Robert Adler and Sara Kelemen
Recorded
November 30, 2023
Archived
November 30, 2023
01:02:05
0:00 / 0:00
Id:
osh000109
Description
One Small Step conversation partners Robert "Bob" Adler (70) and Sara Kelemen (29) talk about nondelusional optimism, listening, Jewish heritage, family, community, and anarchism.Subject Log / Time Code
Robert "Bob" Adler (BA) and Sara Kelemen (SK) introduce themselves and ask each other why they are interested in participating in a One Small Step (OSS) conversation.
BA and SK discuss Waldo County as a congressional district, and how Belfast tends to be more liberal than the surrounding towns in the interior.
BA talks about being a member of the rural Jewish community in Maine, growing up in Manhattan.
SK reads BA's bio and asks where his parents immigrated from, BA talks about them escaping from Nazi Germany as teenagers and meeting in NYC.
SK talks about her grandfather's family converting from Judaism in Hungary in the early years of the Holocaust. She talks about her family going back to Hungary to visit.
BA talks about going back to Germany with his dad in the 1970s, having dinner with someone who had been involved in Hitler Youth, and how he was afraid but his dad told him, "You need to listen."
BA reads SK's bio and asks her to talk about why she wrote, "I'm not an anarchist but..." the juxtapositions of working for the federal government and voting while believing our political systems are broken.
SK talks about mutual aid, social services, voting to mitigate the worst harm, friends who don't vote, and disillusionment.
BA and SK talk about community engagement and voting, being consistent in your beliefs, people who don't vote but do engage with their communities deeply via fire departments, EMT work, etc.
Participants discuss the ongoing, unfolding conflict in Palestine and Israel.
BA brings up the concept of nondelusional optimism, says he can't turn away from hope but is adamant about his optimism being nondelusional, focused on specifics. He talks about being the child of German Jewish refugees.
Participants talk about the importance of being aware of how our personal contexts and historical contexts influence our thinking and engagement.
SK talks about her mother's influence, desegregation of public schools in Boston, awareness of race, understanding of privilege, and questioning beliefs.
BA brings up Congressman Jared Golden changing his stance on gun control after the Lewiston mass shooting as an example of a public figure changing their beliefs.
SK talks about aspiring to nondelusional optimism while letting pessimism take hold of her sometimes. She asks BA for advice on cultivating nondelusional optimism and hope, what keeps him hopeful.
BA talks about his experience with clinical depression.
Participants discuss whether or not they feel troubled by people with the same beliefs and how they communicate them to others.
BA asks SK what her hopes for the future are and what one small step she can take toward those goals might be.
SK mentions a small flag at her house that says, "Another world is possible."
BA talks about his goals for the future, both personally and on a broader scale.
Participants
- Robert Adler
- Sara Kelemen