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(JTA) — New England Patriots proprietor Robert Kraft participated in a panel dialog on preventing antisemitism and racism on Sunday through the annual NAACP conference in Boston.
Titled “Hate Has No Residence: Racism, Anti-Semitism and Constructing Bridges to Combat All Hate,” the dialog was moderated by Fox Sports activities host Pleasure Taylor and featured NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson, historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Kraft and the rapper and activist Meek Mill.
Mill and Kraft have been pals since Kraft helped advocate for the rapper’s launch from jail in 2018. They co-founded the nonprofit REFORM Alliance in January 2019 to advocate for felony justice reform, alongside rapper Jay-Z and Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, who can be Jewish.
Mill spoke about how significant it was when Kraft visited him in jail and in contrast the expertise to his journey to Poland with Kraft for the March of the Dwelling earlier this yr. He mentioned they every gained an understanding for the opposite’s neighborhood and their hardships.
“It was in all probability two years in the past when Robert mentioned, I’m going to get you to come back to Poland with me,” Mill mentioned through the dialog. “And I didn’t know the results of what number of pals I had that had been Jewish, that had members of the family that had been related to what occurred in Poland in Auschwitz.”
Earlier this yr, Kraft launched a $25 million social media marketing campaign referred to as #StandUpToJewishHate by his Basis to Fight Antisemitism, which aired advertisements throughout NFL video games final yr. He spoke on Sunday concerning the which means of “tikkun olam,” or repairing the world, and the essential partnership between the Black and Jewish communities.
“Persons are attempting to place boulders between the Black neighborhood and the Jewish neighborhood,” Kraft mentioned. “And we’ve all the time been uniquely tied collectively. And I need us to proceed that, and any means we are able to construct these ties, I need to be a part of that.”
Kraft mentioned he hopes his #StandUpToJewishHate marketing campaign — with its signature blue pin, which every panelist wore on stage — would function “a logo of unity and solidarity.”
Gates, who teaches at Harvard College and hosts the PBS sequence “Discovering Your Roots,” mentioned that anti-Black racism and antisemitism are sometimes tied collectively by white supremacy.
“I inform my college students at Harvard that underneath the floorboards of Western tradition run two streams: one is anti-Black racism and one is antisemitism,” Gates mentioned. “And any time a demagogue needs to fire up individuals they simply raise up the floorboards and dipper out all that hatred in opposition to our individuals and in opposition to our Jewish brothers and sisters.”
Gates additionally famous the well-known friendship between activist Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and civil rights chief Martin Luther King, Jr. He added that he’s engaged on a PBS sequence on Black-Jewish relations — which he mentioned Kraft was the primary to financially assist.
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