Last weekend I traveled to Ashland to visit the Jewish community there and attend a bias response workshop. Asland can feel quite far away, but I was reminded that it’s an easy 4.5-hour drive with a good audiobook playing. I traveled there a couple of years ago to do community training (Ashland has two synagogues and a Chabad), and I recall a turnout of about 25 people; a solid number. Of course, it was great to meet community leaders and members. This most recent trip came at the invitation of the Southern Oregon Jewish Community Coalition, a group representing all three Ashland organizations, which was hosting A Day of Action Against Antisemitism:  From Awareness to Action - Responding to Antisemitism in the Rogue Valley and Beyond.  This workshop was funded in large part with funds from the JFGP Security Grant. This workshop would not have happened without that support, and the community was very grateful for the funding.

I’ll pause here to say that I’ve decided to make this column into two parts, and this is Part One. This part is the who-what-where of the workshop. My next column will be lessons learned, as I know many people have an interest in the topic and a desire to be more comfortable responding to bias.

The SOJCC community is also a formal Kulanu group. Kulanu is a Hebrew word meaning “all of us;” as a formal organization, it seeks to unite disparate Jews, and as an ADL program, its goal is antisemitism work. The group has had successes within Ashland politics and is looking to expand those efforts across the valley. Last July, an Ashland community member reached out to me to see if I knew of any group that could do a workshop on responding to antisemitism. The Kulanu group had drawn over 60 people at a recent event discussing rising bias, how it’s changed how people are feeling in the past couple of years, and people were eager to learn how to respond – how to avoid that deer-in-the-headlights feeling when someone says something offensive to you. Maybe it’s from a stranger, maybe from your best friend.

I put them in touch with a local organization that put them in touch with Marc Weinblatt, from Mandala Center for Change in Port Townsend, Wash. Marc and his wife, Zhaleh Almaee, ultimately traveled to Ashland to bring this workshop to life. The topic was so important for people that 50 people gave up a full sunny Sunday to come learn more. Marc’s mother was a survivor of the Holocaust, and Zhaleh is an Iranian American who learned in her 20s that her mother was Jewish. Their work is deeply rooted in exploring racism, understanding its impact, and navigating the response process. The most important goal was that people would come away with “tools in the toolbox”. No one wanted to sit for a day being lectured about how to respond. It needed to be a full-contact, participatory event. They wanted people to walk away feeling empowered and a little more confident in the knowledge that they could respond to bias with something other than a frozen look, a stammer, or the feeling two hours later when you come up with the perfect response. That was the minimum goal. That participants also came away hopeful, more connected, and joyous about being Jewish was icing on the cake.

Next time I’ll dig in more to how the day unfolded, strategies we learned and practiced, and hopefully you’ll walk away with some ideas of your own as well. Learn more about the Mandala Center at mamandalaforchange.comndalaforchange.com.