Faith Leaders Confront the Conflict with Jason Holtzman

In this episode of Voices 4 Peace, Pastor Todd Stavrakos sits down with Jason Holtzman to reflect on how the realities on the ground in Israel and the Palestinian territories are experienced by those living them and why those perspectives often look very different from how the conflict is discussed in the West.

Drawing from their recent delegation, they unpack the complexity of the war in the aftermath of October 7, the rise of antisemitism in the United States, and the deep trauma and resilience shaping both Israeli and Palestinian communities. 

Listen in for a conversation about conflict, morality, interfaith relationships, and what it looks like to pursue peace, dignity, and understanding in an increasingly divided world.

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Pathways for Middle East Peace is a nonprofit educational organization that works to support collaboration between mainline churches and the Jewish community.

We advocate for peace and reconciliation through dialogue and building relationships. While the world seeks to build walls and silos, we believe that Christ has created a pathway for us through the example of His life, ministry, death and resurrection: to build community by bringing people together.

Visit Pathways4Peace.org for more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to Voices for Peace, Pathways for Peace podcast, and I'm Pastor Todd's Defragis. With us, you will hear honest and challenging conversations about Israel, Palestine, conflict, and all that comes with it. From real people, not headlines or taglines. Welcome. Hi, this is uh Todd Stavrakis, one of the board members and the executive director of Pathways. Uh, it's my pleasure on our podcast to be joined by Jason Holtzman, who is the chief of the Jewish Community Relations Council here in Philadelphia. Uh, and we are here to talk about some of the work we've been doing as well as to discuss uh the recent uh delegation that went to Israel and Palestinian territories earlier in February. So, Jason, it's great to have you on.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Great to be here with you today, Todd. Thank you very much. And also just wanted to note it's the chief of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

All right, let's get that right. Point, point taken. Um so uh so in that capacity, what what is your role? What what do you do here in Philadelphia and the area?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

So I always explain the role of the JCRC is to work to try and advance a more just and pluralistic society, uh, not just looking at issues for the Jewish community, but looking at our society, at our city, at our state as a whole, uh, and trying to find issues that we can uh work together with other communities on, uh, find common ground on, to then go do an advocacy education, um, you know, get to know people, get to know communities and what they stand for, and also help them understand what we're standing for and what we're doing as a Jewish community. So I find myself talking to a lot of different audiences. Uh on average day, I could be meeting with uh a university president, school superintendent, uh clergy like yourself, both inside and outside of the Jewish community, uh elected officials, all sorts of people really just, you know, working to make the world a better place.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Great. And and I assume, unfortunately, that one of the things that you spend a lot of time on is some of the the darker things in our society and and you know, more specifically, anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic behavior, activity, and language that we see in our communities. Um, how has that been for you and the Jewish community?

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Absolutely. Unfortunately, uh a lot of my time is spent uh doing that kind of work these days over the past two and a half years, since October 7th, we've seen a major escalation in anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish bigotry uh across our city, across our state. And so a lot of my work has been focused on uh, you know, both combating anti-Semitism and also humanizing the Jewish community, helping people understand who we are as a Jewish people and what we stand for. Because there's clearly a lot of misinformation and disinformation being pumped out on social media and the traditional media, and people are uh bringing it into their everyday lives, and it is creating a real um uptick in anti-Semitic incidents that we're seeing in the area.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

And and I've heard you say that really the best way uh to deal with some of the anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish behavior is really by creating lasting relationships and being at the forefront of doing the good work that you've already described, of of working on social justice issues in the community and getting people to know the Jewish community and you. And so and so you've been very much on the forefront of that work. Uh explain your philosophy as it as it comes to SERT.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Sure. So we actually um after October 7th happened, we had a number of individuals begin turning to the Federation for support. Um, both Jewish community members who were looking for us to help them with the anti-Semitic incidents that they were dealing with, and leaders of institutions who were grappling with what type of policies they needed to put in place and how they should be handling certain uh incidents that were happening on their grounds. Um, we did not have Federation or JCRC set up to do defense in that way. My team at that time was around three people. Um we were dealing with a ton and we were operating on a shoestring budget. In spring 2024, we created our own center to combat anti-Semitism so we could really put our money where our mouths are. Uh, and I came up with really a holistic and a strategic approach to the work of combating anti-Semitism. There are some in our community and around the nation uh who would like us to treat every instant of anti-Semitism as if it's the same, and that the way to handle it would be to take a giant sledgehammer and bang it as if it's a nail that needs to be hammered. And to be clear, uh, we are willing to use the sledgehammer if we need to, but I've taken a much different approach, uh sort of what I call the tool belt approach, uh, which is that we have five different tools that we use to combat anti-semitism. And if you have a toolbox at home, Todd, maybe you have a set of gloves, a screwdriver, nails, a hammer. Oh, I'm not a handyman. Well, if your handyman, I'm sure, has all those different tools. Our tools uh for the work of combating anti-Semitism are education, community mobilization, allyship, legislation, and litigation. And so those are sort of the five tools that help us uh do the work that we're invested in. Uh, I think education is the most important of them, really helping to build relationships with people, helping to build trust with people, and then offering them, you know, either professional development or just, you know, having conversations to help unpack whatever they're seeing and to help them better understand what the Jewish community is all about because there's so much misinformation out there. You know, there are people who are operating nowadays believing that all Jews are baby killers, that all Jews love war, all Jews love to, you know, violence. And nothing could be further from the truth. You know, the Jewish community has been in a really hard place since October 7th. Most Jews uh do have, you know, a strong affinity for the state of Israel, for the land of Israel, but it doesn't necessarily mean that we support every government policy, every action during the war, or even the current government that's in place. I mean, the same way here in America, you have American citizens who don't necessarily support this government or the one that came before. It never made them anti-American, it made them critical of their government. So uh we we've seen people just, you know, weaponizing um what's happening in the war, what's happening 5,000 miles away from us, and treating Jews here on the streets of Philadelphia as if they're responsible for whatever alleged actions people believe are happening uh in the middle of the war. And it's a huge problem.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

And and uh you've mentioned education. I mean, uh there's so much ignorance about the issues that that are out there of what anti-Semitism is, what it's not, um, what's the cause of it, how long has it been around? There's there's so much going around that that that it's really hard to grapple with. Um I I think for many of us in the mainline Protestant community, it's it's been a challenge of kind of discerning like what what's the red lines, you know, what what is um acceptable uh criticism of the state of Israel and then what's not acceptable. Uh when it comes to the American Jewish community, um uh, you know, Americans that we shouldn't be holding them responsible uh for the actions of the of the state of Israel. Um and because of that ignorance and because of your desire for education, my desire for education, we we've come together to create something a little different and new here in Philadelphia. Um what we're calling it is a cohort where we're bringing rabbis and clergy together to get to know each other and to study together and to socially know each other as well as professionally know each other. What are your hopes for this sort of work?

SPEAKER_00 7:58

You know, I'm as MLK said, I want to sort of create that beloved community, people who can stand up and stand with one another and think of a better way forward. Uh my real hope is that, you know, Jewish and Christian clergy uh can study together, learn each other's traditions, uh, learn each other's histories, uh, for the Christians to really understand the Jewish experience, that it's been 2,000 years of pogroms and inquisitions and crusades and a Holocaust and all sorts of other attacks that our Jewish community has faced, um, and to understand the resilience that we have today, you know, the fact that we do live with this intergenerational trauma, that every Jewish child these days is born carrying that baggage, but that we still look to find a better way forward. We still look to have friends and have neighbors. And, you know, that with what's happening right now, there are discussions happening, you know, in the Jewish community of do we have any friends? You know, has everybody abandoned us? Has everybody given up on us? And I think that's intolerable. I I think, you know, my desire is to create a cohort of people who can listen to each other and better understand each other. And it's not that everybody around the table needs to agree on everything. We can agree to disagree, but there still needs to be that love and that respect for each other, uh, regardless of someone's beliefs. No one deserves to be attacked because of what they believe, because of what they stand for. And and that's really, I think, what we're striving for to also not just, you know, stand for attack, but to stand up for one another when somebody is under attack.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Right. I I and I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, there there are many of us in in the mainland Protestant community who don't truly understand the depth of the role that Christianity has had in terms of the development of anti-Jewish and anti-Semitic uh actions, behaviors, and movements. Uh, I think it's been eye-opening for many of the cohort to see um the sort of behavior that Christians have uh exhibited over the last 2,000 years and to then understand that, you know, we we talk in race how racism uh becomes a generational trauma uh for each uh subsequent generation, that there's the the traumas that that people suffer from racism. And and it's the same thing for the Jewish community. The Jewish community has every generation that can tell a story. Absolutely. And uh we we need to be aware of that. Um we need to be aware of when we say things, um, how it can trigger the trauma that has been experienced in the past by the Jewish community. And and I think uh much of what I said previously about about ignorance, I think that's where our ignorance sort of doesn't help the relationship. You know, we think it's just, oh, it's no big deal. Well, it is a big deal. You know, maybe if you use poor language, it can have it can create more ripples and waves when we think it's not a big, big thing. Um, and so bringing together our our friends in, you know, who preach from a pulpit or from Bhima to kind of study together and to learn, it it's to share those experiences so that we understand where where each is coming from. Um and you're right, we haven't always agreed. You know, we have some disagreements on the on the perspective perspective, particularly when it comes to, you know, the the conflict, Israel and Palestine. We we're not gonna all agree, but we but we we do know that what is happening in America with the rise of anti-Semitism on the right and the left, that we have to stand together against it.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Absolutely. We need to hold the center and be those reasonable, nuanced people um who can say, you know, both Israelis and Palestinians deserve dignity. Both peoples deserve self-determination, and we should strive for a better future together rather than cutting someone off or ghosting someone because they might hold a view that's not the same view as yours. That's just to me intolerable.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Well, and I think this work that we're doing is is is saying that the the siloed behavior of our more recent history it doesn't work. In this world, we can't be siloed. We can't just act like, you know, well, stay in my house, I'll check my social media platforms, and that's it. That only sows the division that we're seeing in our in our world and in our society. And we have to reach out. We've got to we've got to step out of our comfort zones. We have to be willing to hear something that might be painful. We need to be able to talk to somebody that we normally wouldn't encounter on a regular basis and hear their stories. And that's something that we're trying to do. But I also know it's something that the JCRC is doing rather courageously in this time of reaching out to the different communities. Uh, and and so I really commend you with that, with that work that Philadelphia is doing. Um, and and uh that sort of leads us when we talk about difficult conversations, that leads us to, you know, the trip that we just took uh earlier in February. Of we know that the issue of of the conflict between Israel and the and Palestinians, that that it can be a source of a stumbling block in terms of the relationship between mainland Protestants and and their Jewish neighbors. And and so we wanted people to be able to learn more about the conflict and also then think about ways that we can be peacemakers in this. Um, and I have to say, for the 12 who journeyed, that this was a courageous journey. I mean, not just because of what was going on geopolitically, we were concerned that the war with Iran was going to start while we were there, but also the reality that maybe our friends wouldn't approve of us going on such a trip, um, or or going, you know, of Protestant going with a Jew or a Jew going with a Protestant um to learn. Um, and so what did you think leading up to this trip? And then what were some of your reflections while we were on the trip?

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Well, uh, leading up to the trip, I was petrified. You know, I have a uh 20-month-old baby at home and just the war with war with Iran hovering over our heads, uh, I was quite quite nervous. I've never been nervous in that way. This was my 16th trip over to Israel, and I've never felt nervous going there before. So that's that's number one. And I know that feeling was not unique to me just because I had a baby. I think most people who were on the trip uh had a bit of anxiety about whether or not the war with Iran was gonna start before during during when we were there. Um so number one, that was definitely fear that I had. Number two, uh, this is my first time going back to Israel since October 7th. I had not been there. Uh I'd had plenty of Israelis come and visit me over the past two and a half years since that happened. But I had not been there, so I wasn't sure what I was gonna experience, if it was gonna be the same country that I had been to in June 2023, or if things were gonna be completely different. Uh, that was definitely on my mind. And then I also wondered how how our group was gonna do, you know, a group of Jewish and Christian clergy, not all who knew each other leading into this trip. I I wondered to myself how the experience was gonna be for us on the ground, um, going, you know, meeting with people, hearing different perspectives, traveling long hours every day, you know, visiting multitude of sites. I wasn't sure how it was all gonna play out. I knew what our goal was of going into it and coming out of it was that we wanted people to walk away, understanding the sheer complexity of the region. Uh, but walking into it, I it was a bit of a mystery for me about how exactly it would go.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

I th I I think on on my side, it probably the same of um been been to Israel several times on different trips, but post-October 7th, you know, what what is the mindset of folks? What how are people feeling? Um, you know, we've always been able to go and meet with sort of like the centrists, the people who are really doing the hard work of peace building, um, and who are viewed by their own communities with severe question marks. You know, Palestinians who are willing to to meet with Israelis or or Muslims willing to meet with Jews are sort of looked on with circumspect by their their communities. Um but this time, you know, what was it really going to be like? You know, a country that, you know, uh has been closed for almost two years because of the war in Gaza and the Palestinian community that has kind of suffered even more because of travel restrictions, um, business um ventures. So it there was a big question of what are we going to encounter? Yeah. Um, and I I think um that was the most um concerning. Um because we wanted we wanted people to be able to learn, um, but I was concerned with sort of, well, what's the tension level going to be like when they begin speaking to an Israeli or a Palestinian? You know, what what are the conversations gonna be like? So I I was sort of pleased with with many of those conversations. How how did what did you hear while we were on the trip?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Well, first I want to say that for me on the trip, um seeing the children, little kids all over the country gave me a lot of hope. Not that we talked to the kids, but just seeing the kids smiling, going about their lives, knowing that they've been living under war, but just, you know, kind of seeing them and seeing that the country was still growing and that people hadn't given up, that to me showed major resilience. So that that always sticks out in my mind. In terms of the conversations that we had, I felt like we heard a lot of pain. Uh, we heard a lot of trauma coming from people. Um, you know, we we heard from shop owners that nobody's been visiting them, that business has been down so much. Uh, we heard, you know, when we went out to the Gaza envelope, hearing from some of the people that we met with down there about what they did on October 7th in terms of just putting on an army uniform and going to save lives. That was from an army colonel on uh kibbutz Sa'ad, um, you know, going into the Palestinian territories in Bethlehem, meeting with some of the speakers that we met with there, um, hearing how much pain and how much fear there was from them, our tour guide uh who talked about the trouble of being able to leave Bethlehem after one o'clock in the afternoon, uh, and just, you know, how devastated uh the city was, uh, was really difficult to hear. Uh, thinking about, you know, our early day, uh, meeting with the Druze representative, uh, hearing his story of everything that the Druze community has contributed over the last two and a half years since the war began, and how hard it has been on them. Um it was a very challenging trip. And I think that we really learned that the pain people are feeling is running really high. Um, you know, they're still not giving up. So for me, I have to also focus on that resilience. I think the resilience is incredibly high for both the Israeli and Palestinian people. Uh, but I think it's really clear that this war is not necessarily going to be the solution. Uh, it's unfortunate that it began. It's uh very unfortunate how how it began with the terrible massacre on October 7th, but two and a half years later, there's still a major conflict going on, and it doesn't seem like it's the least bit close to finished. So one just has to wonder where is this all going and what does the end game look like? Because for me, the status quo is not sustainable for very much longer.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And and I think that that trauma, that pain was was very evident. I mean, even groups like Roots who do a fantastic job and and the West Bank and the occupied territories of bringing the settler communities and the Palestinians together to reflect and and uh to chart a different way forward. I mean, even to hear the pain of their struggle and and this time um people were deeply committed to peacemaking and peace building. Um and just hearing the struggle of those who uh in a thankless sort of situation had been trying to carry the water of a building piece, um, and and hearing how the their communities are just devastated on both sides because of the war. Um particularly when we have sort of the negative actors on both sides, you know, stirring up problems. Um it's more than just offering prayers, it's sort of like what can we do to be supporting these really resilient souls on the ground who are doing difficult work? Um and I and I think that was one of the biggest things that I kept thinking. I mean, and I know we have problems in our own country, in our own society, but here are folks who, you know, for you know, going on a century now have been struggling in this conflict. And how can we, without without doing the self-righteous stuff that we know Americans are really prone to do, how can we actually move a needle or be an allyship with with those who are on the ground? Whether it's the folks that we met from Spirit of the Galilee who are doing tremendous interfaith work, or whether it's Roots in the West Bank, um, whether it's uh many of the communities that were in the Gaza envelope who were the core of the peacemaking uh communities who had been reaching out to Gaza and and the residents of Gaza over the last, you know, 20, 40, 50 years. Um How do we support and and demonstrate to them that we we believe in your vision?

SPEAKER_00 22:07

You know, I I think that we need to bring their voices here. I think too too often people here don't get to hear those sorts of pragmatic voices that are actually on the ground, invested in peace, working towards a better future. Here, when you look at social media, you usually get the more extreme takes, the the takes that grab your attention and make you feel some sort of emotional reaction to do something right away, but there's really no path to do anything. So I think part of our work here in Philadelphia, Todd, is bringing in those voices, bringing in those groups, bringing our community together to meet with them, hear from them, and hear from them about what we can do to contribute to their work and help their work. I also want to lift up uh the Anglican archbishop who we met with and Yiska Harani, uh who's an amazing Israeli woman, uh who's volunteering her time, not getting paid for it, but really tracking down uh bad actors in Israeli society who are attacking Christians in the old city of Jerusalem. She's tracking them down, she's finding out which communities they come from, and she's going to the top levels of those communities and making sure that the leadership of these communities know so that they can go and condemn it and try to put a stop to it. And she's also tracking it so Israel has data on how much of the activity they're seeing. So I think that type of work is amazing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

And I think that that's the that's the stuff that we don't see, that we don't hear about. Um, you know, we'll hear about the sort of like the pro-democracy movement in Israel, but we won't hear of the of the steps that they're taking uh to confront the violence going on in in the West Bank. Um we don't hear about what they're willing to do, to sacrifice, to bring peace. Um and unfortunately, we just hear these larger narratives. Um you know, we or newspapers, you know, we'll have headlines talking about the prime minister of Israel or the heads of Hamas and what they're doing or saying, but we don't know what's happening on the ground with the people. And and you're right, those those are the those are the folks who are gonna bring change. You know, I I think we heard very clearly from both Palestinian and Israelis that peace will not come through the politicians. No. It's gonna come through the people.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Peace has to come from the ground up, it's not gonna come from the top down.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

Correct. And and we we know that these elected officials or unelected officials uh on both sides um have other agendas.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, and a lot of their agendas are self-preservation.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Correct. And so I think this trip helps us better understand those sorts of dynamics and that there is a desire to live in peace. But there's also, again, there's this trauma and distrust over the last two years that that uh preceded the war but now are have been amped up, and and the work that we must do uh to continue with that. Um as you've reflected on being back home, um, and as we've recovered from being on a very small cramp bus for a week, um what are your takeaways so far from the trip?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

You know, um we had a reunion for the trip a few weeks ago at a synagogue, and we were sitting there um with the group, and it was at the same time that the attack was happening at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan. And being in the room with that group at that time meant a lot to me. Uh, you know, my phone was blowing up. I had people texting me all over the place, giving me live updates of what was going on, talking about the security here locally, what are we gonna be doing? What are we gonna be putting in place? And at the same time, I was sitting with a bunch of Christian clergy, and they were sort of, you know, taking this in as well, expressing their solidarity, expressing their horror. Uh, and I think that's that's a moment that I'll remember for a long time, and that's also sort of what we're aiming for. Like, I don't obviously I don't want to have attacks happen whenever we get together, but if they should happen, it's good to know that we have people who will reach out and who will check on us and who will make sure that we're okay. And God forbid there's an emergency. I hope we would have people who would come out and stand with us. And I also hope that we will be able to continue our learning together, our studying together, and that our conversations don't necessarily always have to be about the Middle East. You know, we can look and see if there's other issues that we can work on uh here together, because there's quite a lot going on in our own country, quite a lot of issues that I think we share concern about, and maybe there are ways that we can stand together and stand up together as a faith community of Jews and Christians uh and show solidarity uh that we won't stand for certain things. We won't let certain things go past us.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Well, and I think that's one of the the strongest takeaways from me from the trip. And and obviously there's work that we could be supporting in Israel, Palestine for peace, but there's also the shared values that we have. You know, the idea of human dignity, the idea of of people being able to pursue their dreams and visions, the ability just to be able to cast a vision. Um I mean, those those are the values that both our traditions, you know, hold close to heart. And so how do we um continue on that work here in Philadelphia? Um, how do we work on the issues, you know, as we think about that that are pressing, uh housing or uh immigration uh reform or whatever it might be? How do we work together through our traditions to do that? And then how can we also then support people who are working on the same things uh in Israel and Palestine, trying to pursue human dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians, uh where both communities can can follow their aspirations and their visions and their dreams and one side can't control the other. Um and so that was really uh very hopeful because I've heard from many of the Christian colleagues who went on the trip talking about how it really moved them uh beyond the the typical binary, that you could either be pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian, you can't be both. And it helped them move beyond that understanding that you have to be for both if you really want to bring peace.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Absolutely. Because I always say that, you know, there may be fantasies on both sides of this, you know, for Israelis, some Israelis, they may fantasize that one day Palestinians are gonna disappear from the land, and for Palestinians, some of them, they may fantasize that one day Israelis are gonna disappear from the land. The truth is neither group's gonna disappear. That's an extremist fantasy and extremist vision. They have to find a way to live together, and maybe we as Americans who live in a diverse, multifaceted society, although it's being torn apart, but we we do still do it, maybe we can play a role in helping figure out a better future for both the Israeli and Palestinian people because neither group is going anywhere, and both groups deserve to live um in peace in the Holy Land and with dignity and with respect and security. So that's that's what I'm all about. And you know, I always say that we need more firefighters and less arsonists. There are too many arsonists these days trying to burn everything down.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Amen to that. Um and so for our listeners, uh, if you would like to be a firefighter on these issues, uh, feel free to reach out to us at Pathways or to your local JCRC and see how you can uh be a part of uh a solution instead of kind of sitting back and thinking somebody else will take care of it, because you know, all it takes for evil to triumph is for the good people not to do anything. Um, and at least in this example, we are uh attempting to do something. And so I'm so happy that, Jason, you're my partner in this and this project here in Philadelphia. I feel really good about the work that we're doing, and I'm really hopeful about what the future holds for us here.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Likewise, and I really want to thank you uh for your leadership uh for not just this, but for many years, the leadership that you've exhibited in the Philadelphia area, the solidarity, the support that you've given to the Jewish community. It means a lot and it doesn't go unnoticed. We're we're very lucky to have you as our friend. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Well, I appreciate that. And uh uh I'm assuming mo this podcast will probably be heard right after Easter. And so uh we'll be heading into Passover and so we'll be in the middle of Passover.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Our holidays starting around the same time this year.

SPEAKER_01 30:45

Have a happy Passover and Happy Easter. Thank you, thank you, and uh to everybody listening, blessings on this very uh special time of the year. Um, and uh whichever tradition you are uh celebrating, whether Passover or Easter, uh may the blessing be with you and may your dreams come true. Thank you for listening to Voices for Peace. If this conversation challenged you, well, that's the point. If you believe peace begins with listening, follow along for more. Until next time, this is Voices for Peace.