This year, our Mountain States Spotlight feature is getting an update! In the coming months, we’ll pose Three Big Questions for each of our featured interviewees. We’re kicking off the project with an interview featuring ADL Mountain States Regional Board Member Albert (Buni) Dinner as he celebrates his 95^th birthday this month. We asked Buni to reflect on his long tenure with the Anti-Defamation League, and to provide some advice for future generations.

 

ADL: You’ve been an ADL board member for over 20 years and involved in the organization for much longer. What are the biggest changes you’ve seen since your involvement began and today – both at ADL itself, and in the world at large?

 

Buni Dinner: In my earlier life, I was so busy that I really didn’t make time for involvement in civic organizations. My dad had signed me up for B’nai B’rith when I came back from serving our country in World War II, and I had belonged for many years, but never attended a meeting. When I moved to Denver, however, I joined ADL, which became my primary civic organization. In addition to being critical for people of the Jewish faith, ADL is also the leading organization in doing at its best, as the saying goes, “for us and everybody else.” ADL gives comfort to people of whatever faith, and so it remains, still, after all this time. It’s a comfort to know that ADL is trying to put the world in a better shape, even amongst the challenges of our time including COVID-19 and the same type of self-righteousness and self-government as I saw in countries such as Germany, which somehow has to be put down.

Two experiences I had when I was in the Army, stationed in Tallahassee, Florida in 1944, have shaped my views about the importance of ADL’s work. The first was when I was on a bus in Tallahassee, and pretty soon heard the bus driver screaming. I realized he was screaming at me. I was 18 years old from Greeley, CO, and what did I know about segregation? I’d walked to the back of the bus to sit with the Black people. I didn’t know any differently.

The second experience was seeing the aftereffects of a lynching. I’ve never forgotten it. I was walking around in Tallahassee and I saw a man hanging from a tree. It’s emblazoned on my memory forever. And so, that is a background in how I learned the right way – and the wrong way – that you treat people.

Regarding what’s changed in the world, where do I start? The other night I was watching the history channel and I was watching what robots will do. The same thing happens with science – the things that Flash Gordon did in his day in the comics have become reality. I can envision it, but I can’t believe it. It will happen.

 

ADL: Who are some of the people that have served as role models for you, both in the area of social justice and generally?

BD: My father and mother, Louis and Ida Dinner, were amazing examples to me. They were immigrants who had come over and made their way to Greeley, CO. My dad was a rancher, a pioneer in the cattle business, and my mother was a homemaker. Greeley was a small town, and still we kept up all our Jewish traditions, holidays and all, and yet we were enmeshed in the fabric of the gentile world. I heard about the challenges of Jewish children in Denver who were faced with antisemitism, but I really didn’t experience that type of situation, even though I think every Jewish kid, especially in those days, and maybe today as well, has a sixth sense of what’s going on around them.

My childhood was as idyllic as could be. My parents led me to believe that the good things that one should aspire to in life – family, civic pride, taking care of others – are crucial. I can’t find any better examples than the two of them.

 

ADL: What is your advice for people who are committed to positive change? What should we be doing?

BD: We need to change the whole political scene because there are two polarized sides and the middle ground is left in an abyss. It’s a tough question. Somewhere there have to be some people willing cross the divide to make it to the middle. Everyone wants to have a full and meaningful life. So how do we do that? It would take a year to give you a proper answer. There are so many problems in society: population issues, medical problems, religious problems, social and economic problems. I think it’s answerable over time, but I don’t know that it’s answerable in my lifetime. But I think the first step is to cross the divide and work together to make life better for everyone.

I’ve had a great life and a wonderful close family.  I’m so fortunate that I’ll be enjoying my birthday with them, and that my wife Janice and I celebrated our 70^th anniversary on June 26^th. Thank you for celebrating with me.