Bhavini Patel joins national fight against antisemitism and bigotry
“It was a really unique experience,” she said, “that reinforced, for me, not just the urgency of confronting antisemitism but also the sort of systems that allow it to persist."
Bhavini Patel can add Anti-Defamation League Glass Fellow to an already impressive resume.
The Sustainable Pittsburgh executive director serves on the Edgewood Borough Council and is a former congressional candidate. She previously served as the community outreach manager for then-Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and was a member of the PA Medical Marijuana Advisory Board. The University of Pittsburgh and Oxford alum has served on numerous boards and is deeply committed to the region.
Patel is a strong supporter of not only the Hindu community — of which she is a member — and immigrant communities, but also the Jewish community.
The Glass Fellowship, she said, helped strengthen her resolve and help cement her belief in people telling their “own truths.”
“If you don’t tell your own truth, there’s always going to be somebody out there that’s willing to misrepresent it for their own political gain or hateful gain,” Patel said.
An entire generation, she explained, is being fed negative information through social media and online content about their identities, faith and culture and are internalizing it as truth.
The Jewish community, Patel noted, has learned to push back and tell their stories in the fight against hate and antisemitism. It’s something she hopes the Hindu community learns, as well.
Patel saw firsthand the ADL’s fight against hate while participating in the Glass Leadership Institute.
GLI was established more than 20 years ago to provide young professionals with an insider’s perspective of the ADL’s programs and a deep understanding of the cutting-edge strategies employed to confront antisemitism and hate, according to the ADL’s website.
The fellowship consisted of biweekly Zoom sessions centered on a particular topic with presentations from the ADL.
“We dove deep into different case studies and got a sense of how they navigate the challenges of how information flows,” Patel said. “Each session was devised in the way that we were essentially hearing from the experts. It was really dense, but they did a wonderful job of bringing together people that really care about the issues and a sense of community.”
The lessons went beyond just learning about antisemitism and hate, Patel said, and allowed for exploration of data and research.
“It was a really unique experience,” she said, “that reinforced, for me, not just the urgency of confronting antisemitism but also the sort of systems that allow it to persist. It’s not something that just happens. It gradually grows and manifests through rhetoric.”
As part of the fellowship, Patel attended the ADL’s Never is Now conference, from March 3-4 in New York City.
The conference featured more than 100 experts leading various panels and discussions and presented an opportunity to build in-person relationships with other GLI fellows as well as ADL staff.
Patel called the experience “eye opening,” and said it provided an opportunity to meet with other people across the country who are passionate about fighting antisemitism and educating themselves about some current challenges.
The conference, she said, provided an opportunity to think about “media bias, as well as coalition and community building.”
Karen Gal-Or, who nominated Patel for the fellowship, said she has been an unwavering ally to the Jewish community.
“In the painful months following Oct. 7, she stood beside us in solidarity and compassion,” Gal-Or said. “Bhavini has played an instrumental role in building bridges between the Jewish and Hindu communities in Pittsburgh, always leading with empathy, integrity and a deep commitment to democracy.”
Patel said the lessons learned through the fellowship will help to combat not only antisemitism and anti-Hindu vitriol but hate more broadly, and will help foster understanding of the challenges and fears communities face “when they’re forced to stand on a stage and say, ‘This is hate,’ when the entire world is telling you it’s not.”
Those lessons, Patel said, reverberate throughout society.
“I think it reinforces how to build a healthy democracy,” she said. “I think we’re facing such a crisis right now where we don’t realize democracy is such a fragile thing. We’re treating complex geopolitical issues as zero-sum games at the cost of forgetting our humanity and being able to connect with one another.”
The fellowship, she said, provides an opportunity to “take these lessons back to our communities and say, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do as neighbors and community members to tell the truth and fight against hate and build positivity.’” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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