It's about the intellectual evolution of Derek Black, the son of the creator of the infamous white-power website Stormfront. He grew up believing in and advocating for a lot of very foul ideas. As the article describes it, the key turning point was when someone in his college - even knowing Derek's politics and history - invited him to a weekly Shabbat dinner:
Matthew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him. “Maybe he’d never spent time with a Jewish person before,” Matthew remembered thinking.
The story seems to have a happy ending, with Derek's political about-face. The lesson in here seems incredibly apropos - rather than push out people who have wrongheaded views, pull them in closer and challenge their ideas. Use love instead of hatred.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-...
It's about the intellectual evolution of Derek Black, the son of the creator of the infamous white-power website Stormfront. He grew up believing in and advocating for a lot of very foul ideas. As the article describes it, the key turning point was when someone in his college - even knowing Derek's politics and history - invited him to a weekly Shabbat dinner:
Matthew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him. “Maybe he’d never spent time with a Jewish person before,” Matthew remembered thinking.
The story seems to have a happy ending, with Derek's political about-face. The lesson in here seems incredibly apropos - rather than push out people who have wrongheaded views, pull them in closer and challenge their ideas. Use love instead of hatred.