'How can we expect others to empathize with us when we fail to empathize with Palestinians?'

Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of the IKAR synagogue in Los Angeles, has been progressive Judaism's leading voice over the past decade speaking out for equality and human rights, as well as the rabbinic figure of choice for the Biden-Harris White House.

Author of the new book "The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World," Brous told Haaretz Podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer that her world changed since October 7 and that, among other realizations, she reached the "painful awareness" that some of her allies on the left still "don't see Jews in that utopian anti-racist society that we have been dreaming about together."

Brous, whose new book focuses on Jewish mourning rituals, said it is understandable that even Jews on the progressive left are currently enmeshed in tribal grief as the war rages on. Her own congregation in Los Angeles includes families of those murdered and kidnapped by Hamas.

Still, she said, "Each of us, in our own way, has to find when we're ready to step out of our shiva, and see that there is a world of human suffering that is happening just over the border."

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