Sharon Brous in Conversation with john a. powell
Rabbi Sharon Brous and UC Berkeley's john powell explore ancient wisdom and contemporary frameworks for building belonging and bridging divided communities.
Why we picked this
Two thinkers from different traditions — one rooted in rabbinic thought, the other in critical race theory — both arriving at the same conclusion that belonging is the central political challenge of our time.
Rabbi Sharon Brous founded IKAR, a Los Angeles congregation known for combining liturgical seriousness with social activism, and has spent two decades thinking about what it means to build community under pressure. Her book “The Amen Effect” draws on Jewish ritual and pastoral experience to argue that the antidote to social fragmentation isn’t better argument — it’s the practice of genuine presence with people whose lives look different from your own.
john a. powell directs the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley and has developed some of the most influential frameworks for thinking about how societies either expand or contract the circle of who counts as fully human. His work on structural racism and targeted universalism has informed policy conversations from housing to healthcare, and his thinking on belonging has shaped how a generation of practitioners understand equity work.
The conversation between these two — one drawing on ancient religious text, the other on contemporary social science — represents exactly the kind of cross-disciplinary dialogue that rarely happens in academic settings. Both arrive at belonging not as sentiment but as a political and practical challenge that requires active construction. Sydney Goldstein Theater’s intimacy will serve the conversation well.