November 20, 2008
Interfaith contacts between American Jews and American Muslims have been so fleeting over the past decade that they don’t deserve the name “dialogue” — dueling monologues is more like it. Admittedly, Jewish groups set a high bar for such encounters, demanding certain declarations on Israel that Muslim leaders could or would not accept. And even in cases where Jews asked for minimal gestures — denunciation of terrorism, recognition of Israel’s right to exist — many Muslim and Arab-American groups dodged and weaved until Jewish groups gave up.
After 9/11 Jews reached out to protest anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment, but community leaders on both sides remained distant.
In the latest effort to create a Jewish-Muslim dialogue, New York Rabbi Marc Schneier’s Foundation for Ethnic Understanding is spearheading a program of “twinning” synagogues and mosques, including a number in New Jersey. Fifty such partnerships have been confirmed. The houses of worship will engage in pulpit exchanges, joint programs, and open houses. Again, the agenda will be battling discrimination against Muslims and Jews, a safe exercise in mutual self-interest. The synagogues and mosques may even go a step further, acknowledging the ways each is responsible for sometimes denigrating the other.
The Middle East situation is off the table for now — at this early stage of bridge-building, that is still a bridge too far. But combined with a peace proposal by Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah — deeply flawed but promising in the way it at least acknowledges Israel’s existence — the twinning programs represent progress. Whether they turn out to be feel-good exercises or the start of a real detente remains to be seen.
But the participants deserve a strong word of encouragement. Part of the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian divide rests in Jews and Muslims learning to trust one another, wherever they may live. That begins with simple gestures, before the more profound questions can be addressed. If followers of two great faiths cannot learn to at least talk to one another in America, there’s little hope for a lasting peace in Israel.
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