Yitzchok Adlerstein: Zionism, the American Yeshiva World, and Reaching Beyond Our Community [Outreach 1/5]

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In this episode of the 18Forty Podcast, we launch our new topic, Outreach, by talking to Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, a senior staff member at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, about changing people’s minds, the value of individuality, and the “no true Scotsman” fallacy.

With the tectonic shifts happening to our religious communities, political affiliations, and technological tools, conversations across social boundaries are becoming increasingly crucial. In this episode we discuss:

• How do we reach out to people “outside our communities,” in the many senses of that phrase?
• How do the needs of the American Yeshiva World differ from the needs of the Israeli Haredi World?
• How should we address the worldwide realignment that cultures of all kinds are experiencing?

Tune in to hear a conversation about the importance of being “translators” across communities as we exchange ideas with one another.

Interview begins at 21:34.

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein is a senior staff member at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish advocacy group and international NGO. He also holds the Sydney M. Irmas Adjunct Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Rabbi Adlerstein is the co-founder of Cross-Currents, an online journal of Orthodox Jewish thought, and regularly contributes to that site. He is on the editorial board of Klal Perspectives, an online journal of issues facing the Orthodox community.

References:

Iyun Podcast with Rabbi Ari Koretzky

18Forty Podcast: “Ari Koretzky: In Conversation With Dovid Bashevkin”

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz

“We Need To Start Befriending Neo Nazis” by Bethany Mandel

Ben Torah For Life by Rabbi Aaron Lopiansky

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

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