 that you are with us here on Hope Today. I'm Anna and I'm here with Tom and Cindy and Cindy. What do we have going on today? Well, you know, back in 2018, the nation of the world was shocked, sad, and stunned by the horrific tree of life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. And recently, the gunman of that massacre was found guilty on all federal charges. Justice has been served, but sadly, anti-Semitism is still on the rise in our culture. And coming up on Hope Today, we're gonna take a look back at one of the darkest moments of human history with the Holocaust to understand how we can all be a bridge of hope, light, and healing to the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and beyond. Dr. Barbara Burson, a respected Holocaust and Jewish studies scholar, will be joining us in a studio for a few moments. You know, Tom and Anna, I think these conversations are so important for us to talk about, about being the bridge, understanding those rifts and things that we have done, and then how we can show the light of Christ in Elm. Absolutely. We need to be aware of the rise of anti-Semitism or any kind of hate that's going on. You know, just when there was a reporter, I was on Twitter and a reporter from Channel 4, Bob Mayo, was kind of giving a blow-by-blow report of the, it was just so disturbing to see where this individual was, and you know, I couldn't follow it anymore, because it was just disturbing, but we need to be able to understand where this comes from and to make sure that our nation doesn't fall into it again. Right, and when we look back through history, we know that there is this thread of hatred that has run from the beginning of time, especially towards the Jewish people, and as Christ's followers, it is up to us to look at how we are speaking, how we are loving, because as I said in the opening, we are called to peace and love and unity, and we wanna make sure that as we are raising up our children, as we are interacting with those around us, that we are speaking out that love. Yeah, and I think now more than ever, it's a time for us to stand up and be together in unity, and you know, this is something that, you know, I'm married into a family that's like Jewish, my father-in-law, he's Jewish, and so, you know, just having these conversations, and you know, one thing I'll be honest and transparent is that even with my name, you know, there was one time that somebody thought that, like, they're like, oh, you're some Jewish girl. I mean, I've experienced a little snippet of that, where it just like, it breaks my heart, and I think it is important for us to be the bridge, to show love, and to come alongside of our Jewish brothers and sisters. You know, you're watching Hope Today from different parts of the country, maybe in Florida, Alabama, wherever across the country. Here in Pittsburgh, we have a very strong Jewish community in Squirrel Hills, so we just love to have these conversations and to stand in unity and to be loved, because God calls us, it's the first commandment to love one another as we love ourselves. So I'm just really grateful we have this opportunity to talk with Dr. Barbara Burson in just a few moments. It's gonna be a good discussion. I just wanna say that, you know, we always have prayer partners available. If you have a need, if you have something in your life that you need prayer for, you can call prayer partner 24-7, you get someone to agree with in prayer, and to just get encouragement. Well, right now, we made an encouragement because we're gonna play Stump the Host. So these are, we hear that one of them's really tough, so the first one is supposed to be easy. Now, we haven't seen these, so play along with us to see if you can get these. So here's the first question. When King David was a young man, his best friend was King Saul's son. What was his name? All right, that was Jonathan. All right, Jonathan. All righty, here comes question numero dose number two. Okay, who did God choose as his signet ring? What? Who did God choose as his signet ring? This is, I'm drawing a blank on this. Okay, well, it's Old Testament. Is it, what's his signet ring? His signet ring. I don't even understand what that means. Is that Cyrus? Okay, his signet ring is something that, you know, they would, it was their symbol of authority. They would like put it in the wax on an official document. It meant that they were, you know, that it was sanctioned. But who? I'm gonna say David, because he was man after God's own heart. But I feel like there's like, I think of Cyrus. Just doesn't feel right to me. Cyrus, I just feel like, I don't know, like Cyrus, because he was like tumultuous. I don't know. I mean, I've read the Old Testament a bunch of times and I'm drawing a blank on this. If we want to say David, just as a, as a, we'll throw it out there. David. Oh, wow. That's pretty tough. That was really hard. So that's from Haggai 2, 23. Wow. What's the matter with y'all? I don't know. Haggai 2, 23. Never read that. Oh, one, final one. In ancient Israel, what was the method of legalizing transactions? What kind of questions are these today? Okay, wait a minute, wait a minute. There was different things. They would put their hand under the thigh. That was a covenant, a type of covenant. You want to go with that one? All right, Tom. Hand under the thigh. Exchanging sandals. You know what, we'll just take off our shoes right now. That was hard. We are struggling here. Neil, our producer, you stumped us today. That was pretty, that was pretty strong there, Neil. Yeah, well, and then switching gears now. When we come back in 60 seconds, Holocaust and Jewish Studies scholar, Dr. Barbara Burson will be with us in the studio to share how she's on a mission to educate and encourage young people to fight hate and bring hope and unity. We'll be right back. Cornerstone television t-shirt, where'd you get it? I am so glad that you asked. You know, this is an exclusive offer for the month of June for you to receive this one-of-a-kind CTVN t-shirt. You can support and support your favorite Christian Telstra network this summer when you go to barbecues, hanging out with family and having tons of fun. Oh man, that is so much fun. And speaking of Cornerstone television, I love their programming, especially that Hope Today show. Yes, we love Hope Today and all of the programs. And you know, with your best gift, request your Cornerstone Telstra network t-shirt when you give this month. We have sizes from extra small to 6XL. It is 100% cotton, it is quality, and we want you to have this on you today. That's right, we have one for everyone and you get to represent the station you love with your own logo t-shirt. You'll enjoy this wearable reminder that Hope happens here. As together, we spread the love of Jesus every day. You know, we cannot do it without you. When you give, you help us to impact Pittsburgh and beyond reaching those of all nations and generations because we know people need to know the hope and the love of Jesus like never before. So why don't you give us a call at 888-665-4483 and request your very own Cornerstone TV t-shirt. That's right, you can also give online at ctvn.org slash donate. We would love to see you out in public somewhere wearing this t-shirt. Maybe we'll have ours on too. Thanks for supporting us. Dr. Barbara Burson is a respected Holocaust and Jewish studies scholar. She's been on the history faculty of both Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh for many years. Dr. Burson is also an author and with her new publication, America and the Holocaust, she hopes to encourage junior and high school students fascination with history and spark their commitment to combat bigotry and promote democracy today. Dr. Burson, we are so glad to have you with us today. Pleasure to be here. Well, can you tell us a little bit about you and the work that you do? Well, how do I begin? I've been teaching for many years at both CMU and Pitt and the course in particular that I've been teaching is a course called America and the Holocaust. It's interesting because Ken Burns just did a film on that, which I found excellent. But I was delighted because he brought that subject to the fore and I think it needs to be brought to the fore because it tells not only the story of those times but it is a story that really is relevant to today and brings up issues that I think people, especially young people, should be aware of and should be thinking about. You know, it's really important for us to have these conversations and discussions and I just want to ask you what really sparked your passion to just understand the history behind the Holocaust? I mean, you've said it for many years, so why is it important? Let's start that, let's start that for me. Well, first of all, I love history and history is about people like you and me who made decisions in challenging times and we have the benefit of knowing how those decisions worked out. But beyond that, history is relevant for today and can kind of give us some perspective which we need when we begin to consider what's going on around us every day. So with young people in particular, I was teaching college students so I wanted to reach a younger cohort because they're the future too. And so I prepared this particular publication in a way that I think young people would find interesting, a graphic booklet, in a sense. It's like a comic book, but I can't call it a comic book because it's not fun. So I hired a illustrator here in Pittsburgh, Fred Carlson, and he took the script and made this booklet. You know, Barbara had a chance to go through the booklet called America and the Holocaust and it's very descriptive, it's very vivid and it does raise a lot of questions that are around the Holocaust. Can you talk about some of the myths or some of the misunderstandings that we don't understand even as this generation that comes to the Holocaust? Well, first of all, let me just say that this booklet begins in 1933 when Hitler in Germany comes to power within five weeks of Franklin Roosevelt. So we have, if we were doing a drama, if this was a play we would have entering on one side would be this evil dictator and on the other side, a man who is one of our top presidents who many people, Democrat and Republican, refer to. So it's a drama and the contrast between these two is something that young people should understand, the difference between a dictatorship and a functioning democracy. And of course, Roosevelt faced tremendous challenges in this country, depression, the, what should I say, a rising anti-Semitism in the 1930s because when people are suffering, they look for scapegoats and the Jews unfortunately through history have been the scapegoat. And so when, and you can draw that line that as economic times fall, anti-Semitism, racism, conspiracy theories, all these escalate and it escalated then and it's escalating now. You know, Barbara, like when you take a look back at the 1930s and the 40s that I think it's something hard for any of us to fathom, how did it even rise? How did it even just fester in our culture? What are some of the things that have taken place that we don't necessarily hear in the history books? Well, you know, America is a wonderful country. We are very thankful to be here. There is much that we have, but we have a dark side and we need to be aware of it so that we can correct it. And the history of this country, look, slavery, all kinds of discrimination against black and brown people and certainly against Jews. There's when Jews are discriminated against and targeted so are people, all kinds of minorities and we see that in our culture today. So this is something we need to be aware of. It's not easy for us to recognize that we had these issues in our country and I'm also talking about doing some research now on a Native American and what was going on in the 19th century with Native Americans. So these are things we're not proud of, but we need to learn from them. And that's the beauty, that's the main thing that we learned from the past. And what are some things, Barbara, from your experience in just years of study that we can learn from? What are some key things that we can make sure that we don't repeat history again? Well, I think that I have found that when there's an attack on Jews, there is also an attack on democracy. And those two, we are in a time now when the anger, the conspiracy theories, they threaten our democracy. And we need to be aware of that. We need to be involved and that's part of why I did this, not just to make young people aware of the past, but to give them a sense that they need to be what we call upstanders. People who can confront prejudice, who can respond to it, wherever they see it. People who should vote, should know what their political leaders are talking about. This is their responsibility in a democracy. So I feel very strongly, you can tell. I feel very strongly about that and hope that through history, students will recognize their responsibility as citizens, as future voters. Many of them are voters already of this democracy. Barbara, I really appreciate your passion and just for the young people to understand and bring truth to light and take a stand for the injustices that we see. And one thing, just even recently, like we just hearing about the news of the trial with the Tree of Life Synagogue Massacre and just what happened. I think it's shocked and saddened. I mean, all of us were just so taken aback. Can you just share from your perspective, I know you're really tied to the Tree of Life Synagogue of the impact that it had on the Jewish community and still to this day? Well, I can tell you, for me, the shooting occurred on a Saturday. We were numbed by it. But on Tuesday, I had two classes of America in the Holocaust and students who thought antisemitism was a historical fact. Suddenly, one mile away from their classroom, this atrocity occurred and they suddenly had to confront, as did I, the reality that, oh my God, antisemitism is alive and well and even escalating in the United States. And that is a pretty difficult understanding to face. I worried about going into a classroom. Do I need security to teach a class on America in the Holocaust? Do I need security going into the Office of Jewish Studies? Certainly, if you go into a synagogue now, you have to pass security. You cannot just go in anymore. You have to ring. You have to wait for the guard to let you in. Can you imagine going into a church and seeing that you're going into a classroom or a church and having to go through security? This is what has happened in recent years as a result of this horrible event. And it's not just in Pittsburgh. It's throughout the entire country. You know, just even you just sharing, that really makes me sad. Just to think of a place of worship going in and going through security because I know many churches here in Pittsburgh, we don't walk through security but knowing that our Jewish brothers and sisters, that's what you're going through really makes me sad. And I just want to just say, like, from my heart, just feeling this moment, to say I'm just so sorry for what the Jewish community, what you've had to face and the persecution, it truly breaks my heart. And you know, just Barbara, what are some ways as Christians that we can support the Jewish community? Well, I think to be aware of when friends and neighbors speak in negative ways about Jews, just like when they speak negatively about any minority, it's incumbent on people to say, you know what, that's really not right. That's not what we say in America. That's not what we think in America. You have to kind of stop. And that alone is a big deal because a lot of people think silence, you know, they don't want to rock the boat, but silence in a way is complicit with the act. That certainly was the case in the Holocaust. You know, people didn't speak up, people didn't act. There was silence. And so I think that it's so important that people realize that even they, who might not be involved in anything, they have a responsibility. I like how you're just saying it's so important for us to speak up, it's to raise our voices, excuse me, and not to be silent. And also want to mention that you're on the advisory team for the Tree of Life Project. Can you tell us what is underway for some of us who need that? Yeah, it's quite exciting, frankly, because what they want to do is, first of all, the building will be demolished. And I think it's in the process of being demolished now. I must tell you, I went into the building before and I, it's shocking to see bullet holes through children's pictures. You know, you had of the Old Testament, in fact, we don't call it the Old Testament because the New Testament sounds like it replaced the Old One. So we call it the Hebrew Bible. But there were pictures that the kids had done and there were bullet holes through them. Bullet holes through the altar. If the rabbi had been standing there, he would have been killed. He was able to get away. He was standing a little different spot. So it's very, I feel it, but the new building is going to be a building that when you walk in, the architecture will be light and you will walk too light. So you will see an exhibition of anti-Semitism. My job is to make sure that there's a Pittsburgh angle to the anti-Semitism. And, but you will come out of this, not being paralyzed, but being empowered to not be a bystander, to confront whatever needs to be done. And so it will be a building that will be in, certainly a memorial and a site of worship, but the larger space will be devoted to a historical understanding of anti-Semitism. And at the end, as I'm saying, an uplifting of what you can do. Wow. I'm just like, so just hearing that is just seeing what was somebody used for evil, just the beautiful thing that's coming out of the beauty in the midst of the ashes. Barbara, just wanna ask, what are some ways that we can pray for the Jewish community specifically? Well, look, prayer is always essential, okay? But more than prayer, it has to be action. It has to be teaching. It has to make sure that in churches and in settings that Jews are not depicted as Christ killers deserving their fate. I must tell you that that happened regularly prior to the Holocaust, but there's been enormous changes in the teaching of the church, both Catholic and Protestant churches. But there needs to be, as I say, beyond the prayer, beyond the, that there needs to be action by churches to involve young people in really learning more and getting involved in their community in trying to just create a unity and a community among people who are very different. And so I think that it's at least a two-front, multiple-front attack, but certainly when you talk about prayers, the prayers have to make sure that Jews are not denigrated and that they are not blamed for this notion that they were Christ killers and so forth because that's what sparked the Holocaust. And that's why so many Christians who believed that they were good Christians believed that the Jews deserve their fate because they believed wrongfully that Jews were the ones who killed Christ and may their blood be on us and on our children. It's Book of Matthew and that is totally, totally a false teaching. So it's powerful stuff and it's upsetting and it's people are uncomfortable with all this, but that has to be changed, that has to be pointed out as we go forward. You know what I'm hearing you Barbara, just saying it's so important that we come to the table, that we talk, that we have relationship and love one another despite like our differences. It's so important for us to come and to speak. Thank you so much for just sharing your heart and information and knowledge and wisdom. We truly appreciate you. I appreciate you. We appreciate you. Thank you. Well, we're gonna take a short break and we come back. We're gonna have a moment to speak straight into your heart. We'll be right back. Tom, what you doing? Oh, I can't find anything good on YouTube to watch. The commentaries, the blogs, the tier videos, the gaming videos, it's all boring. Oh, have you thought about subscribing to Cornerstone's YouTube channel? Cornerstone has a YouTube channel? Of course it does. Hold on, taking a pause to remind you to subscribe to our channel. Hit that like button and ring that bell for notifications. Now back to the video. I'll show you how to subscribe. Just search for Cornerstone Television Network and hit the subscribe button so you can stay up to date getting filled with the Holy Spirit with consistent uploads every day. Keep up with your favorite moments and never miss a beat. Will you help us as we race to 100,000 subscribers? We can't do it without your help. The content is never ending with countless hours of entertainment. So subscribe to the Cornerstone YouTube channel today. Hope happens here. Well, what a powerful conversation, Sid, that you had with Barbara. And you know, reminded of the verse that says God is lightning him, there is no darkness at all and that we need to be the light. As Christians, we believe that we have the light of God and that we need to bring that light. And that means that we need to bring it in a way that is loving and caring for all people and not buying into blame and wrong ideas and conspiracy theories and things that just bring nothing but trouble. And you know, we want you to know that light. We want you to know that love of Christ and we want you to know that God has a plan and purpose for your life today. Yeah, one thing that Barbara said that really stuck out to me was the importance of speaking up because silence actually, it actually makes that hatred go forward. It perpetuates that. And so, as she was speaking to young people and we're speaking to you no matter what generation you're in that let's stop being silent, let's speak up and just say, hey, that's not right. Like, let's shift how we're talking and really promote that love and peace and unity. You know, it's interesting. I had a friend come to Bible study several years ago and she was Jewish and she felt like she actually had to keep that under wraps. And when she found out that we love the Jewish people that they are part of our Christian heritage, like that opened up such rich conversations. You know, I love that when we have conversations with those that don't think like us, don't look like us, have difference of opinion, there's so much that you can learn. And in my own life, I have just seen when I've talked to people, even in my minds, we have college, I went to a very diverse university, Temple University was at the time the most diverse college in the country. And I had friends of all different backgrounds. I had friends that were Muslims that they believed and they didn't believe. There were all different backgrounds. And what it taught me is how to love people and to see that we actually have so much more in common than we do than their differences. So I think these conversations are really important. I mean, theologically, when we talk about who killed Christ, I did, okay? My sins, my sins he took upon himself that I might be forgiven. Your sins he took upon himself that he might be forgiven, Anna. Yeah, that's right. So today, I remember that you have been called to peace. That peace is found in the love of God, the peace of Christ that he brought through his death and resurrection. We're so glad that you've joined us on Hope Today. Keep being the light in the darkness. We love you. Have a good day. On tomorrow's Hope Today, learn how you can heal from trauma and experience hope again. Speaker and author, Dr. Gregory L. Jance explains the lingering effects caused by trauma and offers a customized plan to help people find their way back to wholeness, joy and contentment. Don't miss tomorrow's Hope Today. Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.