Perhaps by the time the tree planted from the seeds of the one that Anne Frank gazed at from her attic window in Amsterdam, during years spent hiding from the Nazis, grows tall, the kind of pervasive antisemitism that took her life and the lives of 5,999,999 other Jews will have diminished. That’s the hope behind Gratz College’s “Roots and Resilience” event, which culminated with the launch of a new Ph.D. program in antisemitism studies.

The sapling dedication, followed by a panel discussion on how to combat Jew-hatred, took place on April 22 at the academic institution’s new headquarters in Bala Cynwyd, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia’s Main Line. Speakers included a former neo-Nazi, a professor from a private Christian college in Virginia and the team chaplain and spiritual adviser for the National Football League, who joined students and leaders in expressing concerns within American society, particularly on U.S. university campuses.

That came following the welcoming of the tree, which was presented to Gratz by the Anne Frank USA Center in recognition of efforts by the academic institution to counter hate. “I see this as a living memorial that will span from coast to coast,” said Lauren Bairnsfather, CEO of the Anne Frank USA Center, who revealed that 20 such saplings have been or are in the process of being planted throughout the United States.

“When you plant a tree, you don’t do it for yourself,” she said. “You do it for future generations. So it’s a symbol of our hope for the future.”

She added that maintaining optimism isn’t always easy. “It’s definitely a challenging time,” she said, after explaining how these saplings will be identical to the horse chestnut tree that inspired the young Jewish diarist who survived two years in hiding, only to be discovered and sent to the Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belson concentration camps, where she died of typhus in February 1945.

“But Anne Frank always found hope, and there they were hiding from people who wanted to capture them and kill them,” she continued. “The tree gave her that hope.”

‘How bad is it?’

Following the dedication, about 100 people, Jew and non-Jew alike, moved inside to the library for the “Bridge-Building in the Shadow of Trauma” discussion. Arno Michaelis, a self-proclaimed former neo-Nazi skinhead and white nationalist for more than a decade, started by telling how it took a mass murder in a church and his own failed attempts at suicide before he began to see the light.

“The years that I spent in the white nationalist movement were far and away the most miserable,” said Michaelis, author of My Life Without Hate and founder of The Forgiveness Project. “I attempted to kill myself twice and didn’t care whether I lived or died.

“But I’m here now,” he acknowledged, “so we can deconstruct the ways antisemites spread their poison and their addiction to hate, and I’m honored to do this work with you.”

So was Andrew (“A.J.”) Nolte, a professor from Regent University in Virginia Beach, VA, a private Christian school, who has become its director of the Institute for Israel Studies. After debunking the suggestion that disputes on U.S. college campuses are mere “proxy wars,” he emphasized the need for all religions to band together.

“Antisemites will say, ‘We’re not anti-Jewish. We’re just anti-Zionism,’” stated Nolte. ‘We just want to hold Israel to the standard not of any other state in the Middle East.’ How bad is it? It says that some groups should not have a seat at the table because of who they are.”

Antisemitism, he said, “needs to be an issue for pro-Israel Christians like those at the university I work at.”

Nolte said that “what’s happening on the campuses—no matter how concerning it looks—you are not alone. We’ve got your back, and we are so happy to be here.”

‘It impacts you and impacts your soul’

Stacey-Aviva Flint, a black woman who converted to Judaism after a difficult upbringing that included dropping out of school, said she learned firsthand about the hatred of others and had to be taught differently. “The most dangerous people in the world are people who feel like they do not belong,” said Flint, director of education and community engagement for the Jewish Federation of North America.

“A study out of Stanford [University] says that people who have a deep sense of not belonging are the most vulnerable to conspiracy theories and ridiculous beliefs. What saved me? I came back and started to pursue higher education, and through Jewish studies realized that many of the things that I’ve been taught were very misguided,” she said.

The panel also included Rev. Johnny Shelton, chaplain and spiritual adviser for the Baltimore Ravens football team, who pointed to the murder of George Floyd in May 2022 as a pivotal time in his life, as well as Robert Katz, an Indianapolis law professor who has become an expert on the role of the law and antisemitism.

Gratz students Beatrice Levine, Ann Westby Kolovyamsky and Liz Berger also spoke.

“There needs to be acknowledgement that antisemitism doesn’t just affect Jews; it’s incredibly impactful to everyone,” said Berger. “When you’re a person who engages in hate, it impacts you and impacts your soul. That degrades you.”

The student pointed out that “we’re all affected by that because it’s literally the air we breathe and has been in the air we breathe for thousands of years. To combat that, you have to first understand it.”

Panel moderator Ayal Feinberg, director of the Center for Holocaust Studies and Human Rights at Gratz, was encouraged, having heard so many diverse points of view. “So far, half a dozen strangers—people I’ve never met—have shared with me they’ve never experienced anything like this,” he said after the program. “That’s their words.”

He added that “if that’s the impact we’re having with our public, what can be better? Leaving people inspired in a moment where we as a community are also suffering.”

As for the seed-planting event that day, he said: “I think it made an impact, and it was innovative. These are people with remarkably different stories. Different experiences. Different professions. Different upbringings. And they all came together, unified.”