- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by Hackensack Meridian Health.

Keep getting better.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

Prudential Financial.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Here when you need us most.

PSEG Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

TD Bank.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

And by NJM Insurance Group.

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Keeping communities informed and connected.

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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The jobs of tomorrow are not the jobs of yesterday.

- I'’m hopeful that this is the beginning to accountability.

- Life without dance is boring.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I did do the finale, and guess where my trailer was?

A block away from my apartment, it couldn'’t have been better!

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

-_ It'’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it'’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - [John] First thing that I do is I bring the menus to the table.

Then, I ask what kind of drinks that they want.

Then, I go to the back, give the order to my kids, then bring the food at the table while I'm figuring out the check in my head.

And then I refill their drinks and then they come to the register and they pay.

(register dings) I'm not sure when they notice if I'm blind or not.

Just as I'm walking around, they get it.

Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kickoff this One-on-One program part of our Arts Connection series.

You've just seen a clip from Bendix: Sight Unseen.

Anthony Scalia.

Anthony Scalia joins us, documentary filmmaker.

He's responsible for that.

Anthony, great to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

- The film follows John.

Tell everyone who John is.

- John Diakakis is a blind diner owner here in New Jersey.

He's the owner and waiter at the Bendix Diner.

He's also a man of many facets.

He's a single father of three children.

He's a stand-up comedian.

He has an unbelievable shoe and cologne collection.

So, all of these crazy things make whole, and that's exactly what I did for the last three years is follow him around telling these pieces, getting this whole together and making this documentary.

- You grew up where?

- I grew up in Lodi just about five minutes down the road from the diner.

- The diner's in, and where is it again?

- Hasbrouck Heights.

- Hasbrouck Heights.

So up, up Bergen County, you, you know the area.

Did you know John before?

- I didn't, no.

I went into the diner late one night simply because it was the only place open and, um... - That's the way it is in Jersey sometimes.

(laughter) Go ahead.

- It is.

I knew something was a little off because when he handed me my drink he didn't put it on the table.

He kind of just hovered it, waited for me to take it.

But it took me a minute for everything to click.

And I said, "Are you blind?".

He's like, "Yeah, I am."

And he said, "My son over there, he's working the front grill."

And the kid must have been like, in high school.

It was like, late.

It was like, 2:00 or 3:00 AM and I was like, this is a story.

So, it took me a while to convince him, but eventually I just started hanging around there and I kind of wouldn't leave until I got the shots that I needed.

And that's how this film came, came about.

- You fell in love with film when?

- When I was a child.

My dad owned a video store pre-Blockbuster and just had a plethora of classic films.

I grew up on old Warner Brothers and Universal Studios movies.

And as soon as I got into high school I started making films with my friends.

My cam, my family, when I was young bought me a video camera.

So, I'd always been doing that and then took it more seriously into high school.

And then when I went to college the choice was sort of easy.

I was like, I gotta go for film.

And I went to Ramapo College.

- Is that how we know you?

We know who you are.

- No, actually that, but that is another connection.

But, but, I - - Give, give me the Jersey connection because we, for years, we do our, the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Awards there.

And there are, actually our executive producer Georgette Timoney voiced them over and produced a lot of them.

They're special.

There's short segments on extraordinary people who are honored at that Make a Difference ceremony.

And a lot of that video is shot by the students up at Ramapo.

Were you involved in that at all?

- I shot and edited a lot of those.

Yeah.

- You did that?

- I did.

(laughs) - So you got great experience in college creating content in this way?

- Absolutely.

You know, I learned a whole lot from my professors while I was there.

They were fantastic.

In fact, the Ramapo is having a, a screening of Bendix next week and they're asking me to speak to the students and things like that.

But New Jersey and PBS have both been long-standing connections.

I was an intern at American Masters back when I was at Ramapo.

And, - Does it get better I worked for an, - than that?

I'm sorry?

- It doesn't get better than that.

- It doesn't.

I also work currently as a freelance editor for PBS.

I've done their pledge breaks for All Creatures, Endeavour, The Evolution.

And I'm working on The U.S. and the Holocaust right now.

- Documentary filmmaking.

By the way, how long is the Bendix piece?

- 26 minutes.

Where is the market for a film of 26 minutes?

- Online.

There's a pretty heavy market for it.

Things like Netflix, things like HBO, where they're not so television-oriented at the time.

They're more likely to host a film like this.

I've been in talks with distribution to several companies since I've done the festival route.

To be honest with you, this is my first film outside of college that I filmed and had never really considered distribution before this.

I just made movies to make movies.

And however long it was, was however long it was.

And now I'm finding that it should probably fit into a little bit of a window.

- You should do a documentary on the business of making documentaries.

- It's pretty fascinating stuff.

(laughs) - Yeah, you're learning quickly about being an entrepreneur, aren't you?

- A little bit.

I've also learned about how to make a documentary.

So, in my mind, before I started this, I had done a few seven-minute pieces about places and interesting people in New Jersey.

I thought that this would've followed that same format.

That this would be a seven-minute, you know, piece about John and in and out.

But the longer I spent with him, the more time and more things I've realized that he did, I was like, "Wait a minute, this is bigger than this."

And I thought I was doing something wrong because it wasn't fitting into my cookie cutter mold of how I always made things.

Come to find, after talking to many people at festivals who make documentaries, that's exactly how a documentary is made.

You often start one way and end up in a totally different direction.

And that's part of the process.

I wish somebody had told me that.

It would've saved me a lot of anxiety.

But it's okay.

- (laughs) We're better for it.

- Tell us more about John.

What makes him so special?

- The thing that really makes him special in my mind is just how good of a father he is.

I've seen him around his children.

Obviously his disability and his ways of managing and handling his disability are inspiring not only to the people who come into his diner, who've known him for years, but people who are driving cross-country and stop into that diner you know, just by chance.

Everybody's amazed by him.

His ability to take money at the register and bring the food to the table without a hitch.

But to me it's his skills as a father.

He genuinely cares about his children.

Is always up to date with information about them, wants to know how they're doing in school, "What grade did you get on the Spanish test?".

Like, it's a way that, I mean, I know my parents were with me, but it's a rare sort of trait to see him so involved in his children's lives in a way that isn't over like a helicopter parent.

He genuinely cares.

And I think that's what makes him so special.

- Be, before I let you go, obviously, John can't see the documentary, but he experiences the documentary.

Real quick, got a few seconds.

What did he tell you?

- He said he loved it.

We, I had let him listen to it privately and he called me back and was happy that as much crazy stuff as he did made it into the documentary.

Cuz he was so, he's like, "I think you were gonna cut some of that stuff."

I was like, "No John."

- Nope.

"This is you."

This tells the whole story.

- Stays in.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

The best stuff is the stuff that people think should go out and stays in.

That's Anthony Scalia, documentary filmmaker.

Check out Bendix: Sight Unseen, part of our Arts Connection series.

Hey, we look forward to your work in the future, Anthony and wish you all the best.

- Thank you so much, Steve.

Thanks for havin me.

- Yeah.

I'm Steve Adubato, that's Anthony Scalia.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- As part of our Confronting Racism and Prejudice series, we're joined by Rabbi Laurence Groffman of Temple Sholom of West Essex.

Rabbi, good to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- The rise in antisemitism, and we're in 2023.

It'll be seen throughout the next couple months.

We're taping in February.

Worse than ever, correct?

- Yes, there's definitely been a marked rise in anti-Semitism in the last several years.

In fact, the American Jewish Committee just released a survey yesterday showing that some 40% of American Jews, 41%, have changed their behavior in some way in the last year because of anti-Semitism.

And a similar amount, some 40% also feel that anti-Semitism has been on the increase.

And we know that this is happening in lots of different ways.

It manifests itself, as we all know, in some of the events that grab the headlines like the murder of Jews in synagogues, as we've seen or in other Jewish spaces.

We see it in the attacks, physical attacks on visibly Jewish people, Orthodox Jews in the streets of New York City.

We see it in public figures with enormous audiences on social media who espouse anti-Semitic stereotypes.

Some of these figures have followings that far exceed the number of Jews that exist in the world.

All these things are very troubling.

And we also see anti-Semitism manifest in ways that don't grab the headlines, Steve.

I'm sure every rabbi will tell you the same thing, that they have students in their congregations who, at school, are subjected to verbal anti-Semitic remarks or electronic text messages, things like that that are anti-Semitic in nature.

It's the graffiti, anti-Semitic graffiti that shows up on school buildings.

It's on synagogues and Jewish institutions.

Attacks on the infrastructure on the buildings, and anti-Semitic graffiti.

So correct, anti-Semitism has definitely surged and it manifests in a lot of different ways from across different sectors of society.

- Rabbi, you've done a very comprehensive job describing how bad the situation is.

What I'm curious about is while there's no one contributing factor to this, what are the top two or three?

- Well, I think that historically, Steve, anti-Semitism, look, let's backtrack for a second.

Anti-Semitic attitudes and feelings have, of course, been around since beginning of time.

- Always been there They've always been there.

- Always been there, right.

- What has allowed people to be so public with their feelings, emotions, and actions and reactions.

When did, how did that change?

- Right, that's the question.

So what we've seen historically, I think is that anti-Semitic actions, speech, manifests itself when society is in some ways unstable, right?

And so we all know that in the last several years, it's been a tumultuous time in our country in many different ways, economically, politically, socially, culturally, and so forth.

And when people are feeling unmoored, when people are feeling uncertain, when society does not feel stable, that is when we tend to see a rise in anti-Semitism.

Not to mention, of course, arising hatred against other minority groups, whether it be African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, sexual minorities.

So I think one of the interesting things to bear in mind and I know this may sound counterintuitive is that anti-Semitism is not only a Jewish problem.

Anti-Semitism is the warning bell for everyone in the country that we need to make sure that the foundational core institutions of liberal American democracy are stabilized and that they are functioning the way they're intended to function, whether it be in politics, government, business, culture, education.

When those institutions are stable in doing the job they're supposed to do and the way they're intended to, that's one factor I think that would mitigate the rise in anti-Semitism.

- But Rabbi, lemme play the devil's advocate, if you will.

Hey, that's not me.

I'm Italian American, someone else African American, someone else is Hispanic, someone else, Asian American, and look, that's not me.

The problem with that thinking, obviously, I'm speaking metaphorically, hypothetically, the serious problem with that thinking is what?

- Well, it's a great question, Steve, is that like I said, this is a problem for everyone.

So that is isn't only about Jews, it's a sign.

- As is racism, - Correct.

- as is a racism, as are the attacks on the Asian American community.

Just please go ahead, I'm sorry.

- Yeah, exactly.

That's what I was saying, that it's not a surprise that not only do we see rise in anti-Semitism, but a rise in hatred against other groups as well.

So that's why when people say, "Hey, that's not me.

I'm not like that."

That very well may be true, but it's a sign that we have to take a hard look at the society that we're living in.

And I think every citizen can play a role in making sure that our society functions in the way it's supposed to.

Part of that too, I think, Steve, is the way we talk to each other.

And I know it's a well worn subject already, but you know, obviously a constructive, productive discourse across partisan lines seems like a thing of the past.

And the ability, or I should say the lack of ability that we seem to have right now to have constructive debates about issues is I think itself a symptom of the problem.

So often, instead of constructively talking about an issue, we engage in ad hominem attacks.

So someone who disagrees with me is my enemy, as opposed to someone who has a different point of view.

Let's get together and figure out a common way forward, that should also help.

- Go, go back to Charlottesville.

Go back to Charlottesville.

And for those of you who really don't understand, Google Charlottesville, it'll come up.

And so as I see those men, and they were mostly men, with those tiki torches, chanting, "Jews will not replace us," okay?

And we think of what happened there and the president at the time, confronted with the question of commenting on this, "Good people on both sides."

What impact did that have?

There's no one situation, not one statement from a public official, but what impact did that have on embolden, creating a situation where certain people with certain feelings felt emboldened?

- Yeah, I think that, again, Charlottesville is a good place to focus because I think that in some ways, you know, that was a little over a year before the shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

And not that there's a direct connection, not that Charlottesville caused Pittsburgh, but I think Charlottesville, again, is symptomatic of what's happening in society.

So what often happens with anti-Semitism, again, it is the oldest conspiracy theory around so when we hear, "The Jews will not replace us," in a sense what that's saying is, "The Jews are the cause of our problems."

And so again, it gets back to Steve what I was talking about before.

When society is in transition or in some way unstable people look for an explanation for that instability, for the problems.

And historically, anti-Semitism has served that purpose again, as one of the world's oldest conspiracy theories.

Hey, why are things difficult?

Well, it's this tiny, tiny, tiny group of people that have - It's the Jews.

- disproportionate power.

They're the ones - It's the Jews.

- causing problems.

It's the Jews, right?

And we have unfortunately played that role in so many different societies for thousands of years.

The other thing to bear in mind is that another way that anti-Semitism functions is that whatever a particular society or culture at any given time deems to be the worst possible sin, Jews seem to be the embodiment of that.

So historically, in communist countries, Jews were the capitalists.

In capitalist countries, Jews were the communists, - Communists.

- So forth and so on, exactly.

- Yeah, I wanna end this on a positive, not a fake silver lining, positive note, but in Bloomfield, when the synagogue was attacked, there was a very public event that brought people together, our two US senators, members of Congress, but more importantly, the community.

Community people came together, many of whom are not Jewish.

Why is that so important for communities to band together?

- It is one of the best responses to anti-Semitism.

When you had over 1100 people, 300 of whom were standing out in the freezing cold for hours because they couldn't get in.

What that does is it says a couple things.

One is that we Jews are not alone, and that we have a lot of friends and allies.

And one of the best responses anti-Semitism, Steve, and what we in the Jewish community do, is that we build relationships across lines of difference right?

We have relationships with our interfaith friends from different religions, different races, different community groups.

And you saw that in Bloomfield when everyone came out to stand with us.

It also reminds us that our faiths are interconnected, that certainly minority groups are historically vulnerable groups.

And so we need each other to support each other.

And in what that rally did, I think it's symbolic of the fact that what it does, it sends a message back into the culture that in contrast to messages of division and hatred and scapegoating, this is a message of respect and love and understanding.

And I think it's really important that those voices come out there to counter the divisive and hate-filled voices - And unity.

Rabbi, thank you so much for joining us.

We'll continue the conversation as part of our Confronting Racism and Prejudice series.

Thank you, Rabbi.

- Thank you.

- Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Folks we're glad to be joined by José Luis Dominguez who is artistic director at New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra.

José Luis, great to have you with us.

- Thank you, Steve.

Thank you for having me.

- Tell everyone what the orchestra is while we put up the website so folks can find out more.

- Absolutely.

The New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra is a wonderful program that actually includes young players from lower school, middle school up to high school.

We have seniors as well so there's normally four to five different ensembles.

The older players, high school, high schoolers normally play in the Academy Orchestra which is the orchestra I conduct normally.

And they are a full orchestra.

Winds, brass, percussion, and all of it.

So it's the more advanced, more experienced group.

And what we have is a weekly session during the academic year where amazing coaches from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra players from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and teaching artists from the area, of course they coach our students beyond just rehearsing.

So this is very special.

Because of that, we have two very particular things.

There's a lot of coaching directly that has to do with the instrument itself, then with the repertoire itself.

And there's the experience of playing with others in the ensemble.

And we also lately work on compositions as well from the students.

So it's a very full package of creativity and ensemble playing.

- Yeah, this is part of our Arts Connection series.

You'll see the graphic on the lower third right now.

But what I'm fascinated by José Luis is this you grew up in Chile?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Your dad, your father, a musician.

- Yes.

- You fell in love with music, when?

- Oh, this is not gonna be as academic and profound as you think, but it's gonna be the truth.

So I was about seven years old and I was already being trained by my father at home.

We had a piano.

My father is a wonderful teacher.

He's retired now, but he taught all his life and he was also a conductor, a bassoonist.

So he taught me, since I have memories, I mean really all the time I was training music at home.

But the day I said I wanna do this was around 1978.

Oh, I just said how old I am.

Anyway, so I was like, about seven or eight years old my dad took me to the movies.

And a movie started with the words "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away," and a B flat major chord played by the London Symphony Orchestra exploded in John Williams for Star Wars.

And I was just blown away.

And I kept asking my dad, what is that?

What is that?

And he took the time to explain to me what symphonic music was.

There was no turning back from that.

So Mr. Williams, guilty.

Yeah.

That was it.

- Wow.

- I was very young, so I thought I thought it's a good thing actually.

It could be very academic because if you think about it a year later I was studying the Rite of Spring by Stravinsky.

So it's an opening door.

It doesn't mean anything that it's for a movie.

Doesn't matter what it is.

I mean, it's the open door to the world of symphonic music.

- I'm curious about this, how much of how you fell in love with music and were exposed to music at a young, young age do you believe has influenced you with the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra and your desire to teach these young people?

- Well, it started earlier than that Steve, when I was in Chile being the music, the resident music director of the Philharmonic in the Opera house my professional orchestra, I was at the same time the the principal conductor, artistic director of the National Youth Symphony Orchestra of Chile.

That got to be a very high level.

And it's a very similar program to El Sistema in Venezuela.

It's a similar program with, of course adapted to Chile's possibilities, obviously.

So my, my heart has always been in both places the professional career and the young players' career.

So I played in a youth orchestra since I was a very young, and I just can't see myself not conducting young players ever at some point regardless of the professional career.

So that is, that meant everything to me when I got this calling from New Jersey Symphony the youth orchestra program, because this that's what it's all about really.

That's what it's all about.

To get, you know, young people exposed to music whether they're going to be musicians or not it's not the point.

The message is the same.

This is a life experience that changes people for the best.

You get to play with others, you get to learn from others you get to actually communicate without words.

It's with your instrument.

And you learn a lot of social skills.

There's a discipline to it though.

In the New Jersey Symphony Academy, we're all very very drawn to be disciplined, but very kind.

Kindness is our thing.

We are kind to each other.

We don't discipline.

Like in the old days, we teach, we listen we always encourage, always encourage.

Our criticisms are that's kind of the identity that I felt was there already.

And I've been swimming in that wonderful ocean of of kindness and music all these years.

- You know it, again, check out the website to find out more about the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra.

But the other part of running a not-for-profit as as we know well know at our production company we're a non-profit, is at least half of my time is spent on the business side of things.

Raising money and getting underwriters, keeping underwriters convincing underwriters to stay on board.

How much of your life is outside of the music and the business of the orchestra?

(laughing) You're laughing 'cause you know it's, hey, it's no fun.

Those of us in public broadcasting know no money, no mission.

I say it all the time, - I know.

- Fun, sexy topic.

But it's real.

It's real.

- It is absolutely real.

I believe that all artists that find themselves in a position of leadership at some point in their lives need to accept that this is something that we must do.

And I've been very blessed, very lucky that I've always surrounded myself or been surrounded by amazing people of many different, you know with many different talents.

And, and so there is a department there is a staff in the New Jersey Academy of Youth in the youth orchestra program that, that really really take care of every possible angle that you can imagine.

And sometimes I have to get into that as well.

- That's right.

- And, and speak to people.

The way I just spoke to you so far has worked for me.

Just, you know - Your passion comes through.

Hey, I'm sorry for cutting you off but I wanna give you a chance to plug some upcoming shows.

- What's coming is that the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra Program will have their semester final concert in the early days of May.

And every ensemble is going to be playing a repertoire of their own in one wonderful afternoon.

And the Academy Orchestra that I conduct the high schoolers, will be playing not only pieces by Tchaikovsky movement of the fifth symphony.

- Right.

- But which is very, very difficult.

A very high standard of repertoire.

But we are also going to be playing a world premier.

And please go to the website and check out these dates because we're gonna be playing a piece composed, orchestrated by one of our own students, which is a result of our creative approach during the pandemic during our lockdowns, we created all this thing and now we are making it happen in front of everybody.

Don't worry about the dates people go on the website.

It's been up the whole time.

José Luis Dominguez, artistic director at the New Jersey Symphony Youth Orchestra.

Well done my friend we wish you all the best.

- Thank you so much Steve.

Wonderful to meet you.

- I'm Steve Adubato.

That is José Luis Dominguez.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Hackensack Meridian Health.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Prudential Financial.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

PSEG Foundation.

Johnson & Johnson.

TD Bank.

The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

And by NJM Insurance Group.

Promotional support provided by NJ.Com.

And by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

- At the Turrell Fund, We know childcare creates transformative early learning experiences for young children, and helps families succeed.

Childcare is essential for the economy, driving financial growth and sustainability across all sectors.

The Turrell Fund envisions a New Jersey in which every infant and toddler has access to high quality, affordable childcare In order to grow, develop and thrive.

Our children are our future.

For more information, visit TurrellFund.org.