Rabbi Abie Ingber served as executive director of the University of Cincinnati’s Hillel Center for three decades. He was also an instructor at Hebrew Union College and a weekly commentator for NPR’s Morning Edition in Cincinnati. He went on to establish the Center for Interfaith Community Engagement at Cincinnati’s Xavier University and co-created the 2005 award-winning exhibit, A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People. He has been an advocate for social justice his entire life.
What past event do you often reflect upon, and how did that event change you?
I grew up in an Orthodox Jewish world, and one of my mentors was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. He was a folksinger and Hassidic Rabbi who revolutionized the music in synagogues. I was with him at least once a year, and like hundreds of other young people, I would line up for his blessing. He would call me “the most beautiful human being in the world.” He also called everyone else standing in line by the same moniker. And yet, as he held my head in his hands, I knew, at that precise moment, he meant it. I have always tried to emulate his blessing by being so very present as I interfaced with each person.
How does your work add to the quality of your life?
I am a people-collector and story-teller. In my work at the University of Cincinnati and then at Xavier University I developed a theme for my interfaith mission. I aspired to help young people go from tolerance to celebration. I tried to teach them to celebrate who they are in all their identities and then to do the same in the relationships they can create with the diversity of humanity they encounter. This theme defined my own life and made my passion for teaching it the highlight of my entire professional career. Spiritual journeys and discoveries made my celebration more special than I ever imagined.
Tell us a story you would like to share with the world.
I am unabashedly a child of the ’60s. On June 1, 1969, I talked my way into Room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada. John Lennon, and his wife, Yoko Ono, were hoping to draw attention to the Vietnam War with a Bed-In for Peace. A rag-tag eight-track recorder was recording a simple new song –– “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” I was in that bedroom because I believed in myself and the cause I was fighting for –– human rights in Russia and free emigration for Soviet Jews I still remember that scene as if it was yesterday.
Author photo: Courtesy of author.
Side bar image: Pixabay/Edar.
