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Macon rabbi provides classes to teach community about anti-Jewish bias in our culture

Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar created the class after seeing comments by rapper Kanye West and hate messages around the stadium in Jacksonville during a UGA vs Florida game

MACON, Ga. — Anti-Semitic comments are making the headlines recently. One Macon Rabbi is speaking out about how this impacts the Jewish community and what she's doing about it.

"I'm the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors so whenever I hear anti-Semitic comments or tropes being mentioned it always brings to mind what happened to my family and the fact that the Nazis murdered some of my family members," Rabbi Elizabeth Bahar said.

Bahar is a rabbi at Temple Beth Israel. She's seen the anti-semitic statements made by well known public figures like rapper Kanye West as well as hate messages on and around the stadium in Jacksonville where the University of Georgia played a football game this season. 

The messages prompted the University of Florida and the University of Georgia to denounce these and all acts of anti-semitism. 

"Comments like that cause a lot of fear and concern that they're not only going to be followed by verbal comments but they will be followed by physical attacks or rehashing of other events," Bahar said. 

In the past, Rabbi Bahar taught the history of anti-Semitism for people to learn how to spot and combat it. 

Over the past few weeks she decided to revamp the class to teach how anti-Jewish bias is expressed in our current culture and climate. 

Jaizsha Ross attended one of the rabbi's most recent classes because of what she's seen recently.

"At the end of the day whether you're Jewish or not its not ok to hear," she said.

"Almost every single Jewish person I know has had at least one experience of somebody of anti-Semitism in their life," Bahar said. "We have to bring it back forth and have a conversation about it, in open, in public, with people of different faiths."

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