Movement. Dr. Steven wornick is head of the group. It is a judaism that is deeply rooted in tradition, but yet has modernity. Reporter according the a new Research Poll by Pugh Research center only 30 would identify with the judaism, and they say it is in part because of how well jews have assimilated. The jews have been wildly successful, and the question becomes, why be jewish and for the first time in jewish history where you can optout, the question is, why optin . So the religions in the center that take a more nuanced or mosaic approach to religious life, making that life has been harder. Reporter they have been studying ways to understand the outrage, and they have been devoted to building spiritual communities and sometimes outside of synagogues. It is not about the bricks and the mortars, but about people and relationships. So we are working with the synagogues to ree imareimagine vision, and to think differently about how they build relationships. Reporter the denomination is especially concerned about reaching out to the younger jews. The pugh study found that among American Jews between 18 and 29, only 11 identify as conservative, compared to 29 for reformed jews and 41 who say they have no for mall affiliation at all. One of my teachers says it this way, we build the synagogues of the grandparents dreams and not our childrens dreams, and so not being affiliated to that group is a rejection of the institutional structures of the parents and the grandparents, but not necessarily a rejek shction of jewish identity. Reporter he says that people need to realize they are not going to spend their limited time in a place that doesnt move them. We have to concentrate on being welcoming and in deep meaningful ways, and we need to create a new pipeline of leadership who understands that the next generation is not interest interested in committees and boards, but the next generation is interested in purpose and meaning. Reporter despite the challeng challenges, he insists that he remains hopeful. You dont have a religious tradition around 34,000 years because you dont know how to do this. We know how to do this, so i am optimistic. Reporter and the foe e kus focus on renewal he says will sustain the movement for another 100 years and beyond. Im kyung lahton reporting. We have a report today by debra potter on a new movie opening nationwide this weekend. It is getting rave reviews for the powerful story of a free man who was forced into slavery. Where the oppress and the oppressors and the abolitionists all worship ped the same god. Mr. Northrup, i have two gentlemen whose acquaintance you should make. 12 years of slave is based on a memoir of a man who was kidnapped in 1841 and sold into slavery. How you feel now . My name is solomon northrup and im a free man, and you have no right whatsoever to detain me. Reporter on the one level, the film tells of bondage and brutali brutality. A man is his property. My name is not platte. Your name is platte. Reporter on a deeper level, it explores how religion and the bible were used to justify slavery. And that servant which knew his lords will, which knew his lords will and prepared not himself, prepared not himself and neither according to his will shall be beaten with many stripes. That is scripture. I am the god of abraham, the reporter and he lives in obscuri obscurity. No thanks to you. And it perpetuates evil. And he is a slave under the circumstances. Under the circumstances he is a slaifr, and when you go to the boots, you luxuriate i will not despair, and i will offer up my talents to master ford, and i will keep myself aftforded opportunity. , you think that he is your opportunity . You think that he does not know that you are more than you suggest, but he does nothing for you, nothing. You are no better than prized livestock. Reporter the degradation and abuse that solomon and the fellow slaves suffer makes it difficult to watch. But the producer Steve Mcqueen says it is necessary. It is one you cannot separate. It is about mental torture and physical torture that you need to keep people in line, and there is no way that you can vent that from the film about slavery, otherwise, there is no film. Reporter films of slavery are rare, and last year jane ge un jiang go unchained and it looks for the relationships with god. He is someone who is active and alive in his spirit, and in his soul, and he is in that completely sort of unbreakable. Well he was a preacher called and my bible said so too i said roll johnny roll roll johnny roll my soul arrives in heaven lord hallelujah roll jordan roll when solomon burst into song at some point, because he could cling on to it was alive and hope, and because if he didnt, he would lose his mind. This tells you how important, of course, religion was into keeping the people sane. My soul arrives in heaven lord for jordan rolls and songs like sweet chariot teaches about the experience of slaves, a code. They come from a place of catharsis and healing, because they were looking of a story of the israelites that they had endured bondage and had been freed and translating the stories for themselves, says that god hears me, and god knows, and he understands my system of bondage and god understands my state, and god will free me. Reporter slave owners relied on other bible passages. Religion was used to dehumanize and it was an insistence of the reality of the curse of ham which is that the descendents of ham were africans and cursed to serve their probrother, and so thers went so far as to ip sthais tnsist that enslaved person was no better than an animal, and that they had no soul, and that the soul could not be enslaved. I want to ask you what part of the country you come from. I orniginate from canada. Guess where that is . I know where canada is. I have been there myself. A lot of travel for a slave. He regained the help of the other abolitionists like samuel bass. They are not hired help, but they are are my property. You say it with pride. I say it as fact. If this conversation concerns what is factual and what is not, then it must be said that there is no justice or righteousness in the slavery. They are using the scriptures and the stories to make their claims of freedom, and they are doing it absolutely brilliantly. Reporter at the heart of the film is the experience of one man whose freedom was stolen and never loses hope, and a story that the audience can relate to. I wanted everybody to be in the shoes of solomon and that is how i constructed the film, and i wanted people to sort of go on the journey with him. Some critics have questioned why it took a british director to bring the quintessential sto story to the screen. My mother and father from grenada and the reason i am here is because of to slave trade right now, and my relationship to people in america is the same, so it is not about my being british, but it is about my being a part of the global thing called the slave trade. It is complicate and very ugly history, and so we dont want to talk about it, and we want to pretend that it is a very long time ago when i simply want to suggest that we are still living with the e repercussions of it. Reporter 50 years after the march in washington for civil rights, and 150 years after slavery, it may be time for 12 years of a slave to talk about the relations. And it is about remembering and never forgetting and understanding the past and embracing the past, and go forward into the future. I think that it speaks to the ongoing need for human respect simply. To see people as they are, and see people as individuals. It leads us down the road towards recognizing Human Dignity which inexorably leads us down the road to understanding the importance of peace. That is a lot to hope for from a movie, but it forces the viewers to really see a history that many would rather forget, 12 years of slave could stir the conversation. For religion ethics newsweekly, im debra potter in washington. And now a lucky severson story about thailand and a lawyer who is teaching students all over Southeast Asia that they have a responsibility to help the poor, and then training them to do just that, at least for sex workers. This is a cross gendered cabaret in thailand and the workers here are considered the lowest of the low. This is the spokesperson for them. You are supposed to use the law to protect people, and not to just use the law to protect some people, but almost everybody now it has come back that the sex worker has to pay for the police. You just have to pay, and they will protect you. Antidiscrimination laws in thailand are nonxexistent or weak at best, and those laws have to be strengthened or developed in the first place. One way or another, bruce lasky will do what he can to defend the sex workers or those who need legal help. He moved to asia from new york with ambitions and some say a starryeyed notion of helping the lowest of the low, and anyone else who lacks access to justice. He calls his organization bridges across borders Southeast Asia. I think that i was ignorant, and this is a good thing. I did not realize the oagainst. Susan has worked with him and she is an associate dean at the Drexel Law School in philadelphia. He is a risktaker, and very compassionate person. Hes an idealist, i think. It is untsable that there were skeptics when lasky set out to have access for the mass of Southeast Asia, and this is a region where poverty is wide spread, and the rule of law is weak and human rights are only starting to get fractions, and lawyers only represent the powerful and the rich. So he has his work cut out for him. To begin with, he realized he needed to beef up the human rights education, and teach them that they have an obligation to help the poor. Some will say that you are west en, and that is a western idea, and we go back to their own ethics and religious teaching, and we go back to buddhism and islam and christianity and judaism, and we say that in all of the teachings, it is the idea to help people and it does not stop at the profession. And gradually they would establish clinics to get practical experience to working with the dised a vanged. Along with a handful of paid staffers, he recruits professors from the u. S. , including robert dickie. It is to have a pro bono clinic that the students will man under the supervision of the dean and be backed up by law professors, and they will get credit for that course. And the students, the young people seem to like that a lot, and they are quite enthusiastic about that. Reporter in the university of the law school, the most prestigious in thailand, professor pan says that laskys work is making a difference amongs to be. The benefit is that in the few chu, you will have more lawyer es who are willing to do Public Service. I like them to have lawyer heart and lawyer head in a good way. Not, not a lawyer who pursue for money. We tell people, go out, buy a nice house, raise a family, make money. We encourage people to make money, take care of your family, but give back, and while you are doing that, and while you are doing that and making the money, do it ethically. And by ethically, he means if a law is unfair, you change it and dont go around it which is what is often done in the Southeast Asian countries. You wont use bribes to get something done . I will not. That is, period, just a rule. It is a full stop. It is a full stop. Many people believe it is impossible or you must play the corrupt in bribes, and they are afraid. They are afraid. Lasky says that he knew when he was a young man that he wanted to be a Public Service lawyer, and decision that may have been influenced by his father who was a Union Representative who he believes was murdered for the union ties. It is not so much that my father was assassited, but the values, the values of the people and the values for the workers and the values for tohose who dont have that were passed on. It is an incident in law school that propelled him to help those who didnt help and it is when someone called him a crude antisemitic name, and at fir first he with was angry and offended, but then he realized that others suffered much worse. Im a middleclass white male in the united states, and im having these feelings, and i realized, what about the others . Those who are lower socioeconomic position than i am, those in the ethnic minorities and those with the low levels of education and illiterate, and what about them . How do they feel . His office outside of thailand have paintings of those who come throughout asia to learn from lasky. If you notice that the scales are weight ed evenly, and i woud say that quite often they are not weighted evenly. There is the ethical issue of societys responsibility to provide access to justice. It is a fundamental right. And then so we say, why is there no law it is apeddles, e everywhere he is going. He is always going. He operates on a shoestring budget of 500,000 a year, and most of the funding comes are from small contributors, and in the day, he is on the countryside with interns and volunteers in a place called the wildfire scenter run by elizabeh from arkansas. These women are from abused home situations, and from situations where they could really use some legal counsel, and for them to come to give class about what their rights are is very helpful for these wom women. And this is one of the student interns and she knows what it is like to be an immigrant. A lot of it is very similar to the issues that my parents faced and my grandparents faced, so, yes, im quite aware of the issues in the underprivileged society, yeah. Lasky has now connected with over 50 universities throughout asia and established legal clinics in a number of them. And how many law student dos you believe you have worked with with over the years . Thousands. Absolutely thousands, and if you take that idea and you think about the power of one, it is amazing. Recently, he was invited to establish legal clinics in myanmar and also asked to set up clinics in the middle east. For religion ethics newsweekly, im lucky severson in thailand. On our calendar, there is the celebration of the birth of the bob, and they consider the bob a messenger of god who in the 19th century prepared the way for the founder of their faith. Thats our program for now. Im Bob Abernethy and you can follow us on twitter and facebook and watch us any time on the pbs app for iphones and i ipads. And visit our website where there is always much more, and where you can listen to or watch each of the programs. Join us at pbs. Org. As we leave you, music from this weeks meeting in baltimore of the United Synagogue of conservative judaism. Open up the lips and sing out. Come on, we want to hear you. Major funding for religion ethics newsweekly is provided by the lily endowment, an indianapolisbased private Family Foundation dedicated to its founders interest in religion, community development, and education. Additional funding by mutual of america, designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Rachel did you know that homicide is the leading cause of death for young people in dc ages 10 through 24, according to the centers for Disease Control and prevention . Sierra no, but did you know that one in four teens doesnt feel safe in his or her school, according to the study by Josephson Institute of ethics . Tyler were going to talk about all of this and how violence and bullying affects teens today on whats good dc . Im tyler. Rachel hey, im rachel sierra and im sierra tyler and heres our dj, illa jams. Wassup, illa jams . [music playing] rachel violence and bullying are a major issue in schools in dc right now. Sierra lets hear from some teens whose lives have been affected by violence in their schools. Cathy lanier earlier today, around lunch hour, in the school, there was a fight that broke out among students in and around the cafeteria in the school. School resource officers along with School Administrators did attempt to break up the fight. During the course of that, the assistant principal was struck, so one arrest has been made in terms of the assault of a principal. As that fight was going on and officers were trying to quiet down that fight, a group of students did come out of the school. And while those students were outside of the school, sometime after the fight, there was a sound of gunshots. Student kids got into an altercation friday. As we were going to our football game. It was like, it was. They was going to get them back, one way or another. So i guess today they got them back. Officer you always have kids thatll clash for one reason or another because of the activities they had over the weekend. But during the course of the school week, whatever intel we get, in reference to any type of neighborhood clashes or impending neighborhood clashes, we bring the kids in to mediate the situation before it turns into anything violent. Student just sort of beefs. Interviewer oh, because they live in different neighborhoods. [girl shouting] which neighborhoods . Student choppa city, potomac gardens, 37th. Lanier they try and get them together and mediate, and 8 out of 10 times that works, and thats an important part of the process. Tyler powerful words, guys. Its amazing that people start fights over Something Like the block which you live on something so simple. Sierra yeah, its really sad that all this gunplay and violence is going on just because someone is from a different area. And i think its really a lack of communication. Tyler yeah, i think theres a misconception that it only happens in anacostia. You know what i mean . This goes all around, all around the city, and you have these incidents of violence. Rachel i mean, i think, a common string between all of these violent situations is that people arent really happy with themselves. And when youre not happy with yourself, you kind of dont know where to go. You dont know where to turn, and you get angry. And violence is just a product of that. Tyler i dont think people are, i would say people are not happy with themselves, and maybe also their environment. You see violence follow poverty. You know what i mean . Rachel now, we want to hear from you. Pull out your cell phones and let us know, is violence a problem at your school or neighborhood . If you think yes, text violence to 22333. And if you text, if you think no, text noviolence, one word, to 22333. Man i am a retired marine, a veteran from vietnam. And to come back here and have to fight with these youth, you know, not just here in dc, but in maryland, virginia, everywhere in this country, you know, its pathetic. Woman well, my Little Sisters only 18, and shes lost a couple of friends due to violence or just irresponsible activities that could have been prevented. Theyre either passed or theyre incarcerated. Man sometimes when im on the train, you know, i just kind of think to myself, i know were not all raised the same, but just some of the mannerisms
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.