Interview with George Dale
We had a chance to sit down with George Dale and ask him some questions about his experiences at Beth Jacob. George is a relatively new member that joined CBJ around 2019 and helped launch the Tikvah Project. Please enjoy this snapshot of one of our honorees for this upcoming “I am CBJ” Gala!
Could you talk about how you got involved in the Tikvah Project?
I was looking to get involved in something. I talked with Rabbi Ezray, and he was taking the next steps in ‘respectful dialogue’, cumulating in a training program about being nicer to each other. That cumulated in the brochure, a six-page brochure, staking out the clergy’s positions on how Jewish values inform diversity, and we had to embrace diversity.
We got together and decided that CBJ was great on religious diversity, but every time Bill was very explicit in saying ‘do it your way’, I said it made me feel very comfortable since I don’t come from a religious background. Especially in the Power Hour. That openness means we should be able to extend that to politics. Why is it we could get along on religious issues, but with political ones we couldn’t? That seemed kind of backward. We worked very hard together, argued a lot about what role clergy should have in that, what ‘containers’ they set, and since I’m married to Batya, I’ve been around clergy issues for twenty years so I have sensitivity to that. We were asked to get involved in expanding social and current events diversity at the same time.
In developing the program, what has the biggest challenge been?
Getting out of the ‘silo mentality’. Only I’m going to do this, only the clergy is going to do this, etc., and get everyone to do something at the same time. That’s been the greatest challenge, and it’s hard work. We had a meeting two days ago, and we had some drama. The drama is the work, and the work is the drama. It’s not easy. The solution has been to get it back to Jewish values.
[There’s also] the weaponization of language. Talking with people you disagree with is a privilege, [and there’s] a bias we all sort of bring with us. Talk to a conversative person about ‘privilege’ and ‘bias’ and they go ballistic. It’s interesting how sensitive ‘perspective’ and ‘bias’ are. Even though those words have themselves become weaponized. The word ‘weaponized’ has become weaponized!
What do you see next for the Tikvah program? The Oct. 7th fallout and all that, but what else is on the horizon?
I’m hoping Tikvah turns into a steering committee. A ‘reminder voice’. Everything the congregation does integrates what we have learned about listening, curiosity, diversity, and sitting with the discomfort of disagreeing. I hope that Tikvah meets periodically with whoever’s doing the program to say: are we ‘setting the container’ properly? We’re not the sponsor of the programs, but just the influencer of these programs. We just sort of go back to the people working with all of these programs.
What has been being part of CBJ meant to you?
Being part of a collective. I’ve always been on the outside, never really feeling like I belong. Realizing that there are 500+ families for the High Holidays, but probably 40-50 people who come to services. A relatively small number for the worship part. [Some are] very active on the boards, and committees, though. That lesson, that it’s okay to be an outsider, but still be part of the collective. I’ve learned much more than I ever thought I would.
What do you get up to outside of CBJ?
These days, I have three volunteer things that I do. Until recently, CBJ was the biggest one. I volunteer for the Sheriffs Dept. I organized their community groups for transparency for the last year and a half. [Someone said] “So in trying to get Jews to get along, now you want them to get along with the police dept?” (Laughs) The skills are similar, it’s about listening, and that will grow for me. I’m also involved with SCORE – a small business mentoring program for entrepreneurs. I have three grandkids, three children, and one wife. Being a husband, a dad, and a grandpa. We like to travel. We have a property off of Skyline that takes a lot of my time – been renovating it for four years. Retired life is busy.
What would you suggest to a newcomer to CBJ?
It’s not easy to navigate because there is so much there. You just have to show up for a while. There’s always tons of room for people to get involved, for people to rise quickly to positions of leadership, if that’s what they want to do.
I’m thinking Oct. 7th has been this whole other lens that has challenged people on their identity, on where they stand. That lack of understanding makes it super difficult to interact with people who are in grief, who are emotionally charged. No one would have wanted this, expected this, but at the end of the day we need to take this as a part of life. When we’re challenged, it’s like we take a few steps back. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up about it. When these things happen, you get to know what the complexities are. We were ready to deal with this, but we’ve been incredibly challenged by it.
*some responses have been edited for clarity or length
