(RNS) In the days following the death of George Floyd, Marc Dollinger was suddenly in demand everywhere.
In addition to teaching classes at San Francisco State University where he is full professor, the blond-haired historian of U.S. Judaism was suddenly sought after for his insights on the racial reckoning happening across the country and the role American Jews play in it.
In the middle of a pandemic and amid an intensity that hasn’t let up, Dollinger parked himself in front of his home computer and hasn’t left.
Since May, the 56-year-old professor has led 80 Zoom lectures and workshops, speaking to synagogue groups, college students and interfaith leaders. He’s been invited to talks at Jewish community centers, historical societies and book clubs. He was interviewed by the NFL and by CNN’s Don Lemon. He spoke to German public radio and to a Mormon-Jewish dialogue group.
Far too often, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel is used to justify an attitude he never held: complacency.
Whenever there is a civil rights anniversary or friction in white Jewish and Black relations, Heschel, a leading rabbinical luminary in the mid-century, is the go-to stand-in for the entire Jewish community. His march through Selma with Martin Luther King, where the rabbi said his “legs were praying,” was somehow millipedal, carrying much more than his own two feet. You’d think he walked for all Jews past and present and was proof enough that the community was on the right side of history.
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