Harvard fellow and nationally recognized peacemaker Simon Greer addressed students at the Kennedy Center for International Studies on Sept. 16. Focusing his remarks on "civic martial arts," Greer shared his journey from polarized pundit to bridge builder.
The address is part of the center's larger fall lecture series, "Religion, Identity, and Public Life.”
Greer began his career as a labor and community organizer, working with unions in South Carolina and nonprofits in Washington, D.C. His Jewish background led to his involvement in national and international issues regarding Judaism.
Greer also founded multiple nonprofits, including "Jewish Funds for Justice" (now known as "Bend the Arc"), and served as president and CEO.
As his career progressed, Greer found himself climbing the ladder of social and political influence, mingling with the biggest names in politics — names like Barack Obama.
During Obama’s race to the White House, Greer co-created an influential political action committee, or PAC, that influenced Obama's eventual presidential election.
“I was a somebody. I had car service, I had an expense account, I had a nice office,” Greer said.
Though his success had given him popularity and financial success, Greer felt he was trapped by his dogmatic, one-sided way of thinking.
“The political cost of saying to my own team, ‘we’re doing something wrong here…’ I was not brave enough to do it,” Greer said.
While president of "Jewish Funds for Justice," Greer entered a public feud with conservative commentator Glenn Beck, contributing to Beck's departure from Fox News. Later, the pair reconciled through a series of mediated conversations.
This reconciliation marked an important point in his gradual change from polarized pundit to bridge builder. Another key moment in Greer’s journey came when he lost his job. After years of battling with his opponents, Greer came to a realization and instantly knew what he had to do.
“I'm gonna go spend time with the people I demonize. White working-class conservatives, corporate business leaders and ultra-Orthodox Jews,” he said.
Greer spent time listening — something he has called a superpower — to people he had directly opposed.
“Stop counterpunching. Just listen,” Greer said.
During his time getting to know his ideological enemies, Greer recounted stories of drawn guns, Middle Eastern escapades and rural corrections officers dancing together with Jews in a synagogue.
Despite his ultimate bridge-building goal, Greer doesn’t think kumbaya moments are how real gaps are crossed.
“I think fluffy, watered-down compromises get us nowhere,” he said.
Greer’s work in the Middle East led him to some of the world’s most contentious places, exploring war, peace and borders.
During his address, Greer shared a hypothetical illustrating how kumbaya moments are not enough to inspire true compromise. The hypothetical involved two women, one Palestinian and the other Israeli, disagreeing about the ideal border of each of their respective states.
“We have two legitimate, irreconcilable claims, and they won't be solved through kumbaya. They might be solved through, ‘I don't want my son to die, and you don't want your son to die,’” he said.
Though the stances of the two women oppose each other almost entirely, Greer argued that shared values are what bridge the gap.
”But that's not kumbaya. That's not because I'm gonna renounce the Jewish claim to this land. It's because I'm going to agree that there are other competing values, like coexistence, like safety — like we're all made in the image of God,” he said.
Greer ended his presentation with a call for action.
“Bridge building is not for the people recovering from their traditions — it's for people deeply immersed in their traditions,” he said. “The big question for America is, ‘can we hold these deeply diverse traditions that really see the world differently and say, ‘yeah, you have the right to be here, too?’”
Teaching assistant Isabella Ximenes oversaw and participated in the lecture, explaining her favorite idea Greer shared.
“Don’t be the type of person that is like ‘OK, your religion defines you,’” Ximenes said.
The event, like all lectures within the series, is targeted towards students but is available to the public.
Scott Sanders is the associate director of academic research at the Kennedy Center. Sanders outlined the mission of the lecture series, focusing on religion and public identity.
“We're trying to help students learn how to engage with hard topics while retaining and sharing our faith,” Sanders said. “That's what Simon does — he just engages with it. With people across religious, political identities, not asking you to change, not asking you to compromise, but to have hard conversations,” Sanders said.
The Kennedy Center hosts weekly lectures at 12 p.m. in room 238 of the Herald R. Clark Building. The lectures are also available on YouTube.