Exploring Hate

"Missing Generations": The New York Exhibition Ensuring New Yorkers Never Forget The Holocaust

In the midst of the seeming resurgence of antisemitism around the world and the ignorance about the basic facts of the Holocaust that survey after survey demonstrate, there’s a new exhibition in the New York area focused on not only the horrors of the Holocaust but also the resiliency of the Jewish community where it was nearly annihilated. The exhibition titled “Missing Generations: Photographs by Jill Freedman” is now showing at the Derfner Judaica Museum and the Art Collection at RiverSpring Living. Joining MetroFocus to discuss the exhibit are Susan Chevlowe, chief curator and museum director, and Daniel Reingold, President and CEO of RiverSpring living, the nonprofit organization serving more than 18,000 older adults in Greater New York.

Listening In: "Spotlight on Antisemitism"

As part of our ongoing “Listening In” series, we team up with the 92nd Street Y - one of New York City’s longest-running cultural institutions - to bring you some of the most important and thought-provoking discussions taking place in our city. Tonight, we listen in on New York Times columnist Bret Stephens and Rabbi Peter J. Rubinstein’s conversation on antisemitism, its pervasive nature and how it is being used as a political pawn from both the right and the left.

A documentary tells the inspiring story of former Arizona Congressperson Gabby Gifford’s recovery process after she was shot in the head during a 2011 assassination attempt. Gabby Giffords, who at the time was a rising star in the Democratic party, suffered significant brain damage. Through the help of her team of doctors, the support from her husband, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, and most importantly her own determination, Gabby has been able to recover and return to public life, fighting for common sense gun control across the country. Betsy West and Julie Cohen are the co-directors of “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down”, and they join us tonight to discuss this incredible comeback story.

What makes a good life? This question is at the heart of a new book from “Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most” by three Yale faculty members—Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun and Ryan McAnnally-Linz—and is named after their highly sought-after undergraduate course, the most popular class at Yale. The question of what makes a good life is inherent to the human condition, asked by people across generations, professions, and social classes, and addressed by all schools of philosophy and religions. The three professors argue that this search for meaning is at the crux of a crisis that our culture is facing, a crisis that can be ameliorated by searching, in one’s own life, for the underlying truth.

"How Far Do You Want To Go? Lessons From A Common-Sense Billionaire"

New York City is full of rags-to-riches stories but few have a story to tell quite like billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis. Born in Greece, Catsimatidis immigrated to Harlem as a baby and eventually dropped out of college to work full-time in the grocery business. Today that business, which includes the Gristedes chain of supermarkets, has transformed into Red Apple Group, a conglomerate with interests in everything from real estate to energy refining and WABC news talk radio. Catsimatidis is also a prominent political player, running for mayor in 2013 and donating to everyone from President Clinton to President Trump. John Catsimatidis joins MetroFocus to discuss the nation’s political future, the secrets to his success and his new book, “How Far Do You Want To Go? Lessons from a Common-Sense Billionaire.”

Preserving "The Boss": How The Springsteen Archives & Center for American Music Came To Be

If you know anything about music icon Bruce Springsteen you know that he’s a Jersey guy, the Jersey Shore to be precise. So, it might not be a surprise to learn that the Bruce Springsteen Archives have found a home there at Monmouth University, but you might be surprised at the extent of the archives, how some of Bruce’s biggest fans helped start the collection, and why the project has expanded to now constitute the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music. Joining us to discuss the creation of the archives, the center and what they have to offer is Grammy Award-winning music historian Bob Santelli, the new executive director of the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music.

Chasing The Dream: PepsiCo & Robin Hood Report How Their Partnership Transformed The Lives of More Than 35,000 Young Women in The Bronx

The Bronx is home to the city’s highest concentration of people living in poverty, with 1 in 3 women lacking the proper resources to support themselves and their families. In 2018, MetroFocus brought you a story about two organizations working together to try to solve this problem, the PepsiCo Foundation and Robin Hood Foundation, the city’s largest poverty fighting group. Over the past five years, the two organizations have been collaborating to support education and workforce training programs for thousands of young women in the Bronx. Tonight, as part of our Chasing the Dream initiative on poverty, justice, and economic opportunity in America, we are following-up with the PepsiCo and Robin Hood teams to hear just how successful this collaboration has been.

Acclaimed Film Historian Reflects on 35 Years of Celebrity Interviews at the 92NY

For the past 35 years, the 92nd Street Y has hosted a regular discussion series called “Reel Pieces,” focused on giving New Yorkers an inside look at the biggest movies of our times. Since its inception, the 92NY’s signature film series, which has featured conversations with actors, directors, and early preview screenings of movies not yet released, has been hosted by Annette Insdorf, a world-renowned film historian, author and academic. Through her time moderating “Reel Pieces,” and her work as a film professor at Yale and Columbia, Annette has interreacted with countless filmmakers, such as: Meryl Streep, Sidney Poitier, Greta Gerwig, and Martin Scorsese, just to name a few. She joins MetroFocus to share behind the scenes stories of these movie legends.

The WNET Group "Close To Home" Town Hall Series on Housing Equality (Wednesdays, April 26 - May 24, 6-7:30pm ET)

What will it mean for America if its vibrant cities and towns are remade as enclaves where only the wealthy can thrive? How do campaigns for housing equality amplify moral calls for racial and economic justice? How is housing activism today informed by ancestral wisdom about settler colonialism, anti-Blackness, xenophobia, and old-fashioned greed? What can organizers on the frontlines of those experiences teach people across the United States about empowering communities and disrupting historic inequality? In tonight’s conversation we preview The WNET Group’s upcoming virtual town hall series, Close To Home. Over the next five weeks the series will gather with frontline thinkers and doers to examine the core topic through a specific lens: housing and economic justice, food sovereignty and security, homelessness and community, cultural displacement, and media narratives about housing. Series participants Renee Goust, a Mexican-American singer-songwriter and activist; Rosalinda Guillen, founder of the food justice organization Community To Community; Felukah, an Egyptian born and New York based rapper and activist; Mark Crain, Executive Director at Dream of Detroit; and Nushrat Rahman, a Detroit Free Press reporter as Report for America corps member join MetroFocus to lead this candid conversation about housing equality.

Antisemitism and Holocaust misinformation and denial are spreading rapidly across social media. As TikTok captures the vast majority of eyeballs amongst Gen Z audiences in the U.S. and globally, a creator with a built-in distribution platform with millions of followers - hopes to raise awareness on the issue and ensure young people understand the truth about what really happened during the Holocaust. TikTok influencer Montana Tucker is taking her 11.4 million followers on a journey by retracing her grandparents’ experience during the Holocaust in a series titled “How To: Never Forget,” which consists of ten 2–3-minute episodes. Through this exploration of her own roots, Montana is sharing her experience with her generation — Gen Z, and she joins MetroFocus along with Rachel Kastner, the producer of the series, to discuss their project. This conversation is a part of our Exploring Hate initiative.

Peril & Promise - What's Holding Up Climate Progress in New York City?

Local Law 97, part of New York City’s Climate Mobilization Act of 2019, is one of the country’s boldest climate laws, with half a dozen other municipalities pursuing similar models. Its goal is to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050 by setting increasingly stringent limits on the city’s biggest greenhouse gas polluters — buildings. But as New York Times Real Estate Reporter Stefanos Chen found out, with enforcement of the first phase of the law only a year away, many New York apartment buildings are struggling to make the costly upgrades necessary to comply; risking millions of dollars in penalties if they fail to do so and setting back efforts to a more sustainable future for the city.

Peril & Promise - New York's "Compost Champion" Leads Fight to Save The Planet

In New York City, where one-third of garbage is compostable, there’s a woeful shortage of composting services — especially for the one in 15 people who live in public housing. To prevent that trash from ending up in landfills and contributing to global warming, Domingo Morales has made it his personal mission to spread the power of composting to all New Yorkers. He started the organization “Compost Power” that maintains a growing number of public housing composting sites across the city. Tonight, he joins us to discuss how this grassroots campaign is helping combat global warming and promote inclusivity.

"Bet on Black: The Good News About Being Black In America Today"

In the new book “Bet on Black,” attorney, television and podcast host, Eboni K. Williams, delves into some of the cornerstones of leading a first-class Black life, ranging from knowing one’s history to understanding the power of representation to investing in the sometimes-challenging processes of success. She joins MetroFocus to discuss her latest work and her time as the first Black cast member of “Real Housewives of New York City.”

Artificial Intelligence in School: Meet The Teacher Requiring Students to Use ChatGPT

A new artificial intelligence (AI) program, ChatGPT, is sweeping the internet. The free software can do everything from writing essays, film scripts, and poetry, to passing graduate level law and business school exams. This revolutionary software, while no doubt exciting, also concerns many educators, who feel that students could abuse the software by using it to easily cheat on school assignments. New York City is one of several large school districts that has already banned students from using ChatGPT, as officials review the potential pros and cons of giving students access to such a powerful resource. Not all educators agree on this issue, though. Some, feel that AI is an emerging skill that we should be encouraging young people to pursue to better prepare them for the workforce of the future. One such educator, Dr. Ethan Mollick, an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, joins MetroFocus to discuss why he not only encourages the use of ChatGPT in the classroom - he requires it.

Every siren in New York City has a story and of the approximately 300 emergency calls made every hour, many involve people in desperate need of life-saving care. New York healthcare workers face overwhelming challenges responding to these emergencies, yet they manage to keep the city’s heart beating while juggling their own personal lives. “Emergency NYC,” a new docuseries now streaming on Netflix, is taking us inside their world and that of their patients. It’s an eye-opening window into the country’s growing healthcare crisis that’s been exacerbated by Covid-19 and the exploding gun violence epidemic. Joining MetroFocus are the series filmmakers and executive producers Ruthie Shatz and Adi Barash and two of the principal doctors featured: Dr. David Langer, Chairman of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill Hospital, and Dr. John Boockvar, Vice Chairman of Neurosurgery at Lenox Hill.