BONUS: My hour with the rabbi

What my conversation with Rabbi Dresner taught me about the power of knowledge.

On 22 December 2021, I sat in my mother’s office on Zoom, moderating a conversation between Rabbi Israel Dresner and Dr. William G. Anderson about their legacy as leaders in the Civil Rights Movement. This conversation came together in a whirlwind, and even now, a month later, the significance is only just hitting me. More so with the news that Rabbi Dresner passed away on 13 January 2022. 

The conversation was the product of an impulsive email I sent to Rabbi Dresner’s former synagogue, Temple Beth Tikvah, in New Jersey after seeing Rabbi Dresner’s last aliyah while streaming Shabbat services from Central Synagogue in New York. Much to my astonishment, I heard back. Temple Beth Tikvah connected me to Rabbi Dresner’s son and torchbearer, Avi. The first thing Avi told me was that his father had stage 4 cancer, was not awake for much of the day, and likely only six weeks to live. But, he said, if we could find a way to make this happen, we would. 

Planning the conversation became an incredibly emotional process for me. In March 2021, I lost both of my maternal grandparents very suddenly to Covid-19, and those eccentricities of Rabbi Dresner I was privy to reminded me so much of my grandfather. On his final trip to New York, beyond attending services at Central Synagogue, Rabbi Dresner had his last pastrami sandwich from Katz’s Deli and went to see his last Broadway show: Book of Mormon. These things, he told me, he was pleased to have had on his bucket list - even if he didn’t finish his sandwich. In his invitation to Dr. Anderson to participate in our conversation, Avi shared with me a glimpse of his father’s character as someone who was concerned with others to the bitter end. This included being more interested in the heritage of his doctors and nurses than his stage 4 colon cancer diagnosis, and, I like to tell myself, agreeing to spend some of the precious time available to him, talking to us. 

With Avi’s assistance in translating English to English, and at times, English to Hebrew, we gathered together on a Wednesday afternoon to talk about a life well-lived. The words may not have been as easily grasped as they once were, and stories sometimes involved extensive contextualizing, something I understand the Rabbi was known for, but they were nevertheless worth hearing. Rabbi Dresner treated his linguistic lapses and pauses with humour, blaming his nearly 93 years of age. 

We knew, before the event, that this was to be the last conversation between Dr. Anderson and Rabbi Dresner. The two had met in 1961 due to their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, and Rabbi Dresner’s most extended conversation with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. took place at Dr. Anderson’s home. I approached the discussion with a feeling of reverence - we were doing much more than an event on the historical relationship between the Black and Jewish communities. We were capturing a glimpse of the shared legacy of fighting against injustice embodied by these two men.

Rabbi Dresner was the Rabbi closest to Rev King and became the most arrested Rabbi during the Civil Rights Movement, with one of his arrest cases reaching the Supreme Court. Rabbi Dresner participated in the Freedom Ride in 1961 and helped organize the largest mass arrest of clergy in American history in St. Augustine, Florida. 

My hour with Rabbi Dresner taught me about knowing your history to become part of making history. 

Even with the words not as quickly within reach, Rabbi Dresner displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of an America he was foundational in changing. I have long been told of the power of knowing your history, and as a journalist, I believed wholeheartedly in the idea that just putting the information out there would be enough. My hour with Rabbi Dresner taught me how we can turn knowledge into action and that in the right hands, information can spark a fire to change things for the better. 

Every part of Rabbi Dresner’s action on social justice causes from the Civil Rights era onwards was firmly situated in the context of the moment. In going down to Tallahassee, Rabbi Dresner was taking his deep understanding and awareness of the era he was living in and using it to form how he went about achieving change. He used his wealth of knowledge to act on the principle of Tikkun Olam - repairing the world. 

We live in an age when information is constantly available. We all have the option to be more informed about the world now than ever before. We can situate ourselves in our context and ask ourselves what we want to do to improve it. But just knowing what is happening is not enough. We need to be asking ourselves what we can do with this knowledge. How can we take what we know and make things better for those who come after us? 

This lesson from my hour with Rabbi Dresner could not have come a moment too soon when only days after his passing, the safety of the Jewish community was challenged once more. We are again tasked with taking in our surroundings and context and asking ourselves how, armed with this knowledge, we can take steps to repair the world.