I taught Sunday School, Hebrew School, and even a once-a-week class at Weizmann Day School for over ten years. It may sound funny, but my goal for each class was to leave the students a little bit confused as they walked out of class. The reason for this is that I wanted them to continue thinking about and to spend time trying to figure out what exactly it was that I was teaching or discussing in that specific class. Pretty clever, right? After all, if you get a little confused about something, don’t you spend time trying to wrap your head around what you just heard?

Following Sunday’s Super Bowl, discussions always seem to swirl around about the commercials shown during the breaks in the action. One commercial that is not getting the kind of attention I think people were hoping for (except in Jewish circles) is the one paid for by the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. This is the one that featured Dr. Clarence B. Jones, a speech writer for Martin Luther King, Jr. In the commercial, Dr. Jones talks about how all hate thrives on one thing… silence. And how when we stand up to silence, we stand up to all hate.

Many commentators in Jewish media have already begun questioning the effectiveness of this commercial, but I think they are missing the point. Last year, during the unprecedented rise of antisemitism that we were facing in society, I told many people how disappointing it was that the American Jewish community had not used the Super Bowl as a platform to do an ad to combat antisemitism or at least raise the awareness of antisemitism. I’m not naïve to think that had they done that, antisemitism would’ve been eradicated, but I know that it would’ve raised awareness since there were over 110 million sets of eyes that watched the Super Bowl last year.

This year‘s commercial, paid for by Robert Kraft and his Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, brought to light the current climate of hate that we are seeing and experiencing in a way that no other campaign, except for possibly the pink JewBelong billboards and social media posts have.

As a Jewish professional who leads an organization that has worked tirelessly to do what we can to combat hate locally, I applaud and express my utmost appreciation to Robert Kraft for putting his money where his mouth is and trying to raise awareness of this climate of hate and ensure that the people who needed to see and hear this message, saw the ad. By initial estimates… over 120 million people. And while many may have been a little confused by its message, I am hopeful that it got them thinking… even just a little bit.