesus Christ, we believe he's our Lord. And the 66 books of the Bible. And that one needs to be Born Again. That's probably one of the key points is that we think that people who are Born Again are evangelicals, all right. And then the word evangelical is rooted in evangel, or Evangel, which basically means that we go out to the world and proclaim to the world that Jesus Christ is Lord.

So I think that's I think all evangelicals would agree. Yeah, that we all agree on that. But the political piece, which has been kind of redefined, is what many people think of evangelical, especially in Israel, is these evangelicals are these conservative Republican white American Christians. And I would add that the largest, for many years, Evangelical Church was in South Korea, not American, not white.

And then after that, the next largest evangelical, I'm talking about one congregation, there was about a million people in South Korea, and then there was even a bigger one in Nigeria and in Ghana. So the three largest evangelical churches are not white, they're not American, they're not Republican, et cetera, et cetera. So evangelical kind of ties in many people in South America, in Asia, in Africa. and there's, we estimate, about 600 million evangelical Christians around the world.

[ALAN KADISH] And you mentioned Born Again. Can you explain what that means?

[BISHOP PLUMMER] That a person comes into a personal relationship with Christ and they have an experience where something happens inside of us when we come to faith in Jesus Christ. And we refer to that as the Born Again experience. It became popular with Jimmy Carter, the president, who I think it was in a Playboy magazine article, and he talked about being Born Again. And that's kind of where the phrase caught on. But that's the fundamental basis of evangelical Christianity, is that we're Born Again.

[ALAN KADISH] And one last question before we go to Rabbi Adlerstein and some other topics. Tell us a little bit about your branch of Christianity, which has 6.5 million members.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] Yeah, and so we would be classified, of course, in the evangelical camp also. The difference is that, so our church is 117-years-old. And so the founding minister, or bishop, was born during slavery. And so in America, at the turn of the century, 1900s, the church was founded in 1907, maybe even so there's a 10 year debate, 1897 and 1907, but regardless. And so this is predominantly an African-American denomination.

Now, interestingly, when this first started in 1907, it was the first time that Blacks and whites were together in this Born Again experience. And at that time, it was not just Born Again, but it was a Pentecostal experience. And seven years later, the white brethren, because of racial pressure on them, broke away.

All the doctrine, all the points are all the same, but they got the blessing of Bishop, the founding bishop of our church, Charles Harrison Mason, and they started what's now called the Assemblies of God, which is the largest white Pentecostal denomination. And so they came out of us. And so they're not officially part of us, but we're basically similar. One's white and one's Black, unfortunately.

[ALAN KADISH] Got it. So, Rabbi Adlerstein, we've heard a lot about evangelical Christians here. You've developed an unusual relationship with Bishop Plummer, both men of faith, but different faiths. Tell us a little bit about how that happened and what your interactions have been.

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] Well, it's actually not so unusual.

[TEXT] Rabbi Yitzchock Adlerstein, Director of Interfaith Affairs, The Simon Wiesenthal Center

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] Jews and Christians have been speaking to each other for quite a while. In my capacity as Director of Interfaith Affairs for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the large human rights and Jewish advocacy group, global group, I wound up learning a whole bunch of Christian languages. I learned how to speak Episcopalian. I could speak a fair amount of Methodist, a little bit of Lutheran.

But after a while, it became clear that the real friends of the Jewish people and of Israel were among Bible believing conservative Christians. The Bible makes a big difference. The commitment to the Bible as the word of God makes it not only easier, but even commands in the sense intellectually that Christians should ally themselves with the Jewish people and with the state of Israel.

And in the particular case of Bishop Plummer, we had a very interesting beginning of our relationship. It was the best of times and the worst of times. In the middle of COVID, Bishop Plummer moved to Israel, accepting the appointment as Bishop of Israel, and that took some doing because the country was closed, and it took special permission. And Bishop Plummer did his homework and wanted commitments from the Israeli government about the way he'd be treated.

And he got here and it wasn't all peaches and cream. While there were some people who certainly reached out and instantly became his friends, including people in Knesset, people in high places, there were others who made life miserable for him. Instantly you had people saying, he's here to convert the Ethiopians.

He must be a missionary. Why else would Christians want to come here? And why is the government letting Christians in the middle of COVID? Don't they have anything better to do?

And he actually reached out to me, I think it was at the behest of Gordon Robertson, certainly a household name to anybody who knows Jewish-Christian relations. And he called me one day and emoted on the phone about what he was going through. And I tried to be as helpful as I could, and actually did have some success with some people in the government and tried to convince the bishop that staying here, rather than fleeing the death threats and the like that he was subjected to by zealots on the wrong side, that there was much to be accomplished.

And indeed, what we found is we started meeting each other. He came for Shabbat dinner. I introduced him to-- I told him that I could get him to speak to young Americans who had never spoken to a Black person in their life, meaning some Haredi grandchildren, and their friends of mine. They came over for a dinner and it was just so delightful. He peppered them with questions about their lifestyle, and they were just as inquisitive about what he was doing here and what he stood for.

It was a great opportunity for them to learn that there has been a change in some parts of Christianity from the totally adversarial stance that we lived through for 2,000 years. And he's taught me a lot. I am a Litvak, which I guess translates into English as a contrarian. I don't like people who agree with me. I much prefer people who give me a hard time.

And the Bishop gave me a hard time. And I think I've given him a hard time, too. But we learn things about each other. I've learned things about the Black experience in America that I had no idea of before, and have become a proponent because of his influence.

[ALAN KADISH] So Bishop, Rabbi Adlerstein said a bunch of things that I wanted to follow up with you about. But the first, I guess, would be, as he mentioned, that Christians and Jews have been talking to each other for a long time, acknowledged later on in the conversation that those talks haven't always been friendly. So, I think many of us are familiar with the history of anti-Semitism and persecution in the Catholic Church. But I think it's fair to say that certain Protestant denominations also evinced some anti-Semitism, even at their origin.

So, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, there was sort of a seminal event. How successful that's been in the long run is complicated. But there was sort of a seminal event when the Catholic Church in the '60s officially changed its position on Jews. How has that evolved in Protestants in general, in the evangelical movement, and in your denomination? Has it been a gradual evolution? Was there a sudden change? Give us some perspective in history about that.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] Yeah, so, if I can just borrow something that Rabbi Adlerstein said. He said, he learned how to speak, what did you say? You learned how to speak Episcopal, and he learned how to speak Methodist, and he learned how to speak evangelical, or whatever. And so in answering your question, Dr. Kadish, I've learned how to speak Orthodox Judaism in Israel, which is different than Orthodox Judaism in America.

I've learned how to speak Reform, which is hardly not even recognized in Israel and conservatism, and secular Judaism in Israel, which is also very different. And so I understand this left and right, and all this is going on in between. And so it's important for Jews who are watching us to understand that you guys also have languages. You guys also have very acute differences among yourselves.

And so when you look at us and you're wondering about all these things, I'm one of those guys that's going to remind you, now wait a minute. OK, you guys can't be the one asking us this question because you got some of the same challenges. Now, let me get to your question. So, we, meaning both my church, but Black America, so there's about 47 million Black Americans. And all of us didn't come out of slavery in our history.

Example, Barack Obama. Most recently, Kamala Harris. Their history wasn't-- their family wasn't Black American slaves. But most of us, we come out of slavery. And so from that point, the primary motivation for us, or hope for us, was the stories that they were told about or read about in the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Old Testament, and how that they were slaves. And so as they heard about this, they developed these songs, going over the Jordan River, and they didn't know where the Jordan River was, but it was all in their head, the Promised Land.

They had songs about going to the Promised Land, getting out of slavery. And so, our language as a people group is so connected to the Jewish story. And it's the Jewish biblical story, not just the more contemporary times of-- because, of course, the Holocaust came years after slavery in America. So our inspiration was from the scripture and your story.

And so our experience and our love for Israel and Judaism is very different than white American churches and white folk. And so that's important for you to understand, is that we felt, not just a camaraderie, but I mean, a heart. We were both slaves. And yours was a long time ago, ours was not too long ago.

But there's a heart. There is a heart connection with our folk. And so we've had some hiccups along the way. You're there in New York. And so you know back during the Crown Heights situation and whatnot, I think that was blown up more, too, in Jewish minds to think, well, Black folks in America. No, it's not. That was a handful of people there. And it wasn't the Black church, by the way.

And the Black church makes up probably 30 million Black Americans here. And so the Black church has always had a love for the Israeli narrative, the story. And then even during our more recent civil rights times, it was not Christian, it was not evangelicals who stood with us, by the way, they had us arrested, white evangelicals in America. It was the Jewish community, predominantly more liberal Jewish community, as I've since come to find out. But Black America still doesn't know that, by the way.

They just see Jews, like Jews see Blacks. It's like, all you Blacks are, whatever. If there's ever a problem, it's like these are the Black people that are anti-Semitic, or these are the Jews that have been standing with us. And so that's different than the story of white evangelical Christianity. So it's important for you to make that bifurcate, make that separation, that there is a vast difference in America between the Black church, unfortunately, and the white church.

And we've had a history, the Black church, of a relationship with American Jews. White evangelicalism has not. They have not had a relationship with white Judaism in America. And so maybe I didn't answer your question, but I just think that that's for a historical perspective, important for you to understand that this racial issue in America is still very, very alive and very real. And that impacts the Black church.

[ALAN KADISH] Sure. That is something that it's very helpful to hear you talk about. It's certainly not a shock, but hearing you articulate it and describe things is helpful. And you're absolutely right. There was, in the United States at least, and we'll get to Israel in just a moment. There was certainly a period of kinship between Blacks and whites, church or not, including the labor movement, civil rights movement. And to be honest, some American Jews think it's become more complicated in the last couple of decades.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] Yes, but I would say, and I'll push back on that just a little bit, and I understand that well. But in the larger Jewish community, that's not true. In other words, in the majority of Jews in America, probably are secular Jews, first of all. And the relationship was never really severed. It was never really negatively impacted. It was more when it came to the religious community of Judaism and really political.

And so it's the political fly in the ointment that really kind of soured things. But there were a few incidents here and there, but it didn't spill over. And this ought to be something that should be celebrated in the Jewish community. It didn't spill over into the larger Black American community. It really did not.

[ALAN KADISH] So we certainly appreciate that. And I think you've made an excellent point. I think that the place where it probably has spilled over a little bit has been about Israel, and in particular, since October 7th.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] Yeah.

[ALAN KADISH] And that's where we recognize, as you pointed out, the Jewish community in the United States, although only about six million people, is very complicated. You mentioned the Black community has 47 million people. So we can certainly appreciate that it's even more complicated.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] But let me interrupt you. Our church, just my church, has as many members as there are Jews in America. So we're kind of like, Even Steven here, and our church is overwhelmingly pro-Israel. I'll put that stake in the ground, if I can.

[ALAN KADISH] No, and we appreciate. That's why we're kind of thrilled to talk with you. Rabbi Adlerstein, what's been your impression about-- as Director of Interfaith Affairs for the Wiesenthal Center, you've had a lot of experience with both Bishop Plummer's Church, as well as, I'm sure, other churches. So what's been your experience?

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] Experience regarding what?

[ALAN KADISH] Regarding support for Israel and your interactions.

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] October 7th was a shock to Israelis. October 8th was a shock to Western Jews, as they saw the organizations, institutions, friends, communities that they thought had their back pretty much abandoned them. Nobody is over the shock yet. And American Jews responded in two different ways. The vast majority stepped up to the plate, and they hit a lot of homers out of the park in support of Israel. And then you had Jews who did what the Jews did at other times in history. They said, hey, we're going to show the world that we're not like those bad Jews. We want to be the good Jews who are pro-Palestinian.

We did see that the major church organizations and the major churches did not stand by Israel. There were a lot of us who were saying from day one that probably there'll be a short honeymoon period in which sympathy of the rest of the world for Israel, because of what transpired in October 7th, will take place. And that'll end once there are boots on the ground when we go into Gaza. It turns out we were all wrong.

There was no honeymoon period. And the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests began on October 8th and spread all over the world. So we never would have expected anything from the World Council of Churches. They've always been essentially anti-Israel. We did not expect much from the mainline Protestant denominations. They've been slipping steadily to the pro, to the pro-Palestinian side, in the process, losing most of their members who then formed other denominations because they couldn't stomach all of that.

And then we saw one group of people who were vocally and visibly standing up in support of Israel, and those were evangelicals. And it gave us a little room for hope. It still does. Evangelicals, and especially taken together with Pentecostals, you're talking about a huge swath of humanity that keeps on growing by leaps and bounds, while the mainline Protestant denominations have shrunk to the point of almost marginal significance.

The Catholic Church is complicated. It depends on which part of the world you were in. American Catholic bishops have been left-leaning, which means leaning away from Israel for quite a while. We have some good friends in the church, including the Cardinal in New York. Unfortunately, stepping down pretty soon. There are others.

But we didn't expect real vocal support from the Catholic Church. And the Pope, frankly, has been horrible. And getting pretty much getting worse month by month by month. He happens to be a good person, an extremely likable person, a sincere person, but he has been horrible for Israel.

The thing that we wanted to hear the most from religious leaders was the idea that there are some things that are not just a matter of context. There is such a thing as good and evil. There is right and there is wrong. There are absolutes.

The belief in that A word is verboten in most areas in academia and on the political left. And the one place where you have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people still believing, yes, there are things that are bad because God said they're bad. There are things that are good because they're God-like. And they're not just a matter of culture or context.

We wanted to hear people say that there's going to be a war, and war is hell, and people are going to get hurt. But the responsibility for all such casualties in the coming war lies firmly with Hamas. Instead, we saw a lot of fence-sitting and worse from religious communities. Again, with the exception of most of the evangelical world. There is a left wing branch of the evangelical world which has been horrible in the last year as well. But for the most part, the conservative churches remain today the only and last reliable ally for the state of Israel.

[ALAN KADISH] So, Bishop Plummer, first of all, following up on what Rabbi Adlerstein said, I can't tell you how grateful we are for your support. And as you pointed out earlier, it's based on, to some extent, on shared values and a shared belief in God and in absolute right and wrong. I think it's easy for us to understand the complexity of the response of some Americans, and some American Blacks, to the situation in Gaza.

And particular, of course, based on, as you pointed out, the significant number of American Blacks who evolved as descendants of slaves, how they were automatically side with the powerless rather than look at right and wrong. How do we influence that paradigm? First of all, do you agree with the way I've presented it? And how do you think we can influence that paradigm?

My own experience in life has been, there are some people who are powerful are good and some people are powerful are bad. And the reverse is true about people who are powerless. So I don't judge people based on whether they're successful or not. I judge them as human beings, and how they live up to the ideals that I think God set for us. So is there a way you think that message is a valuable one, and do you think there's a way we can get it across?

[BISHOP PLUMMER] Yeah, I think you are spot on in how you just presented that, and I appreciate that. But let me add a different perspective, if I may. Because I think you're right. We, a people who have been oppressed are sensitized to oppression. A people who have been abused, a person, a group of this whole MeToo movement among women. When a group of people can understand the hurt that's there, they somehow can gravitate.

And let me use, let me go back 50-odd years ago. In 1975, the United Nations issued a-- I don't know what they call it, declaration or something, that Zionism is racism. Now, this is something that today many folks in our community, in the Black community, don't remember, either because they're not old enough and it wasn't explained. But I am aware of it.

And now watch what happened. So they issue this, I don't know what you call it, edict or whatever it was. You guys probably know better. Yeah, proclamation. That Zionism is racism. The Black leadership in our country bought a full page ad in The New York Times a week later and put in there a 7-point-- first of all, it's an extremely pro-Israel statement. But it said, "Zionism is not racism," and it was signed by Black leaders in every genre of society in America, over 200, from celebrities to politicians, elected officials, to educators, to business people.

And I'm talking about the top well-known names, over 200 of them signed this statement that went into The New York Times. And it was very strong. And they call themselves BASIC, B-A-S-I-C, Black American Support for Israel Committee. BASIC, Black Americans Support for Israel Committee. And now, why did they do that?

Because there had been a relationship that had existed so that when we, Black folks, needed a friend, when everyone was-- not everyone, but when a large majority of the power base in our country was against the growing African-American movement, it was the Jews that befriended us. And so here you now have in the mid '70s, we came and stood by the Israel, particularly. It wasn't just the Jews and Blacks, it was Israel. It was about Israel.

And Martin Luther King Junior, who by that time had been dead seven years, prior to that, he had coined the very phrase of what Zionism is. And by the way, the Israeli government has used that in a lot of their publications, Martin Luther King's definition of Zionism. And so, now fast forward 50 years later.

And here I am. I'm with the largest Pentecostal Church in the world, white or Black. Certainly the large Black church. I'm sent to Israel as the Bishop of Israel. Now, watch this. There's never been in the denominations that Rabbi Adlerstein mentioned, none of them would embrace Israel in the title of any of their leadership.

Methodists are bishops. Catholics are bishops. Not every, Baptists don't have bishops. They're more independent. My point, however, is that I'm the first guy that's had this title, Bishop of Israel, which sounds quite ominous.

All right, Bishop of Israel, what does that mean? Well, our church just simply, they sent me to Israel. And so it just made common sense. He's the bishop going to Israel. So he's the Bishop of Israel for our denomination.

I get over there and my Roman Catholic counterpart is the Archbishop of Jerusalem. The Greek Orthodox is the Patriarch of Jerusalem. No one takes the name Israel. Now, I asked them. I had meetings with these guys privately, and I said, why aren't you all using Israel in your titles or in any of your?

Well, they say they were before Israel was Israel. So they were there before you guys were there. And so they say that, they just carried on. I don't totally buy it. I feel that they-- one of them was pretty straight with me. I think he was a Russian bishop there on the Mount of Olives. And he said, really it's a political statement for us. And so we chose not to embrace and get into the politics of it all.

Well, our church wasn't politics at all. If anything, it was biblical. It was just common sense. And so here I find myself with this title that no one has had, no one has embraced. And we do embrace Israel. And my point is, I get there and I am steamrolled.

I'm accused of being a missionary. I'm accused-- there was a little movement. So Mr. [? Ari ?] Dearie took my case personally. He approved us coming in. And then he got pushback from the religious community there and said, we had to go. I couldn't believe it.

And so because of COVID, they shut down Ben Gurion for six weeks. If you can remember from January through March of that year, I think it was 2021. And my presiding bishop called me right in the middle of that period. And he says, listen, after working with US senators, US senators, who are working this arrangement for me and my wife to stay in Israel, he called me to say, listen, we're going to airlift you guys out of this. Airlift you out of Israel.

I said, well, first of all, this is Israel. It's not-- I knew that the airport was closed. And he says, no, you don't understand. These people want to hurt you. These people, there are people who want to kill you. And I appealed to him and I said, please, don't do that. Let me stay. I will be all right.

He was reluctant, but he agreed. My point is that if you want friends, you have to show yourself friendly. And what I'm saying to my Jewish brethren is that, listen, I know we talk about Jesus, and we're the Christian Church, and all of this. But listen, OK, let's just put that aside. We already know where the Jewish world is regarding that. We're not trying to convert you, by the way.

And if we were, we were miserably failures in that regard. And I believe that there's a biblical mandate of Christianity explaining why that's not going to happen, why the Jewish world is not going to convert to Christianity, by the way. But it's important for me to say to the Jewish community that's listening. You must be open to embracing folks like this, because now you guys are no longer the oppressed.

You're a superpower. You're a superpower. And the world sees you as a superpower. You're no longer the little guy. You may be, in geographic terms, small, but you are a major superpower. And look at what's happening now. And I think that what Israel has done, successfully, even though it has cost painfully since October 7th, is I think one of the results is a collapse of Syria, to tell you the truth, because of what Israel has done.

And so recognize, you are no longer the little guy. And therefore, the little guys around the world are looking at you as the superpower. And so you're no longer kind of looking like you're the oppressed. There are people who now see you as the oppressor. And so in my community now, I got to fight some of these people and say, wait a minute, wait.

OK, and try and educate them because you're not the oppressor. And I know that. I lived there for four years. But you guys have to give a little bit here. And understand, you can't run people away who are different from you, who come in there, who maybe are Left, or who maybe are Black, or maybe are something, Christian, or whatever the thing is, and they're different than you.

And my experience should send alarms throughout the Jewish world in Israel that when we have a whole group of folks who are coming in here to stand with us, and create relationships, and business, and an education, and even, yes, in religion, relationships and political relations, and they're different. And they're not the Republicans, or they're not the White evangelicals, or they're not this. I don't know. Maybe I'm not hitting the bell.

But I'm just saying to you that, if you just use my experience, and I'm a friend, and I've been a friend, OK. And I've been hurt emotionally, threatened. My wife, threatened. I was on my way back to Israel on October 7th to our home, my wife was there, alone. And all the airlines eliminated flights. I couldn't get in. I couldn't get her out.

We finally got together, and right now I'm in the United States, by the way. I was there earlier this year. But my appeal to Israelis is, you got to open yourself up a little bit to new friendship and new relationships, and not tar us all and label us as anti-Semites, because for the most part, we are not.

[ALAN KADISH] That's something that I think is a very important message and something that we all appreciate. And the Jewish community's response to evangelical support for Israel has, just as you mentioned, they are different groups. I think it's overwhelmingly been positive, but yet--

[BISHOP PLUMMER] But that's with white. But that's with the white American Republicans. You understand?

[ALAN KADISH] Yeah, no, no, I understand. And I appreciate the nuance. But what I would say is, and this doesn't defend what you've been subjected to, because you are clearly a friend and someone we should embrace. But I think that for us as Jews, both in Israel and the United States, it's been a very complicated time. And it's a very complicated time for a few reasons.

As you know, we have a long memory. And the years of antagonism between Christianity and Judaism have been hard to completely erase. And while it's true, the distinctions you make among the different groups are real and important, at a top level, it's sort of been hard for everybody to completely ignore that. You also--

[BISHOP PLUMMER] But you got to-- Dr. Kadish, but you must use different phrases than, say the Catholics. Say, we have a long memory with the Catholics, because when you put Christians there, we broke away from the Catholics. We don't have anything to do with the Catholics. So when you say, Christian, you're tying us all in.

And it's just like anti-Semites. "It's the Jews." "It's the Jews." No, it's not the Jews. It's maybe those Jews over there that did something, or maybe it's that Jew right there, but it's not the Jews. And you're doing that, and you're guilty of it.

And I just want to call you out on it because that's the very point that I'm trying to make, is that, yes, you do have long memories, but it's the memory of Catholicism. It's the memory of the Orthodox. And it's not the memory of Black Christians.

And I just told you, Evangelicals are in Nigeria, and Ghana, and South Korea, for Pete's sake. So, you got evangelicals, by the way, in South Africa who love Israel, in large numbers in South Africa. But instead, you want to say, it's those South Africans that are anti-Semites. No, you've got more pro-Israel South Africans than you do anti-Semites in South Africa.

[ALAN KADISH] That's an extraordinarily important message. And what I'm suggesting is not that-- trying to defend this, and I think the point you're making about us understanding the different groups is precisely why we have here today, because that's been incredibly useful for us to try to understand. My point simply is, as far as the Jewish experience is concerned, it's been complicated by the fact that the history of anti-Semitism has involved both saying the Jews are too powerful and the Jews aren't powerful enough.

And we've seen that pendulum sort of oscillate throughout history, regardless of who's been guilty of the anti-Semitism. So it's not a simple dynamic when you say, well, we're powerful now, so we have to look at ourselves differently. We've been accused of being powerful before in a very derogatory way, and that continues.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] I meant that you're a nuclear power. A whole other universe. You guys are--

[ALAN KADISH] No, I understand that, But you understand my point about power. So what I would say is this. I think we both need to try to spend more time talking to each other, understanding each other's experiences, understanding the nuances, and seeing how we can move forward together. Because we do have a rich history of incredible cooperation, as we've both talked about.

And some of the people who are still around, Blacks in America, who were involved in the Civil Rights movement, and the NAACP, are good friends of ours on our boards and have been incredible supporters.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] It's important, if I can interrupt you, is that if you-- you're there in New York. And I guess it's the largest amount of Jews in the country and it's the biggest city in America, and there's a lot of Black leaders. Archer, we have key bishops and leaders from our church in New York.

I'm sure they don't know, you don't know each other. So, Rabbi Adlerstein, now you kind of-- I remember it different, Rabbi, when we met. It was Gordon Robertson who saw what we were going through, and he reached out to you and asked you, hey, we got a friend over there. Can you kind of nuzzle up to him? Can you reach out to him?

I may have called you first. I don't remember who called who. But my point is, Rabbi Adlerstein invited me to his home, not just for Shabbat, which he did, and to meet his grandson and those, but also during Sukkot, which I had never had that experience of being in a sukkah, for example. And he had a real sukkah.

And so not that others don't, but I mean, his was quite significant. And so, if you, just you, Dr. Kadish, and I could make the introductions, would be open to not only inviting some to your home, just for Shabbat dinner, because that makes a big difference because most Blacks have never experienced Shabbat dinner, don't understand what that is in the Jewish world. And then you, Rabbi Adlerstein, came to my house and came to my home in Memphis, when we were living in the Memphis area.

And now I had a little bit of prep before he came, because I initially was offended when Orthodox Jews wouldn't eat coffee cake or wouldn't drink out of our cups or something. And I was taken aback. But when I understood that it wasn't personal, and he helped me to understand that. This is not-- he could take something in a, what is it, a paper cup or whatever the thing is.

And as Black people, Black Americans, we can be real-- we can be like, you're not good enough to drink out of my cup? But in that, we became great friends. We were able to talk through it and understand each other. And I guess that's what I'm saying, is that if there was a reach out across, just in New York, just take New York as an example. It would take us light years ahead just by sitting down together and having a cup of coffee and having a Shabbat dinner, or you going over to their community and meeting with them. Just wonders.

[ALAN KADISH] I think that's an incredible suggestion, and will try to follow up on that. So we have time for one last topic. So I'm going to turn back to Rabbi Adlerstein. So Bishop Plummer alluded to the fact that things have changed a lot in the Middle East in the last few weeks, and things have changed a lot in the United States with the results of the elections. So tell us a little bit about what you think the implications are for trying to continue some of the work that you've done with Bishop Plummer and how you see the future evolving in this way.

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] I think that we're living at a potential turning point for America. One of the things that the election implied was that Americans were going to trust their gut. We're going to come back to some traditional values, valued things like family, and were turned off by extremes in the progressive camp. Summing up, it was a return to some social norms that America hadn't seen in quite a while.

Now, to keep this going, or maybe more importantly, to heal the rift in America, we're going to need more than just people saying, hey, there was an election and now the country has turned more red than blue. That doesn't help America's divisions. Neither does it help the religious community, which was marginalized, which is worse than marginalized by certain academic and intellectual elites. Belief in religion is still something that brings derision and mockery.

If that weren't the case, we might not need a Touro University where people have a place they can take refuge. So we have an opportunity. I think that the opportunity comes to a large extent following Bishop Plummer's advice of people getting to know each other eyeball to eyeball and forming bridges that were not there before. But also religious leaders stepping into the breach and becoming, once again, sources of guidance for people, for an America, that's looking for moral guidance.

We're no longer getting moral guidance from celebrities, paying people to do an interview. Cardi B did not save the election for Kamala. And religious leaders, especially when they can work together and dip into the Judeo-Christian legacy, and find the tools that people need to speak to each other with respect and tolerance, may be just the thing that America needs. At the same time, I think there's a consciousness, I know there's a consciousness among religious people, both in the Jewish community and in the Christian community, that we need each other's assistance.

30 years ago, it was in political matters. Yeah, we got together on things that were of common interest. Today, when we're fighting, when we're swimming upstream intellectually against what is the presumed norm of America, people from different religions who are committed to the idea, the belief in the one God and that he revealed his will to us through the Bible, can accomplish a lot for each other, can give each other moral support.

[ALAN KADISH] I think that's a very powerful message. I think that we do feel, and I do feel, more kinship with religious Christians than I do with many other Americans, which is certainly a reversal of some things that happened in the past in history. Bishop, what do you see in the future? Are you optimistic with the rapid changes that have happened both in the Middle East and the United States? Where do you see things going?

[BISHOP PLUMMER] I am very encouraged, strangely, by the change, by what's happening in the Middle East, especially in recent times. I think there's been a clear shift. And I think that the Middle East itself will never be what it was. I think that Israel is much stronger. And I think when we get through this kind of season right now, I think it will be very, very positive. So I'm very hopeful and very encouraged.

I can't say that a little after October 7th and few months after that, but I do feel a shift and a change. In the United States, I don't have as much optimism, to tell you truth, in the US. Our church is, on social issues, very conservative on almost every social issue there is. But there was a virtual endorsement of Kamala Harris from our leadership.

And so politically, we are not seen as conservative. But we are truly conservative on the social issues and the biblical issues. And so, what is Israel? Is a Israel a conservative-- I fight against that. Israel is not an issue. Israel is not a conservative issue. It's not a liberal issue.

Israel is Israel. And we have an obligation to support Israel. So I'm not as-- I am hopeful, but I'm not as positive in my view of where the United States is headed than I am where the Middle East is headed. It just looks like it's going to be a much more positive thing. Now, I know at the end of the day, I know what the scripture does prophesy. And so, I also have that there is something that's going to happen from up north and they're coming to Israel.

So I'm not blind to that. But currently I think there is a positive shift that will happen. And I think that Israel will settle down. I think things will calm down. And I think that I'm looking for a lot of folks to come and visit Israel and be much more supportive of Israel. So I do want to thank you so much for allowing me to spend this time with you and my friend, Rabbi Adlerstein. And let's do it again sometime.

[ALAN KADISH] That would be great. So I'm glad you're the Bishop of Jerusalem given that you're more optimistic about what's going on than you are in the United States.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] I'm not the Bishop of Jerusalem.

[ALAN KADISH] You're Bishop of Israel.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] There's a big difference.

[ALAN KADISH] That's right. We appreciate that. So, I want to thank you both. It's been a fascinating session. And I think we've made a lot of progress, but also indicated that we've got a lot of work to do in the future. And Bishop, your support for Israel and for values is so warmly appreciated. That the other stuff we talked about, I think is details, but I just can't thank you enough for your support and your willingness to persevere against some negative attitudes and to continue to support us. It is so appreciated.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] And I want you to know that I represent millions, millions of Americans.

[ALAN KADISH] We appreciate that. And Rabbi Adlerstein, great to speak to you, and see you again. And I think the work you're doing, originally in Los Angeles and now in Israel, is fantastic. I love reading your stuff. And glad to spend time with you. And we should make sure we move forward from this conversation because it's extraordinarily important.

[RABBI YITZCHOK ADLERSTEIN] Absolutely.

[ALAN KADISH] Thank you so much.

[BISHOP PLUMMER] You're welcome.

[ALAN KADISH] We're going to sign off Touro Talks, and look forward to seeing you at the next session. Take care.

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[TEXT] TOURO TALKS, TOURO UNIVERSITY, touro.edu/tourotalks

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