Spectrum News: Action Tank program aimed at combating local extremism, antisemitism

UC expert gives commentary on community project to improve societal interactions across cultures and

Matthew Kraus, head of the Department of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati, provided commentary in a Spectrum News article regarding an upcoming Action Tank event to combat political extremism.  

Action Tank is a Cincinnati-based nonprofit that works with residents and community groups to promote public policy solutions at the local level. The event is part of the organization’s Preventing Political Extremism Project.  

Kraus isn’t affiliated with the Action Tank program but emphasized that providing a platform such as this requires an “honest understanding of our world and encounters with others and their views” can play in addressing that kind of hate.

Antisemitism is said to be at the highest point than it’s been in more than 40 years.

Kraus said he believes that extremism and antisemitism depend upon “naïve, unexamined, one-dimensional, and zero-sum worldviews."

Read the story

Featured image courtesy of Unsplash. 

Impact Lives Here

The University of Cincinnati is leading public urban universities into a new era of innovation and impact. Our faculty, staff and students are saving lives, changing outcomes and bending the future in our city's direction. Next Lives Here

Related Stories

7111 Results
3

Futuristic cars may soon take flight

April 28, 2021

The Cincinnati Innovation District and University of Cincinnati team up with partners in 1819 Innovation Hub DriveOhio, Cincinnati Bell and Microsoft to innovate with UC talent and help bring future innovation within reach in FlyOhio student challenge.

9

History comes alive: UC Holocaust class experiments with VR technology

June 4, 2024

Students in UC’s Judaic studies class, Teaching and Remembering Trauma: Designing Holocaust and Genocide Education, took a first-hand look at the story of Holocaust survivor Fritzie Fritzshall and her experiences at Auschwitz-Birkenau, thanks to virtual reality (VR) technology provided by the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center. UC is one of the first colleges granted exclusive access to the museum’s traveling set of VR headsets. Alexis Morrisroe, adjunct instructor in the Judaic Studies program, secured access to the VR headsets through her prior role as a youth educator at the museum from June 2008 to April 2020. Seizing the opportunity, the department became one of the first schools participating in the soft launch.