Rabbi Angela Buchdahl leads the largest synagogue in New York City. But she says she’s never been so afraid to talk about Israel. That’s because she thinks that compassion for people suffering on either side of the war in Gaza has come to be seen as disloyal and even threatening – a zero sum empathy calculus that also applies to ideological battles fought in our country every day. Buchdahl is the first Asian American to be ordained a rabbi, a journey she describes in her new memoir “Heart of a Stranger: An Unlikely Rabbi’s Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging.” We talk to her about why knowing what it feels like to be an outsider has helped her enable connection among people with disparate views and what happens when we become incapable of empathy.

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