We Both Thought the Other One Left

Yesterday, I spent an hour and a half on Chicago’s South Side with a Black community leader and his beautiful wife. I had met him years ago while lobbying in Springfield, and something about him stayed with me.

Some people carry fire. If you’ve ever walked through your own fire, you recognize it immediately.

They’re the builders. The ones who refuse to quit on their communities no matter how difficult things become. That’s why I wanted to reconnect… I felt a thread in him like I have in me that just won’t allow us to give up.

We had uncomfortable conversations. The kind most people avoid. The kind I love.

Because truth usually lives on the other side of discomfort.

We talked about the Black-Jewish relationship. We talked about the Civil Rights Movement. We talked about trust. Pain. History. Disappointment.

And then he said something that stopped me cold.

Many in the Black community feel abandoned by the Jewish community.

Abandoned.

I had never really considered that. Because if you ask many Jews, they’ll tell you a different story. They’ll tell you they felt pushed out. They’ll tell you they stood shoulder to shoulder during the Civil Rights Movement, only to feel increasingly isolated decades later.

Then October 7 happened. And many Jews looked around asking: “Where are the people we’ve stood beside for generations?”

Two communities. Two stories. Two open wounds.

And maybe that’s the problem. We’ve spent decades arguing over whose wound is more legitimate instead of acknowledging that both wounds exist. The Black community carries hurt. The Jewish community carries hurt.

Both experiences can be true. Both wounds can be real. Both wounds can HEAL.

And neither one heals by pretending the other person’s pain doesn’t exist. In fact, that’s exactly how wounds become infected. A wound covered by a bandage for too long doesn’t heal. It festers.

And eventually someone has to remove the bandage. Someone has to clean the wound. Someone has to do the painful work.

That’s what yesterday felt like. Surgery. Not blame. Not punishment. Healing. Because real healing requires opening the wound before it can close.

Truth before trust. Honesty before reconciliation. Courage before unity.

For an hour and a half, we opened wounds that have been covered for years. Not because we wanted to stay in the pain. Because we’re tired of carrying it.

Because our children deserve better than inherited resentment. Because the future cannot be built on wounds nobody is willing to examine.

The fire isn’t the problem. The fire is the forge. The fire is where stronger things are made. And if we’re going to move forward together, we have to be willing to walk through it…together.

Most people don’t actually want reconciliation. They want validation. They want their side declared right.

They want their pain acknowledged while dismissing someone else’s.

That’s not healing. That’s ego. Healing requires something harder. Listening to a story that challenges your own. Having enough humility to ask: “What if there’s something here I don’t understand?”

I didn’t walk away agreeing with everything I heard.

And I don’t think they agreed with everything I said.

But that wasn’t the point.

The point was that we stayed at the table. The point was that we listened. The point was that we cared enough about the future to tell each other the truth.

Because easy conversations don’t heal communities. Honest ones do.

You cannot heal wounds you refuse to acknowledge.

You cannot rebuild trust by pretending the hurt isn’t there.

And you cannot build community by only talking to people who already agree with you.

The opposite of division isn’t agreement. It’s presence. Showing up. Listening. Staying at the table when the conversation gets hard. That’s exactly what we’re doing.

An extraordinary group of community builders, faith leaders, philanthropists, and stakeholders from across Chicago have decided to build something together.

Not another panel. Not another photo-op. Something real and tangible that will outlive us all.

It will include Black leaders, Jewish leaders, Hindu leaders, Assyrian leaders, Latino leaders, Christian leaders, Muslim leaders.

People who understand that our futures are connected whether we like it or not.

I want Jews showing up for Blacks. Blacks showing up for Jews. Hindus supporting Assyrians. Assyrians supporting Russians. Christians supporting Jews. Muslims supporting Latinos. And everyone having each other‘s back.

Not because we agree on everything but because we belong to one another.

The world has enough outrage. Enough division. Enough people making a living by keeping us angry.

What it desperately needs are builders. People willing to walk into uncomfortable rooms and stay there. People willing to hear hard truths and really listen.

People willing to stay at the table. People willing to love their neighbors more than they love being right.

We must stop pretending the wound isn’t there. We must open it, clean it and heal it.

Then build.

We keep reaching towards each other with and through G-D.

Something beautiful is coming.