Proclaiming Justice with Laurie Cardoza Moore

Laurie Cardoza Moore: PJTM Watchman, I have a special interview for you today. We are still here at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. You can hear all the noise in the background. Everybody is excited to be here. This is our annual convention where we come and distribute all of our award-winning content through our 22 global media partners who join us here at the NRB.

Today, I want to introduce you to Karen Dresbach. She is the Executive Vice President of Appeal of Conscience Foundation. I spoke with her earlier, and you're going to love what she has to say. Karen, thank you so much for being here.

Karen Schneier Dresbach: Thank you for having me.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Tell me about Appeal of Conscience. What is it?

Karen Schneier Dresbach: Sixty years ago, my dad, who was a Holocaust survivor as a child, started the Appeal of Conscience Foundation. His name is Rabbi Arthur Schneier. He started it because he wanted to make sure that no other faith suffered what he and his people suffered.

It’s no accident that he decided to bring people of other faiths into the group because he felt we're all God's children. If we stick together and we work together, we can conquer our problems.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: What a great concept. It would be nice if it were so easy.

Karen Schneier Dresbach: That's why we continue the work that we're doing. Really, the mission of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation is to provide mutual respect and peaceful cooperation among the faith community. Together, we can do so much more because we're all God's children.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about your projects. Your dad started this, and you are coming alongside your dad to help him to continue to further—

Karen Schneier Dresbach: We're continuing that legacy. He is almost 96 years young, and he is an incredible force. It is my blessing to continue his legacy alongside him.

Guest (Male): That's amazing. What a life that he had to live, and now he's sharing this goodwill toward others, bringing other faiths together. Tell us about the organizations or the faith groups that you are working with.

Karen Schneier Dresbach: We're really fortunate. We have all the major religious leaders all across the United States: the Catholic Archdiocese, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, the Armenian Church, Christian churches, National Council of Churches of Christ, and on and on. Obviously, my father is Jewish, so we have that as well.

We’re really fortunate because we all work hand in hand. We all believe in "love thy neighbor as thyself." One of our main focus areas is protecting houses of worship, which we used to do internationally. Sadly, now that's become an issue in the United States. Children are being gunned down in a church. Houses of worship are being attacked, going up in flames. We're working in the United States to provide barriers and to protect people of faith.

Another thing we work on is a program called "Respect the Other," which is an educational initiative to teach children of faith to respect other children of faith. Again, we're all God's children. Just because we worship a little differently, most of us have the Old Testament in common. We have more in common than our differences.

The last thing that we're working on presently—we work on so many different things—is a program that we're doing in conjunction with Robert Kraft's team, the Blue Square Alliance. We started a program called "Stand Up Sunday." Stand Up Sunday happens once a year. We just had it in September, and it will happen again this fall in October.

We call upon people of faith in houses of worship all across the United States to stand up on one day and say, "Hey, we are all God's children. We are all people of faith, and together we need to stand up and say we combat hatred of people of faith and we combat antisemitism."

The response was phenomenal. We had 1.5 million worshipers standing up in September. We had publicity all across the United States. We are going for round two, 2.0, and we will be engaging athletes of faith as well as college campuses.

Guest (Male): Fantastic. Antisemitism is on the rise. What are these other religious groups doing to show—because we also have a problem with radical Islamists. Radical Islam doesn't respect Judaism or Christianity.

How do you work with these different faith leaders with that type of culture? How do you know that you can trust the other? I will share with you a friend of mine who is a rabbi. After October 7th, I went to go visit her, and I asked her if the Islamic community, the Muslim community there in her town, reached out to her.

I've heard a lot of the Islamist groups are not big fans of PJTM because of our mission. I'm considered different. I was always concerned about whether you can trust the intent of the other. What is the action that the other is taking that secures your understanding that they are committed to something like this, to an appeal of conscience?

Karen Schneier Dresbach: From my perspective, I'm Jewish. With the rise in antisemitism, first we witness it all over the world, but we never expected it to be so blatant in the United States. For the Jewish community in the United States to feel that you have other faith leaders and other people of faith standing beside you really makes us feel that we have allies. We're not alone because it is just too hard a battle to fight on our own, and we do need allies.

To have the other communities fight for us or stand by our side is so encouraging and refreshing and gives us strength. In every faith community at times, you can have some fringe groups. I think that there are members of the Muslim community who believe in the State of Israel and believe in their existence, and those are our partners—ones who don't denounce the State of Israel.

If we go back to the idea that we are all God's children, we're all put here for a reason, and people have good intentions, then we can all move forward together. Otherwise, it's pretty lonely out there on an island by yourself. That's been our approach. Those who believe in "love thy neighbor as thyself" embrace the concept.

Guest (Male): How many leaders are involved with this organization now?

Karen Schneier Dresbach: We have all the major faith leaders as part of our board and our trustee council. We just move together on issues of people of faith. I will not be unemployed anytime soon. This country and this world, as we say, really need to perfect this imperfect world. It’s people of faith who can really take that bull by the horns.

We have an opportunity right now where people of faith stand up. We can show the values of people of faith and make a difference in this world. That's what we wrap our arms around. It’s mutual acceptance and peaceful coexistence and respect for the other.

A lot of people talked about tolerance for years in interreligious dialogue. When I was growing up, my mother would make liver steaks, and I couldn't tolerate them. I would slap ketchup on it and swallow it because you had to respect your mother and father, you had to eat it.

But that's what tolerance means. Tolerance means you sort of hold your nose and you tolerate it. Jewish people don't want to be tolerated. Nobody wants to be tolerated. You want to be mutually accepted and respected. If we as people of faith all embrace that concept, the world can get a little better pretty quickly.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: I agree. I don't think you'll be going anywhere anytime soon. Your father was a visionary. He still is. He continues to see the need for people of faith to come together because sometimes some of the worst people are people of faith that cause the greatest problems. I commend you for the work that you're doing.

Karen Schneier Dresbach: There's a wonderful expression my dad used to say. Hopefully, I'll get it right: "A crime in the name of religion is the greatest crime against religion."

Laurie Cardoza Moore: That is powerful. I think you should trademark that. Karen, I appreciate you taking the time. How can our audience follow you, watch what you're doing, and get involved?

Karen Schneier Dresbach: They can just go on our website, appealofconscience.org. It's easy to find us. Give us a call, send us an email, and we'd love to have you involved in any way you'd like to be involved. Basically, holding onto this premise that we love our neighbor as ourselves. We're all God's children. We have an obligation. We were all put here for a reason, and let's make the world a better place.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: Amen. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you again for joining me on this edition of Proclaiming Justice. Please share this podcast with your family and friends. For more information about how you can get involved, please visit our website at pjtm.org. As a PJTM Watchman, you can help us keep up the fight to preserve our freedom for our children and their children for such a time as this.