What if Being a Stranger Is Actually Your Superpower? | Better in Person

**Stephen Dubner** (0:00)
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Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. The bonus episode you are about to hear is an interview with Angela Buchdahl, who is one of the most unusual and interesting rabbis you are likely to meet. This interview comes from a new video talk show we're making called Better in Person. You can watch it on the Freakonomics YouTube channel or on Apple Podcasts. But we also like to put out this audio version in case your eyes are busy and you only want to use your ears. As always, thanks for listening.
Let's just pretend we're friends having a conversation.

**Angela Buchdahl** (0:49)
Great.

**Stephen Dubner** (0:49)
Maybe by the end we will be friends.

**Angela Buchdahl** (0:51)
Yeah.

**Stephen Dubner** (0:51)
You never know. I'm open to the possibility.

**Angela Buchdahl** (0:54)
Me too. Absolutely. This is Better in Person with Stephen Dubner and Angela Buchdahl.

**Stephen Dubner** (1:04)
If you are a faith leader of any kind, being open to possibility is part of the job description.
Angela Buchdahl has taken that openness a bit further, and it has brought her much more attention than most faith leaders will ever receive. Here she is as a clue on Jeopardy. Korea-born Angela Buchdahl is the first Asian-American to be ordained a cantor, as well as this leader of a Jewish congregation, Ben. What is rabbi? You got it. Buchdahl is a central synagogue in New York City. Her services are streamed globally, and after the October 7th attacks in Israel, she got a lot of attention for rejecting a binary way of thinking about the crisis. And now Buchdahl is a New York Times bestselling author. Her memoir is called Heart of a Stranger, An Unlikely Rabbi's Story of Faith, Identity, and Belonging. So I really love your book. I think it's really well written. I mean, I know that it began as sort of one book and became a different one over time. Took a long time, right? Four or five years, I guess.

**Angela Buchdahl** (2:07)
It took me four years to write it because it's hard to find time to write in my day job.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:12)
It's also very concise. So for people who haven't read it, you tell the story of your life, which is a really amazing story in really short chapters, which I appreciate because, you know.

**Angela Buchdahl** (2:21)
Our attention spans are short.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:23)
And you've become, I mean, I think it's probably not an exaggeration to say you're the most famous rabbi in the world at the moment, which is something worth talking about because that recognition and fame has had a lot of ramifications, some good and some really difficult. But let's start with the autobiography. Like we could literally talk about you and your family story for many hours, because it's pretty fascinating going back to 14th century royalty.

**Angela Buchdahl** (2:50)
King Sejong the Great. Yeah, that's true.

**Stephen Dubner** (2:52)
So give us the thumbnail and we'll fill in some details as we go.

**Angela Buchdahl** (2:56)
So I won't start in the 14th century. I'll just start a few generations back. I think that my story is one of boundary crossing. I was born a biracial child in an ethno-national state. Korea. Korea.
So from the very beginning of my life, there was a certain way that I recognized I wasn't like everybody else. Then I moved to the United States when I was about five years old.

**Stephen Dubner** (3:19)
You should say your father is American and Jewish.

**Angela Buchdahl** (3:21)
My father is American and Jewish. My mother, a Korean Buddhist to this day.

**Stephen Dubner** (3:25)
I love your mother so much. I really do.

**Angela Buchdahl** (3:28)
She's an incredible character in this story as well as my life. She really lived through those hard things. I think if you have a parent who lived through a war, the ones who come out of it alive, they have a certain fortitude and grit.

**Stephen Dubner** (3:41)
Forced exile.

**Angela Buchdahl** (3:42)
Forced exile.
My mother wasn't actually even born in Korea herself. She was born under Japanese occupation in Japan. The beginning of her life was already a boundary crossing at a young age as was mine. I came to the States. Now, Tacoma is in some ways a random place for a biracial Korean kid to end up, Jewish, but it was already my Warnock side, my Jewish side's home for three generations. So, I was already-

**Stephen Dubner** (4:09)
They built the synagogue or created the community.