BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — It was a night of celebrating freedom. Members of the First Shiloh Baptist Church and Temple Beth Zion shared stories of liberation at their first joint Freedom Seder.
"A Seder is a telling of our ancestors journey from slavery to freedom from Egypt to the promise land," said Brent Gutmann, Senior Rabbi of Temple Beth Zion.
The joint Freedom Seder was described as a Black and Jewish unity exercise.
"We're coming together to remember our common history and remember that at one time that we both we're communities that we're enslaved," said Jonathan Staples, Senior Pastor of First Shiloh Baptist Church. "Not only is it a time of remembering but it's a time of also setting the stage of how we move forward."
A necessary question both communities raised following the May 14th shooting.
"It was my idea after the Tops Massacre that we really needed to show an example to the city and I would even suggest to the world that we can live in peace together," said Staples.
"Being in Buffalo and being close to our neighbors has always been a part of the ethos of who we are here," said Gutmann. "We talk constantly in our tradition about Tikkun Olam, which means to repair the world and we can only repair the world when we're in a relationship with it."
The kitchen was full of foods from both the Jewish and African American communities - from collard greens to matzah balls.
And it's all in an effort to create some new bonds.
"It's a whole lot easier to have open conversations around food, around getting to know one another," said Staples. "So, we decided that it was important for us to build trust and share together with one another so that we can be comfortable with one another and have enough rust built so that we can really deal with the tougher questions."
Their hope is to one day address things like equity, housing crises, getting resources to disenfranchised communities, and most of all, helping everyone see that maybe we're not so different after all.
"I really do hope that this will be the first of many occasions, well actually the second right now but that there will be many many more occasions for us to be able to share each other's company," said Gutmann.
