Area Residents Participate in Black/Jewish Dialogue Program
- Mara Dresner
- Mar 16
- 7 min read
by Mara Dresner
Contributing Writer
This fall, Black and Jewish leaders met regularly as part of the first greater Hartford cohort of Rekindle, a national program designed to foster collaboration and allyship between the two communities.
“Rekindle brings together changemakers and leaders from the Black and Jewish communities for thoughtful and challenging dialogue, breaking down barriers and building bridges of understanding and partnership,” explained Lee Ann Benadiva of Farmington, who served as co-administrator of the program, along with Jody Lefkowitz of Hartford. “We had our first cohort in the fall of 2025 and it was a meaningful success with 14 fellows: seven Black leaders and seven Jewish leaders from the greater Hartford area. This group has created beautiful friendships by sharing cultural experiences with each other.”
Nationally, more than 300 fellows from 30 cohorts have participated in the program. Fellows participate in five sessions, with an optional sixth session.
Benadiva, who is a chairperson for the Grassroots Jewish Women of CT and a board member of Temple Beth El in West Hartford, noted that her interest in Black/Jewish relations dates back to her youth.
“Growing up in Detroit during the riots instilled in me a deep compassion and desire to connect with the Black community. With the recent rise in antisemitism since October 7 [2023], this feels like an important moment for our outreach to build stronger relationships with the greater Hartford Black community,” she said. “Since racism and antisemitism are both products of hate, I feel our communities working together can only make the greater Hartford area a better place to live and raise our families.”
Bob Rader, a Glastonbury resident who is president of the Glastonbury Martin Luther King Community Initiative and a regional board member of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), was a co-moderator, along with Dr. Martha Brackeen-Harris of Bloomfield.
“We work with the fellows to ensure that there are good conversations, that people feel they are being heard; we ask questions; we really try to make sure that this is a positive experience for anyone becoming a part of it,” explained Rader, who’s the retired executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
“I think a lot of my molding, if you will, of my own beliefs happened in the 60s. I went to integrated schools and grew up with a firm belief that Blacks and Jews could work together successfully as we had in the 60s. That is also one of the reasons I’m president of the Martin Luther King Initiative. I strongly believe in diversity, in inclusiveness and in empathy for all races and all people,” Rader said. “Even though the people who were applying and who were accepted to the program obviously cared about Blacks and Jews learning about each other, I was very concerned about what was happening in Gaza and across the world in terms of antisemitism would cast a pall over our discussions and nothing like that happened. There was real back and forth; there was real learning; and there was real bonding between the participants.”
Sessions were held for three hours every other week during the fall for five sessions.
“There’s an optional sixth session, which is going to take place which will be a discussion about Israel and Palestine,” Rader added.
Graduation was held December 1. The fellows were able to choose a name for their cohort and selected “Genesis.”
“What’s interesting to me is the chats on WhatsApp have continued and people continue to get together and discuss things with each other. They’ve really made some wonderful friends for life,” Rader said.
Beyond the five sessions, the Rekindle program includes RISE (Rekindle Intercultural Sharing and Exchange) projects, which allows participants a chance to explore one another’s cultures and backgrounds on a more personal level. RISE projects included a Shabbat dinner, attending religious services, touring a kosher kitchen, sharing poetry, visiting the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Simsbury and visiting the Yoruba exhibit at The Amistad Center for Art & Culture in Hartford.
“I am so honored to have been part of this amazing, giving, thought-provoking group. This experience was and is amazing, and will live with me for many years to come. We are still planning events to share with one another,” said Erica Bloch, a part-time massage therapist from West Hartford. Bloch belongs to an Orthodox synagogue, and has also taught and worked in Human Resources.
She admits she wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the program.
“I wanted to learn, and meet a diverse group of people, interested in listening to each other and challenging fixed ideas,” she said. “I was most surprised by how many interesting life experiences I heard about. My favorite parts were the coffee meetings one-on-one, and the RISE groups, where we devised cultural/religious events to expose our small groups of four to.”
She sees the impact of the program beyond the sessions.
“It’s so important as it teaches one to listen to and really hear the experiences of others. Once you really understand others, you can support them and get support,” Bloch said. “It really builds allyship, in this case between Blacks and Jews at a time when both groups are being threatened and needing allies.”
David Brandwein of West Hartford, a retired environmental attorney/engineer, who is a member of Beth El Temple and past chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, originally applied because he wanted to expand his circle.
“[I wanted] to meet a wider variety of people than I normally encounter and to learn about the breadth of their experience,” he said.
He was surprised by “how much variation of life experiences, practices and opinions there were both within the Jewish members and the Black members.”
Like the others, Brandwein enjoyed the RISE sessions.
“Each member of a RISE team sponsored or hosted an event for the team or the entire cohort – we got to attend church or synagogue services, Friday night Shabbat dinners, tours of museums such as the Caribbean Museum at the West Indian Social Club and the Tobacco Valley Museum; a jazz concert; a Holocaust Remembrance Day program and more,” he said. “Everyone person is unique; don’t assume that just because one shares a religion or skin tone that they fit into the same category or share the same beliefs.”
Participants for the first cohort came from throughout greater Hartford, including Glastonbury, West Hartford, Manchester, Windsor, Granby, Bloomfield and Hartford.
Suzanne Batchelor Pinkes, a retired attorney and president of the Larrabee Fund Association, Inc., of Greater Hartford, has a longstanding commitment to Black/Jewish relations. The West Hartford resident is board chair for ADL Connecticut (through June) and is co-chair of ADL’s National Commission, a group of nearly 500 of ADL’s most involved and committed volunteer leaders from across the country.
“I have been involved with ADL for about 20 years and its mission animates much of my volunteer involvement. I have spent a lot of time trying to understand both antisemitism and anti-Black racism and the devastating impacts of these hatreds by reading countless books, listening to podcasts, attending webinars and watching documentaries on these subjects. In addition, the Connecticut regional board of ADL has several Black members, and we had begun internal discussions about how we could deepen the relationship between our two communities. In the course of these discussions, we were introduced to the Rekindle Fellowship, which is designed to do just what we were seeking. In fact, our two moderators, one Black Christian and one white Jew, are both members of the ADL Regional Board,” said Batchelor Pinkes, who also collaborated with Rabbi Philip Lazowski of West Hartford on his latest book, “Transforming Darkness into Light: A Holocaust Survivor’s Lessons on Fighting Hate.”
“Our communities have a long history of working together to reduce bigotry and secure justice, and I was hoping that Rekindle could help us continue to amplify this work together here in greater Hartford,” she said.
Batchelor Pinkes noted that at times it’s easy to become insular.
“I think when you are actively involved in the Jewish community, you can forget what a tiny minority we are – about .2% of the world population – and begin to assume that other people know a lot about us. I have been surprised on many occasions by how little people know and understand about the Jewish people. Additionally, despite all of the educating I have tried to do for myself on anti-Black racism, I am always startled and disappointed and frustrated by the persistence of racism and the sheer number of racist incidents Black people, even in our community here, experience. Often, this is intentional, but sometimes it is just ignorant. We all have a responsibility to do better. When it is your friend who is hurting from bigotry, you really can’t ignore it; it becomes personal,” she said.
She hopes the Rekindle program will be a springboard.
“I feel like I see and hear so much misinformation about both Jewish people and Black people, especially on social media. Building understanding between different parts of our community in this intentional way is so impactful and can help to counter this misinformation and the hate that flows from it. Additionally, it is very easy to live within a silo, where all your friends are Jewish or Christian or Black. Each one of us will take what we have learned out into our lives, talking about it with our families, friends and communities. That also helps. The bottom line is that we all made new friends and increased our understanding, empathy and compassion. This was a real gift. Imagine what it would be like to have more people do this. I would love to see new cohorts start in other areas of Connecticut,” she said.
Rader too sees the impact that the program made.
“This may sound a bit emotional, but it made me feel good to see people becoming friends, caring about each other, being generous with each other and acting in a way that all of us should act toward each other,” he said. “It’s important for the community to show that we can live together and move toward Martin Luther King’s idea of the beloved community. In other words, a community without racism, without antisemitism, where people choose love instead of hate, and believe that the universe is on the side of justice.”
To learn more about Rekindle, including how to apply for the next cohort, visit rekindlefellowship.org.