Angela Buchdahl

And my wife was very supportive.

And we, so we looked at synagogues and we happened to have in New York City, the only Korean American Jewish rabbi in the country, Angela Buchdahl.

Her father is Ashkenazi Jewish, mother is Korean.

And she chose to embrace her Jewish identity.

Zionism, as it was presented in the first Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897, contained ideas connected to the political, cultural, spiritual, land-focused ideas as professed by Theodor Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Aleph Dalet Gordon, and many others.

As Rabbi Angela Buchdahl eloquently described in her Yom Kippur sermon, Reclaiming Zionism, those many meanings of Zionism was a family argument about how Jews would take responsibility for our future.

How long would Jews be willing to live in lands mistreated, murdered, or thrown out? No.

Russian pogroms or even the Spanish Inquisition sent Jews wandering from country to country and increased the longing expressed in prayers and sacred texts to return to our ancestral homeland.

with your approach.

And I'll bring words of Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, which I know isn't only a colleague of yours, but a dear friend.

And she made over her Yom Kippur sermon a passionate argument for reclaiming the word Zionism rather than abandoning it.

And her argument was that if we give up the term, we're essentially leaving it to its most extreme supporters, as you mentioned, on the far right in Israel, she said, and its loudest opponents and enemies outside of Israel to define what Zionism is.

You are listening to Central Synagogue's podcast, featuring sermons, lectures, and conversations from Manhattan's historic Central Synagogue.

I'm Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.

Each week, we invite you to listen to messages of strength and hope given by our clergy on Shabbat or Jewish holidays.

You can also listen to audio recordings of other programs and lectures given at Central by subscribing to this podcast on the platform of your choice.

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Angela Buchdahl.

The most morbid people in the world are the happiest.

And I really think it's because when you are aware of your mortality, you don't sweat the small stuff, and you just filch the joy out of life every day, and you're not freaking out about nonsense, and what this person said in a comment, or what that group of moms is doing or whatever.

You are listening to Central Synagogue's podcast featuring sermons, lectures, and conversations from Manhattan's historic Central Synagogue.

I'm Rabbi Angela Buchdahl.

Each week we invite you to listen to messages of strength and hope given by our clergy on Shabbat or Jewish holidays.

You can also listen to audio recordings of other programs and lectures given at Central by subscribing to this podcast on the platform of your choice.

Yes.

Our mutual friend, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, gave a sermon over Yom Kippur in which she takes on this notion that we, the Jews should retire the term Zionism.

I want to play a clip of her point about the importance of us reinvesting and re-embracing in Zionism, and then I want to hear you guys respond.

Let me tell you why I am a Zionist.