A Human Rights Odyssey: From Dreams Deferred to Reconciliation

It is August 2014. Rabbi Isaac Levin's dream has been realized. Rodef Tzedek synagogue has provided a home for secular and other faith-based organizations in northern Manhattan. This community center would become a "city on a hill," a model of interfaith cooperation.

Two tragedies spoke out against this wonderful milestone: the shooting of Michael Brown, an African American man in Ferguson, Missouri; and the murder of Tina Fontaine, a young indigenous girl in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As Rabbi Levin comes to terms with these senseless deaths, he reflects upon the events of his past that have molded his passion for social justice.

Isaac Levin's human rights odyssey begins in the suburbs of St. Louis during the Civil Rights Movement. There he is influenced by a progressively minded school system, inspired by a rabbi who marched with Martin Luther King and befriended by a brilliant warm-hearted Black student. The odyssey takes him to the inner city of Hamilton, Ohio where he tutors Black children, to a courtroom in Birmingham, England where he is an eyewitness to discrimination against People of Color, to Paris where he meets his French cousin who saved the lives of Jewish children during the German occupation, to three cities in the former Soviet Union, Moscow, Leningrad, and Kiev where he teaches and comforts refuseniks, to a federal penitentiary where he fights for justice for the Jewish inmates, to the Canadian cities of Winnipeg and Regina, where he witnesses the hardships of First Nations people and prepares a Cree girl for bat mitzvah, to Long Island where he leads his congregation through the horrors of 9/11 and seeks to combat Islamophobia, to America's Deep South and Washington, DC, where he co-leads an interfaith Civil Rights mission, and finally back to his former high school where he shares his insights with a new generation of young people.

A Human Rights Odyssey is a heartwarming story of the spiritual growth of Isaac Levin through the decades. It speaks lovingly of the people who mentored him throughout his journey and the power of a lifelong interracial friendship. It is a plea for all of us to embrace the wonderful diversity of humanity, to treat all people equally, and to build an inclusive society.