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Washington Post - December 16, 2007
Jews and Muslims set up big interfaith effort
By Michelle Boorstein
Two major Jewish and Muslim organizations unveiled an interfaith dialogue curriculum yesterday and are urging their hundreds of thousands of members to use it. Both sides say it is the broadest Jewish-Muslim interfaith effort in the continent's history.
Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, North America's largest Jewish movement, announced the partnership with the Islamic Society of North America at his group's biennial convention in San Diego.
"As a once-persecuted minority in countries where anti-Semitism is still a force, we understand the plight of Muslims in North America today," Yoffie said yesterday. "We live in a world in which religion is manipulated to justify the most horrific acts, a world in which -- make no mistake -- Islamic extremists constitute a profound threat. For some, this is a reason to flee from dialogue, but in fact the opposite is true. When we are killing each other in the name of God, sensible religious people have an obligation to do something about it."
This summer Yoffie became the first major Jewish leader to address ISNA, the continent's largest Muslim organization with 30,000 attendants coming to its annual convention. ISNA President Ingrid Mattson will address the 980-congregation Jewish group today, the first leader of a major Muslim group to do so.
The manual and video are built around five sessions that touch on topics including the place of Jerusalem in Jewish and Muslim tradition and history. The toughest potential sticking points will probably be related to Israel and to stereotypes both groups carry about the other, Mark Pelavin, director of interreligious affairs for the Jewish group, said in an interview. "Jews want to know how Muslims feel about terrorism in the name of Islam, and Muslims want to know how Jews feel about Palestinian suffering."
Eleven synagogue-mosque pairs have already been set up as pilot programs, including two in the D.C. area: the Islamic Society of Southern Prince George's County of Temple Hills and Temple Solel in Bowie is one, and the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Sterling and the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston is the other.
Yoffie also announced that the two groups created an adult curriculum on Islam and pressed every synagogue to consider offering it…..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/15/AR2007121501363.html
Reuters - December 24, 2007
U.S. Jews and Muslims seek paths to harmony
By Michael Conlon
CHICAGO - Muslims and Jews, a tiny slice of the U.S. population, are looking for new ways to get along that could set a worldwide example for two ancient but often alienated faiths, religious leaders and experts say.
"I've encountered (among Muslims) a more centrist, a more moderate voice that is looking to the Jewish community to help project that voice ... to the greater world," said Rabbi Marc Schneier of New York, speaking of a national summit of imams and rabbis he helped organize earlier this year.
He also cited a recent incident in a New York subway "where four young Jews were being verbally and physically assaulted on a train for wishing the passengers a happy Hanukkah, and the only individual to come to their rescue was a young Muslim man," Hassan Askari, of Bangladeshi heritage, who was beaten.
"That is a very, very powerful example" of what can happen. The challenge is to try to strengthen Jewish-Muslim cooperation and have it serve as a paradigm for communities around the world," added Schneier, who founded the New York Synagogue in Manhattan and also the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding.
On another front, leaders of the Islamic Society of North America and the Union for Reform Judaism, representing respectively the largest U.S. Islamic organization and the largest organized Jewish segment in the country, have agreed on a tutorial for dialogue.
"We need to get the truth about each other from one another," said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic group.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Reform group told his followers the two religions share "ancient monotheistic faiths, cultural similarities and, as minority religions in North America, experiences with assimilation and discrimination."
In a country of 315 million, Muslims number about 2.4 million, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, which also found them to be mostly middle-class members of mainstream society. Others believe the figure is several million higher, and no estimates are available on how many practice the faith.
[The PEW survey, just like the 2001 American Jewish Committee report, seems the latest attempt to undercut the influence of American Muslims. It looks another desperate attempt to discount the role of American Muslims. Read: Hidden agenda of PEW Center’s million dollar survey of American Muslims http://www.amperspective.com/html/hidden_agenda_of_pew.html]
There are perhaps 6 million Jews in the United States, only about a third of them affiliated with a congregation. Of those who do attend synagogue, 38 percent are Reform, 33 percent Conservative and 22 percent Orthodox, according to one survey.
Zahid Bukhari, director of the American Muslim Studies Program at Georgetown University, said Muslim-Jewish dialogue "is a new beginning."
One difference, he said, is that in places like Europe "within each country you will find a concentration of Muslims from a certain country," such as Algerians and Moroccans in France or South Asians in England.
"In America we have Muslims from 80 different countries. They are younger, they are more educated, more professional, more integrated into society and they feel more comfortable. And the host society here is different," he said.
But what is happening is a "model which I hope we could duplicate" globally, he said.
Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, author of the newly published "You Don't Have to be Wrong for Me to be Right," said one thing that sets the U.S. situation apart is that no one speaks for all Jews or Muslims and this allows for openness.
"Even religious Muslims and religious Jews are more integrated into the fabric of general American society than in other countries like Britain and France. It is possible to be deeply and visibly religious and still participate in the public culture -- that's not true everywhere," he said.
Farid Senzai, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, said there is a real effort at the local effort by mosques to develop joint activities with synagogues, and it goes down to the individual level as well.
"Muslims in this country have it much better off than elsewhere in the world," he said. "The Muslim community in the United States will in fact have a tremendous impact on Muslims elsewhere because they are able to debate and influence each other."…..
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN1431156020071224
Statesman Journal, Salem, Oregon - December 24, 2007
Religions share high standards for conduct
By Ron Eachus
The holiday season is a time of celebration, reflection and personal pilgrimages throughout the world. During this time of year, I am always struck by how much conflict seems prodded by religious differences when the religions of the world share so much in common.
The major religions all have some form of dictates or principles that try to capsulate their doctrines. They prescribe how to profess faith in God, but they also offer prescriptions on how to conduct your life in relation to others. Righteousness comes not only from what we profess to believe, but from how we translate those beliefs into the treatment of others.
The Judeo-Christian creed is captured in the Ten Commandments. Although not the only commandments, they establish the foundation of a covenant. One can find various nuances of how these commandments are translated, but take out the directives on how to worship God, and they boil down to some pretty straightforward commands:
"Honor your father and mother," "You shall not murder," "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not steal," "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor" and "You shall not covet your neighbor's house... or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Islam has its own set of directed virtues in the Koran, many of which mirror those of Judaism and Christianity in the Torah and the Bible. Several coincide with those in the Ten Commandments. Honor and be kind to your parents. Do not take any human being's life. Do not commit adultery. No bearing of witness to falsehood. And do not covet the bounties of others.
Also common is an emphasis on giving and taking care of others less fortunate. Islam is constructed on five pillars, one of which is charity. Based on the principle that all things belong to God and wealth is held in trust, charity is a necessity for every Muslim. Generosity is obligatory and considered a freeing of oneself from love of possessions and greed.
While Buddhism does not embrace the same concept of God as those in the Abrahamic religions of the Western world, it does embrace similar principles of personal conduct. The Five Precepts for the lay person are generally expressed in the typical Buddhist manner of good and bad "karma" -- the summation of one's deeds.
Refraining from harming living beings also means practicing loving kindness. Refraining from taking what is not given also means practicing generosity. Not committing sexual misconduct means practicing contentment. Refraining from "false speech" requires practicing truthful communication. Refraining from intoxicants means practicing "mindfulness."
The world's dominant religions may differ about the proclamations about God and how to worship, but there is a common theme about our relationship with one another running through these religious philosophies. They set high standards of conduct. The messages of peace, compassion, tolerance and generosity are at the core of the moral imperatives.
These standards are not easy to attain. They require constant reminders, reflection and reassessment in a world plagued with conflict, confusion and temptation that constantly challenge us.
Failure to live up to these standards is too often rooted in our obsession with differences in our beliefs rather than in building upon what is common to them.
[Ron Eachus of Salem is a former legislator and a former chairman of the Oregon Public Utility Commission.]
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071224/COLUMN0703/712240311/1064
The Jewish Week - December 19, 2007
‘Jews And Muslims Are Kissing Cousins’
Bangladeshi subway hero reflects on the Q train attack
[Hassan Askari, the Muslim American who intervened in an anti-Semitic attack on a New York subway earlier this month, is winning high praise for his selfless act. In a recent interview Askari epitomized the spirit of the holiday season, saying: "My religion is a big factor in who I am. It taught me good moral values; what you can and can't do. Islam teaches you that you have to be there for someone in need, no matter what his or her race, religion or nationality." This December, Jews will celebrate Chanukah, Muslims Eid Al-Adha and Christians Christmas.]
by Walter Ruby
After three days in the media glare, the so-called "Subway Good Samaritan" retreated to upstate New York in the middle of last week. But the trip with a friend lasted just 24 hours, and when Hassan Askari returned to his life as a Berkeley College accounting student and a deliveryman for two East Village Indian restaurants, a fuller picture began to emerge of a thoughtful 20-year-old Bangladeshi with a multicultural cast to his life and strong views about the common ground he believes exists between Jews and Muslims.
And in an interview with The Jewish Week after his upstate getaway, Askari — hailed as a hero for coming to the defense of several Jews who were the victims of an anti-Semitic attack on Dec. 7 on the Q train — touched on such sensitive issues as 9/11 and Islam, the nature of faith and Jerusalem.
Askari sees little irony in the tableau of a Muslim leaping into the breach to save Jews. "I have always had friends of all backgrounds, including Jews," he said in the interview. "Two of my closest friends in New York are Bengali Jews from Dacca. While living in Bangladesh, I also had Hindu and Buddhist friends, and my fiancé, Cannelle Cuvalier, who is from Belgium but lives in Bangladesh, is from a Christian background.
"Unfortunately, most people are not willing to learn about other religions and respect them," he continued. "I believe that no one religion has a monopoly on truth. My dad always taught me, ‘You will never know the truth before you die and stand before God.’"
Of the ties between Jews and Muslims, Askari added, "Judaism is the faith that is closest to Islam. It seems to me that Jews and Muslims are kissing cousins with a lot of similarities in the way we practice and the rules we observe. I really hope Jews and Muslims can come together as friends and allies and this incident helps to inspire that. If we can come together here in New York, it will set example for other places, like the Middle East."
The subway attack landed Askari and Walter Adler, 23, one of the Jewish victims, on the front page of the tabloids. It led Daily News columnist Michael Daley to write: "If you are ever tempted to curse all Muslims, think of Hassan Askari, who should be riding the trains free for the rest of his days." It earned Askari and Adler honors from the Foundation For Ethnic Understanding, a coexistence group headed by Rabbi Marc Schneier and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. The two young men were hailed by Rabbi Schneier "for their courage in not allowing their faith to come between them in a time of need. They are leading by example."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg was scheduled to host Askari at City Hall on Wednesday, and the Anti-Defamation League was scheduled to make him the inaugural recipient of its "Stand-Up New Yorker Award" the same day, an award established to honor Askari.
But his actions, Askari told The Jewish Week, were just a natural extension of his upbringing. He was born in the U.S. to Bangladeshi parents, but spent most of his youth in the Bangladeshi capital of Dacca, returning to the U.S. in 2006 to attend Berkeley College. He said the values he received from his parents, his Islamic faith and the Bangladeshi society he grew up in help explain why he didn’t hesitate to jump in when he saw Adler, Adler’s girlfriend Maria Parsheva and the others being roughed up.
Throughout the interview, Askari, a slender young man with long hair who still had two black eyes and a swollen face, continued to insist, "I don’t consider myself a hero. I did what anyone would do."
Yet when reminded that he was the only person on the subway car who intervened on behalf of the victims, Askrai responded, "Well, I hope people learn from this that they need to get involved when someone else is in trouble. I was raised to always help, and not to stand by and let a person get beaten up."
Askari said of the attack on the Q train: "I watched the situation develop. This big group of kids was cussing at the others and then started pushing them. I grabbed one of the attackers and said, ‘Are you crazy’? Then someone jumped me. It was a nasty scene, with blood all over the floor." …………….
http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c36_a1491/News/New_York.html#
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