The two faiths share a common beginning in Abraham, and as minority traditions in America, they also share the common problem of discrimination.
On Saturday and Sunday, 50 mosques and 50 synagogues representing more than 100,000 Muslims and Jews paired up throughout the United States to learn from one another and dedicate themselves to combating anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
In St. Louis, members of Brith Sholom Kneseth Israel and the Islamic Foundation of Greater St. Louis visited one another’s houses of worship to learn about the others’ faith and discuss how to help each other battle ignorance about their religions that can lead to intolerance and hate.
On Sunday at the Daar-ul-Islam mosque here, Imam Muhamed Hasic of the Islamic Community Center in south St. Louis said both Jewish and Islamic tradition teach its adherents to respect one another.
“God created us not to despise each other, but to come to know and love each other,” Hasic said.
The gatherings here were part of an event called the “Weekend of Twinning” organized by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding in New York. Rabbi Marc Schneier, the foundation’s president, said the idea for pairing mosques and synagogues came out of a summit he and the foundation’s board chair, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, organized last year between rabbis and imams.
“As the children of Abraham, not only do we share a common faith, but share a common fate,” Schneier said. “We must strengthen our bonds of concern, compassion and caring for each other.”
Schneier said a series of ads produced by the foundation, in which imams speak out against anti-Semitism and rabbis speak out against Islamophobia, will begin running soon on CNN and other broadcast outlets.
“Speaking out for our own rights is only honorable when we are speaking out for the rights of all people,” said Schneier. “Jews shouldn’t have to fight anti-Semitism alone, and Muslims shouldn’t have to fight Islamophobia alone.”
At Daar-ul-Islam on Sunday, Muhammad Jamil, the mosque’s chairman, called Islam “the most misunderstood religion in the west,” and said Jews and Muslims are “cousins in faith” who should “join hands in fighting anti-Semitism and combating Islamophobia.”
Karen Aroesty, director of the Anti-Defamation League of St. Louis, spoke about the history of anti-Semitism in the U.S. in the post-World War II era, and said the civil rights movement of the 1960 and subsequent hate-crime legislation written in the 1970s has gone a long way toward reducing anti-Semitism.
But Aroesty pointed to a recent incident at Parkway West Middle School during which some students designated a “Hit a Jew” day, saying it was not anti-Semitic, but it underscored the sensitivities with which faith minorities deal.
Fatemeh Keshavarz, chair of the Asian and Near Eastern languages and literature department at Washington University, said Muslim Americans “are thought of as outsiders” and “talked about as if we all just came to the U.S. yesterday.”
She said many feel that after they identify themselves as Muslims, “they have to follow that up immediately by qualifying that they don’t condone violence.”
Both Aroesty and Keshavarz, along with a few in the audience, brought up the movie, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West,” which many say equates Islam and terrorism.
“Obsession” was released in 2006, but in September the film’s distributor, the Clarion Fund, sent a DVD of the film to 28 million people via 70 American newspapers and by direct mail, primarily in states crucial to the presidential election. Keshavarz said the message of “Obsession” was, “stand up and get the Muslims before they get you.”
Both Aroesty and Keshavarz also encouraged those in attendance to meet in small interfaith groups to continue the discussion about what Judaism and Islam - and Jews and Muslims - have in common and educated one another about the differences.
