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Gathering House to host anti-Semitism discussion
A Spokane church will host a StandWithUs presentation on rising antisemitism in schools, Jewish student experiences and Israel, followed by a Q&A.
By Cody Wendt | FāVS News Reporter
The Gathering House, a church that doubles as a cafe on Spokane’s West Garland Avenue, is set to serve as the venue for a different sort of gathering this Tuesday.
Randy Kessler, executive director of the Jewish advocacy group StandWithUs, will lead a presentation titled “What We Are Seeing In Our Schools About Anti-Semitism and Israel” in partnership with the local organization Inland Empire for Israel. Proceedings are scheduled to run from 5:30-7:30 p.m.
Admission costs $10 and includes dinner provided at the beginning of the event. Once the main presentation concludes, a question-and-answer session will be held to wrap things up.
The matter at hand
“What we’re planning on doing is really focusing on what’s going on in schools as it relates to anti-Semitism, discussions of Israel and Jewish experience in general,” Kessler said.
A 59-year-old based out of the Seattle area, Kessler has held his position with StandWithUs for nine years. He will be joined onstage by associate director Jennifer Adut, campus regional manager Shachar-Lee Yaakobovitz and high school regional manager Valerie Rutenburg-Watkins.
The four will utilize a slideshow including “visual examples of the kind of things that we deal with, and also just to explain to people how our organization operates and about us,” as Kessler put it.
He noted that “the American experience has been widely viewed by the Jewish community as one of the most positive places for Jews to have lived anywhere in history,” but said that certain worrisome trends could threaten that status and must be addressed.
“There’s a lot to talk about, but the focus of this conversation is really to look at the experience of Jewish students,” Kessler continued. “Primarily and particularly those who have any expressed connection to Israel, who have been experiencing a tremendous rise in bullying, hate speech, being ostracized and a whole bunch of other social consequences for something that is just a part of their Jewish identity.”
Kessler espouses the view that people of Jewish descent in the United States are increasingly subject to a double standard under which they are wrongly blamed for the actions of the Israeli government, particularly regarding its conflict with Palestine.
“When things happen in Israel, American Jews feel the pressure and pay a certain price,” he said.
Having dialogues
This topic may also bear a particular sense of relevance for the Spokane church community after Pastor Luc Jasmin II of the city’s Jasmin Ministries resigned from the Washington State Human Rights Commission earlier this summer due to controversy over past remarks about Jews’ complaints of anti-Semitism.
Following the main presentation, Kessler emphasized that he and his co-hosts will welcome any respectful discussion and disagreement during the question-and-answer session.
“I’m happy to have whoever comes in and whoever is willing to listen and engage with what we have to say,” Kessler said. “We’re really open to having those dialogues and sharing our experiences with folks.”
The Gathering House declined an interview for this story.
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