good morning, welcome to mosaic. i am rabbi eric wise and honored to be your host this morning. we are engaging about a wonderful new initiative called a year of civil discourse. it is a year talking about israel and all the different aspects of israel. joining us now are rachel, a professional mediator and abbey, associate director of jewish community relations council. this is a wonderful initiative cosponsored by the jewish community federation san francisco, marin and sonoma and

northern california board of rabbis. unusually when i am mostly the host i am president of the board of northern california board of rabbis and that way am excited to engage in the discussion. welcome rachel, aaron and abbey. what is year of civil discourse? why focus on israel is this. >> we are excited about this this project because of a controversy that brewed within the jewish community. we are often tapped -- most of our work is looking at community relations outside the jewish community. the way it dials outside of israel, signals to us we need to focus building bridges within the jewish community. we are launching this

initiative, within the jewish community and other controversial issues, we heard from community leaders who have been -- felt verbally and personally attacked because of their support of israel and heard from community leaders who were calling for a two state solution for years long before it was the consensus within the community. what we found was that everybody on all sides to have political spectrum within the community has felt alien ated andage fallized what we -- marginalized and what we aim to do is build a community where even the most controversial and sensitive issues can be discussed in a way that will build community cohesion and make everyone feel part of our warm jewish family. >> i know some people in the community are very aware of the way in which talking about israel can spark a lot of deep feelings, a lot of controversy and already a lot of people in

the community who have no idea this is an issue of contention all together but it might be important to say on a very very concrete level in some places there are people who are life long friends when they disagree on a topic that may have to do with israel, it could be to do with the peace negotiations or internal issue and all of a sudden people find themselves not invited to the shack bat table of a best friend or not invited to a pass over sadder or during coffee hour after services people are not talking to each other when they have spent years car pooling their kids together and serving on committees and synagogues and all of a sudden find there is a gap and a real strain in their relationship so it is important to say from the get go it is not just big issues it effects

people in very deep, personal relational ways as well. >> it does. we have each had a personal experience like the ones that you mention and i think many of us in the community have had that we were sitting at a pass over table and are asked a question about you know your perspectives and it can be terribly alien ating and disruptive to the relationships we have in our lives. this project aims at helping people build the skills that they need to be able to talk about israel, even the most controversial policy, pieces of the conversation but in a way that will build much richer, much more meaningful conversation and we hope build relationships. >> how are we going to go about doing this? >> we are going to go about doing it in multiple ways, one, we are going to intensify and expand something called project reconnections which abbey and i started five years ago.

it is an intrajewish dialogue project that has been very successful and modeled for other parts of the country how to do internal, intrajewish conversations vibrant, engaging we don't gloss over the difficult stuff it is not just make nice it is real conversation and we are going to expand that but what is the work you are doing with the rabbi circle we are going to train facilitators so we will have many more dialogue opportunities for people to engage with, we will be having film and book discussion groups for people to engage the conversation but they will be engaging it hopefully in a way that is vibrant and rich and not so rankerous. we are trying to create a new normal. >> we are just going to take a quick break and come right back

to mosaic. please join us in just a moment ,,,,,,

welcome back to mosaic . i am rabbi ice. we are engaged in a new initiative called the year of civil discourse particularly focussing on issues around how we talk to each other in the jewish community about israel. rachel aaron is a mediator. we were talking about the break how the project is a collaborative venture and also the northern california board of rabbis and this might be hard to see for our folks just because there is so much text

but this is a pastoral leter that was written by a group of rabbis and signed by over 150 rabbis throughout the entire bay area that is essentially a letter asking people to take time and speak respectfully about israel and in that way it is a tremendous effort by the entire rabbinic community about every possible theological, political spectrum across the entire bay area, urging the entire jewish community to take seriously this year of civil discourse and what it means to listen and speak respectfully to one another about a controversial topic about israel. >> if i recall wasn't the letter itself written by a wide spectrum of rabbis? >> yes, the process of northern california board of rabbis was that it was open to all rabbis

in the entire bay area and then it was put together by a committee of rabbis from broad spectrum and all rabbis were invited to sign on to the letter and in fact, every rabbi that was contacted wants to sign on to the letter for any rabbi not on this list yet it is only a matter of letting us know and signing on to it. >> one thing i loved about the letter was that it really links to long jewish tradition of listening and speaking respectfully and also the tradition where we didn't and what happened. and the senseless hate red that would arise when we weren't really, you know, anchored in those teachings and one of the things that we do in the year of civil discourse is we really draw on our linage because it is really deep. we are building on the platform for bringing those teachings

into our modern world. >> i think one to have lovely things about rabbinic vice in this particular -- voice in this particular perspective people forget that in the context of jewish life when the temple stood in jerusalem and was destroyed, it was the rabbinic imagination that formed judaism that would be contemporary to every time and that judaism, academically is considered rabbinic but we call it being jewish today and that in some way that rabbinic imagination enabled jewish life to be contemporary so that an individual who is not religious can coequally claim to be jewish just like someone who is what we might think of as observant but within that context there is an

understanding of how we disagree with one another and a talmudic principle which means this and that, it is simple and basic but says from a theological perspective on x perspective and y perspective are coequally regarded from the perspective of theology. that is part of what we are trying to remind people of as we bring rabbinic imagination to this particular initiative and foundation. >> beautiful. >> it is so exciting to us to have the blessing of so many rabbis across the bay area, in doing this work and in addition to that blessing that we've got of the rabbis, we are really trying to create programs specifically for rabbis because we recognize that the rabbis in our community need to be equally supported in leading conversations that are

controversial whether from the pulpit or within a congregation or outside the doors of a congregation when rabbis in our community feel they can model civil discourse and facilitate it then all of us within the jewish community feel we have a safe place to have those kinds of conversations as well. this kind of both blessing from the rabbis and then leadership of the rabbis in support of them is such an exciting component. >> i think it just models the ways in which civil discourse can happen already organically on many many different levels among all different kinds of people, rabbis, lay leader, people otherwise not associated with the synagogue. >> we need it everywhere. really. there is no place and it is not just jewish life it is also the larger environment that we are living in and you know one of the things that i hold personally as a vision, is that if we in the jewish community, can really model this

conversation about israel, what might open up for the rest of our country on other controversial issues that we can really help to be leaders in this area. >> we are going to take a quick break and return in just a moment to continue this interesting vital conversation about the year of civil discourse ,,,, up, college is hard. down, those books are heavy. nnamdi, voice-over: my sport is football. but my passion is education. so every year, i take promising high schoolers on a college tour.

you're getting it. lights there. darks there. nnamdi, voice-over: to show them that higher education means a brighter future. [toot] [laughter] my name is nnamdi asomugha. i don't just wear the shirt, i live it. announcer: find out how you can live united for education. give. advocate. volunteer. go to liveunited.org. do you wear this?

welcome back to mosaic i am rabbi eric twice and honored to be your -- wise and honored to be your host. we are in a wonderful conversation with the associate director of jewish community relations council and i was thinking about one of the most interesting parts of this year's civil discourse in dialogue we live in a time in our country where there is so much pressure to say where you

stand on a particular issue and that you have to know with precision what you think about something, what direction you want to go in and even what action you want to take yet when you are open to listening and speaking and i think the very nature of dialogue has this under current there is a way in which there is an assumption that it is okay to take time to think something over, to mull something over, even be open by a kind of empathic stretch to hearing what someone else's perspective on something, changing your mind and in an odd way it seems almost counter cultural we do live in a time where we think our country has an impatiens with giving time for something to gestate or incubate or let imagination take its course. >> well, the project is -- and the different kinds of programs that we are offering are geared really at building the skills

to have conversations, controversial matters, not by asking people to check their opinions at the door. we do want people to bring their opinions to the table but rather than the goal being to change others opinions, our real focus is on dialoguing about the values and the philosophical underpinnings of our perspectives. that is where relationships are built and that is where there is common understanding and mutual respect that is developed. in today's politically polarizing, world where team sports are mode of operation we see that in the jewish religion as well. coming to the table talking about the things that drive us, fears, hopes, aspiration that is guide our opinions there we can build a much more inclusive

jewish community particularly around these issues. >> i would just add to what abbey said building on what you said rabbi wise, there is something about nuance really missing from the conversation too often. what we do is provide the infrastructure and help people work with the skills and learn the skills for unpacking those subtleties understanding the nuance and some times minds really do change usually what happens though is people don't change their core position they expand to include other people's views and that does something to the willingness and ability to try to problem solve in a new way. so if i can take into account your view and your view even if i do still hold my same old view i some how hold it differently i think that is what you are talking about being more porous and open.

if i hold it differently, we approach it differently. that changes everything and it changes the narrative to a more expansive one. >> what do you think the threat is that we respond to, it seems to me if i feel that i am not heard, that some how then i feel threatened or if someone hears something that they don't agree with, there is a sense of threat. what is the threat when we are talking about israel and we don't agree? >> can i jump in on this one? i actually started about 10 years ago, seeing something that i have called the if you don't see it my way we might all die syndrome. in addition to normal human wanting to be heard which i think we all have, there is also i think very deep jewish fear of survival that goes way back you know, 2,000 years of

history and it became necessary that we convince the tribes that we were right if we were going to go in a certain direction or the tribe didn't survive. the collective didn't survive. underneath the normal, amigdalla in the brain hijacks part of the brain, there is also a very much collective survival energy that is surrounding this topic and it is just so charged that you know there is just many many layers of it. >> we will take a quick break and continue this fascinating conversation please come back and join us here on mosaic

today is a special day. today, we gather as a nation and as an international community to recognize the selfless decision of one of the most influential women of our time. she's been recognized by religious figures, and politicians around the world. to us, she's just rachael, but to the rest of the world

she's the woman who, after having one too many drinks, chose not to drive home buzzed. here today to honor rachael is the family whose lives she spared.

for more information on the year of civil discourse please contact the jewish community relations council at www.jcrc dog www.jcrc.org or call them welcome back to mosaic. we are joined by abbey and rachel a professional mediator. rachel erin you were going to tell us a little bit about a case study. >> yeah, here is just one example of many, a recent temple where people were really angry over an israel support statement in the temple many people were going to leave s the rabbis who also are quite diverse in their opinions

brought everybody together we did some really great work jcrc consulted and within just two short meetings of two hours each, these people came together and created a statement, where there was unanimous agreement, actually and this was so polarized it took them a year of threatening to leave before they were able to come together and finally really get underneath and get to the fears and get to what was really important and they found agreement quickly. we see that happening often you know, so these very deeply polarized situations where people think there is no resolution often there is a resolution if people do the kind of you know subtle nuanced work and have the imagination you were speaking to and rabbis are supportive. >> i think in some subtle but maybe important shift that when we recognize where we have a

kind of fight fright response to something because we feel threatened if we take the time to allow our curiosity to be stimulated it can bring us to a different part of our soul, mind and heart and let the imagination allow us to listen and speak and maybe make some of that empathic porous stretch to one another and stand i wonder too, do you have experience of seeing where it effects the relationship between the rabbi and congregation in terms of what they might teach in adult education course or the way they might decide how the religious curriculum on the state of israel gets formulated and taught? >> yes, we do. we see rabbis are less fearful they are much more willing to stand up and talk about their values and also makes space in the room for the congregation

to talk about differing ways of viewing the situation. >> and lay leadership? >> lay leadership has very much been impacted by this as well. they are having to wrestle with these issues. people are changed this is a transformative process and people are not necessarily again -- their minds don't necessarily change but their capacity to hold the whole spectrum is really what changes. >> what is also important to say we live in a community, con versa tiffly, 25% of the jewish -- conservatively 25% of the jewish community is associated to a synagogue. for those who aren't attached to a synagogue, it is important to say that disagreement around the stand on israel, we hope is not a barrier, to looking for a synagogue community you feel attached to but in fact that

shouldn't be a litmus test butplace to go and bring your voice and earbe a part of a broader conversation. >> we hope this initiative will open the doors to have jewish community to everybody so through the institutional based programming we are going to do we hope to build added inclusivety and also program selections for people who may not be affiliated with an institution but who want to participate in the program our goal is to give a menu of options to everybody in the community. >> abbey and rachel aaron believe it or not we are at the end of our time. we have to say we put our comma in the conversation and say we are so grateful to have the two of you here and thank you for the vision of the year of civil discourse to bring this gift to the community for all of us to reap the benefits of. we thank you so much for your time and effort and thank you for joining us here on mosaic. have a wonderful day