KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As the United States continues to confront racism, it’s also grappling with another type of hate: anti-Semitism.
In the Kansas City metro, it's of grave concern to Jewish leaders.
"Locally I speak a lot with students, high school, and college. I’ve been incredibly troubled with the consistency by which they report to me experiences of anti-Semitism on a regular basis on their high school and college campuses," said Gavriela Geller, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Bureau Executive Director.
Not just actions, but words.
Recent anti-Semitic statements from Black celebrities, like Nick Cannon and DeSean Jackson, have the Black community starting difficult conversations.
"We have to address that and I think just over the years that anti-Semitism, that misinformation has spread beyond just religion and it has become a part of, unfortunately, culture where people have, I guess, the wrong ideas or bad ideas, misinformation about Jewish people," said Pastor Emanuel Cleaver III of St. James United Methodist Church.
It’s a difficult balance in the current moment.
"I think as Jews we have to understand and acknowledge that if we’re white Jews, we don’t have the same experience as a Black person and we need to stand with the Black community. And it doesn’t mean our experience of anti-Semitism is illegitimate and it doesn’t mean the Jewish community is less deserving of ally-ship than anyone else," Geller said.
The two groups agree: there is strength in numbers, with precedent.
"During the Civil Rights Movement, the Jewish community was very involved in the marches and protests and I just think you have two groups that have been historically discriminated against," Cleaver said.
Local leaders say educating each other, and mutual ally-ship, is critical moving forward.
"The reality is we have a common enemy in white supremacy. Anti-Semitism and racism are core pillars of that ideology. We cannot let that external force of white supremacy divide our communities, to divide and conquer, we have to be stronger than that, we have to unite together," Geller said.
"I think once we get to know others who are different than us. It eliminates a lot of those barriers," Cleaver said.
