The Jewish Community Relations Bureau was founded in 1944, amid one of the greatest tragedies to befall the Jewish people, the Holocaust.
The organization was established to combat discrimination and bigotry during a time when Jews and other minorities faced legal barriers in housing, higher education and many other aspects of American society.
The organization is now known as Jewish Community Relations Bureau|AJC (JCRB|AJC) due to a merger with the local AJC chapter in 1991. Executive Director Gavriela Geller wrote in last month’s 2019 Human Relations Dinner program that the “progress made over the past 75 years is thanks to the moral courage and tenacity of great leaders in our community, and our allies.”
Today, JCRB|AJC continues its work to fight anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry, to build bridges of understanding throughout the Greater Kansas City community and to ensure that no one stands alone for justice.
Geller’s been on the job as the agency’s executive director a little over a year. She hit the ground running as the worldwide Jewish community was grieving following the shootings at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh. That initiation by fire in her new job at JCRB|AJC, along with her day-to-day interactions with people inside and outside the Jewish community, have helped her understand that JCRB|AJC has “come a long way from where the Jewish community was 75 years ago in terms of our own standing as a minority in Kansas City.”
“We’ve done an incredible job of creating real and lasting relationships with other minority and faith communities,” she said in a recent interview. “JCRB|AJC has made it known that the Jewish community is a partner and an ally and has made our priorities known to our partners.”
Common values — such as welcoming the stranger, standing for immigrants’ rights and making justice for all a priority — is just one of the common threads that bind JCRB|AJC with other faith and minority communities.
“It’s really important, in my opinion, when we talk about fighting anti-Semitism to understand that it is not possible to fight anti-Semitism without addressing other forms of hatred and demonization and negative stereotypes, Geller said. “All of those issues end up coming back to affect our community. If we want to create real reciprocal relationships with minority and faith communities, we have to be willing to care about their issues as well.”
Over the years, JCRB|AJC has “done a wonderful job of creating close relationships with our elected officials and helping the Jewish community’s voice be heard in our legislative process,” Geller said. That political advocacy work, she said, along with the agency’s interfaith work and helping people understand the Jewish community’s priorities, help the agency “continue to make an impact in the community.”
Israel advocacy
Falling under the umbrella of building bridges of understanding is JCRB|AJC’s advocacy work in support of Israel and stressing the importance of Israel’s well-being to the Jewish community. Geller said, “There is a lack of nuanced engagement when it comes to Israel, particularly in a political climate that is becoming more and more polarized.”
Because of that, Geller thinks JCRB|AJC will need to connect with the Jewish community to educate its members on controversial or complicated topics related to Israel, “so that people can feel more confident engaging with their non-Jewish friends and networks and colleagues around the issue.”
“People tend to shy away when they feel like they aren’t equipped to handle a complex conversation,” Geller added. “There’s certainly a lot of work to be done in helping members of our community to understand the situation from a more nuanced perspective.”
Geller said supporting Israel would continue to be one of JCRB|AJC’s objectives.
“Unfortunately, supporting Israel continues to be necessary and relevant regardless of where anybody falls on the political spectrum,” she said. “We see a lot of misconceptions and hostility when it comes to Israel.”
Highlighting 75 years of success
One of the big issues of the day 40 or so years ago for JCRB|AJC was its work to help free Jews in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.
“The community came together around the Soviet Jewry movement,” Geller said.
JCRB|AJC is also proud of its efforts during the farm crisis in the 1980s. Geller said the agency helped ensure that the Posse Comitatus and other white nationalist movements in rural, farm areas in Kansas and Missouri did not grow stronger.
“We did a good job of assessing and dealing with that threat of growing anti-Semitism in rural farming areas,” she said.
More recently, JCRB|AJC has also helped move the community forward on LGBTQ issues, she said.
The road ahead
Jason Krakow, JCRB|AJC’s board president, recently noted that as the agency moved forward from this 75th anniversary, its work and partnerships continued to expand.
“Whether it’s advocacy through our Muslim Jewish Advisory Council, education through our Leaders for Tomorrow program launched this year or dynamic partnership with other powerful community organizations, we do more now because of the support of our donors,” Krakow said. “For that support, we are immensely grateful.”
JCRB|AJC will continue to “double down” on creating relationships with communities who are feeling vulnerable in these times, Geller said. She wants to make sure these communities realize the Jewish community is there in their time of need.
“We have to be willing to advocate strongly and clearly on issues like immigration, racial justice and against Islamophobia,” she said. “We need to make sure that we are being a public voice for the Jewish community in a way that’s going to be remembered positively.”
Another serious issue that isn’t going away soon is combatting white nationalism.
“Our organization needs to play a significant role in pushing that movement back to the margins of society and out of the mainstream,” Geller said. “The safety of our community is really at stake here. We’ve seen, unfortunately, several times in the past year the result of violent white nationalism against the Jewish community. That needs to be a significant priority for us.”
Geller would like to see JCRB|AJC expand its work with all generations in the community in the near future — including high school and college students and young professionals.
“We need to make sure we’re engaging all demographics in the community in our work and help create a pipeline in our community for social justice and Jewish advocacy in Kansas City,” she explained.
It is unique, Geller noted, that JCRB|AJC is the only agency in the Jewish community doing what it does. She hopes the Jewish community understands how important it is to have such an asset and the importance of investing “in community relations and advocacy.”
It’s been the greatest honor of her life to be doing the work she finds so “incredibly important” in the community where she was raised, she said. She loves going to work at the Jewish Community Campus, where she attended preschool and which is home to her high school alma mater, Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy.
She wonders what history will say about the times we are living in. But one thing she knows for sure, she said, is the importance of taking a stand for a better world.
“I’m committed to making sure that we show up,” she said. “We have incredible lay leaders and incredible community members who are also really committed to that with me. It’s been a real team effort. I feel supported in that mission and very excited to continue growing the organization.”