Rabbi Micah Greenstein speaks at Kristallnacht service

By Ginny Segaloff, Chair Kristallnacht Commemoration Program

The Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of Collier County invites the community to its annual Kristallnacht Commemorative Service on Sunday, Nov. 7, 3 p.m. at St. Agnes Catholic Church, 7775 Vanderbilt Beach Rd. The event is free and open to the public. Stay tuned as to whether this program will be live, live-streamed and/or on Zoom.

The CJD is affiliated with Jewish Federation of Greater Naples and the Collier County Parishes of the Diocese of Venice Florida. Its purpose is to engage Catholics and Jews in understanding our history and advancing the cause of mutual understanding and appreciation of our differences as well as our commonalities.

“Kristallnacht” or the “Night of Broken Glass” recounts the attacks on Jewish communities throughout Germany on Nov. 9 and 10, 1938. Our upcoming event will memorialize the 6 million Jews and millions of others who were exterminated during the Holocaust and as part of “The Final Solution.” We remember and honor those who perished, the survivors and their families.

Over 80 years later, the Holocaust still challenges our ability to comprehend man’s inhumanity to man.

Our guest speaker will be the esteemed Rabbi Micah Greenstein, who has served almost three decades at the historic 167-yearold Temple Israel in Memphis, Tennessee, sustaining its position as the largest synagogue in Tennessee and the Deep South.

Rabbi Greenstein is two-time past president of the Memphis Ministers Association. He was recognized as Memphis Magazine’s first “Memphian of the Year” in 2013. He was the first rabbi to preach at Washington Cathedral on a major State day for Tennessee in 2005. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, Rabbi Greenstein served on the Clergy COVID-19 Task Force with bishops and adjudicatory heads of Catholic, Protestant and Muslim faith leaders.

Rabbi Greenstein was named among America’s Top Rabbis in 2012 and 2013 by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Since the 1990s, Rabbi Greenstein has published in Southern Rabbis and Black Civil Rights, and facilitated interfaith and interracial dialogue with international delegations. He also received the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior “Be the Dream Legacy” Award in 2016. He served at the Memphis Theological Seminary, where he taught future ministers about Judaism.

The rabbi currently serves on the board of directors of the National Civil Rights Museum and the national board of the NAACP. Rabbi Greenstein is a Cornell University National Scholar and Harvard University Kennedy Fellow.

Rabbi Greenstein’s address is entitled, “Interfaith Relations 83 years after Kristallnacht: What Have We Really Learned?” He will discuss Kristallnacht and its call to action for social justice today.

For more information, contact CJDialogue@naples.net.