New Recording 16 (1)

The Jewish community in Miami faces unique challenges, but also benefits from being a larger community with easier access to kosher food and a sense of understanding as a city of immigrants. However, students from Miami may struggle when they leave for college and face anti-Semitism and challenges regarding the legitimacy of Israel. The Jewish community in Miami maintains its cultural and religious identity through accessible Jewish institutions, such as Temple.com and the Miami Jewish Film Festival. Being a female rabbi is fulfilling, but it comes with its own challenges, including resistance from some orthodox colleagues. However, being a woman in this role allows for more personal interactions with children. Overall, Miami's Jewish community is navigating these challenges and finding ways to connect with their Judaism. um so we'll start now um let's start with can you describe some of the unique challenges faced by the jewish community in miami um so i actually think that the jewish community in miami is quite lucky one is that it's a bigger jewish community we make up seven percent of the city population and in the united states jews are like about two percent so it's already uh there's already a lot of jews in the area which is nice and it's easier for us to find community to find kosher food uh you know publics have out displays for the jewish holidays right now for passover so in many ways we're lucky and miami also happens to be a city of immigrants and so i think the understanding of like having to flee from a country in order to find safety is something that resonates with people in miami and so miami happens to be a place where zionism is more accepted than in other big cities even other big cities with large jewish populations like a new york or la so in many ways the jewish community in miami is like more protected than jewish communities in other cities right now because we are in a bubble in a bubble um that being said i do think it's very hard for students here in miami who go away to college and realize that they were in a bubble for the first time and are very much challenged they a lot of them experience a lot of jewish stereotyping and kind of ignorant questioning for the first time and very much for in for students who are in in many colleges right now they're really being challenged on supporting israel there's a there's first of all an assumption that all jews support israel um and then there's really a lot of challenge about why we need a jewish state a lot of words being used around the jewish state such as you know occupation and um colonialization and genocide which are all very big powerful words um that are not being used correctly and it becomes very hard for students who leave who are you know most of them are leaving around the age of 18 uh to go and to have to challenge and defend a jewish state um it's really hard for adults to do as well um but it's it is a big challenge for our students who have never really faced um anti-semitism or faced really a challenge to the legitimacy of the state of israel to leave um and be expected to answer for the israeli government for all of jewish people um so it is a big challenge that being said there is of course anti-semitism within miami and there is of course um anti-zionism and anti-israel sentiment it's just not um as abundant as you'll as people feel it in other areas got it yeah so building on top of the kind of integration thing how do you think the jewish community in miami navigates maintaining its like cultural and religious identity while also integrating with the other diverse cultures in the city that's a great question um a lot of studies have been done where it's really like third generation immigrants uh very much like lose their language and a lot of the cultural um identity and that's also true jews often um it one of some of the ways that we hold on is by having really um creative and and accessible jewish institutions uh i work at temple.com it's the largest congregation in the area we have a jewish day school where kids you know grow up learning the jewish values you know feeding the hungry um being brave speaking up uh caring for the stranger giving so that got they you know that's like part of their education and they also grow up singing songs in english and in hebrew learning stories uh so it's you know when it's built into the the school day it's it's a lot easier and more accessible for students who don't do that you know they have access to our religious school and youth groups and then for 20s and 30s we have pop-up shabbats on rooftops and brickle and we have for high school students social justice team fellowship um really tried to put judaism into action and we have miami hosts the miami jewish film festival it's actually the largest jewish film festival in the states and we have a really big and um i i'm gonna say creative i got like a big a big and open and embracing federation uh that helps people to find ways to connect to their judaism that being said the biggest the the biggest number of jews like don't belong anywhere um but they still have a lot of a lot of jews even if they don't belong to synagogues still have a strong jewish identity uh it just it might be that they connect in different ways to their judaism it's part of what's interesting about judaism is that we are we are a religion and you can convert and you can leave um but we're also a people in a culture so um so people who even don't belong to synagogue and plenty of people who do belong to synagogue don't believe in god but even people who you know don't believe in god and don't necessarily resonate with their religious aspects still can have a very strong jewish identity 100 percent thank you and uh one final question just more of a personal thing what is it like to be a female rabbi and what has been like the biggest help or the biggest stakeholder in that process what does that mean what is the biggest stakeholder in that process like essentially what was what was the thing that helped you the most and or like what was the thing that was the biggest like the biggest thing you had to overcome during that process okay so um i actually i love being a female rabbi i was brought up by very liberal parents who are always you know into doing social justice i like to joke but it's true that my grandparents on my mom's side met at on on a picket line and my grandparents on the other side met in a dp camp a displaced persons camp there were survivors of the holocaust um so it's like in my blood to want to do justice work and so i love being a rabbi because we were taught that god created us to fix the brokenness in the world um so i have a religious grounding to doing justice work i also love being a woman in this space because i've always been a feminist before deciding that i wanted to be a rabbi i was studying to be a chemical engineer i was the only girl in many of my classes and i i wanted to i always wanted to kind of break those barriers and feelings that being said it is it has its moments it's hard uh women have only been ordained since 1972 i have orthodox colleagues who won't call me rabbi or shake my hand um and when i was studying in israel people it was really hard for israelis to wrap their mind around women rabbis and especially against around somebody saying that they were religious without being orthodox um but a lot of that has you know shifted over the past 20 years since i was a student in israel and and i do think like other identities you know there's there's the intersectionality of being a woman and being a jew and you know that there are certain privileges and certain um i guess the opposite of privileges that come with those identities um one of the things i love about being a female rabbi is that i'm allowed to like hug the kids and tell them i love them i know my male colleagues can't really do that um but at the same time there are still to this day people who you know when they have a life cycle event they want a man um and and so it's you know it's it's a growing it's a growing but i'm happy to be part of kind of the second generation of women rabbis who are making it very normal that kids grow up knowing that women can be rabbis and and not assuming that rabbi automatically means man 100 percent all right so um thank you so much for your time rabbi greengrass my pleasure thank you charlie thank you reed thank you and um yeah have a good one thank you for coming on no problem all right take care guys