Editor's Letter
The Lingering Expanse
M
y fear is that it won't achieve the desired result:
renewed and lasting dialogue between Jews and
Muslims in Metro Detroit. That's because the
Muslim-led lecture to a largely Jewish audience in a program
co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and
Adat Shalom Synagogue was filled with propaganda and
allowed for little rebuttal. The theme
was dialogue, yet the lecture/written-
question format didn't encourage that.
Still, I was glad I heard so-called
moderate Muslims give their take on
the strained relations between believ-
ers of Islam and those of Judaism or
Christianity. The Dec. 7 event under-
lined the political and cultural expanse
separating Jews and Muslims.
At the end of the evening, AJC Rabbi
David Rosen, who flew to Michigan
from Israel en route back to New York,
encouraged the 200 people present, including Muslims and
Christians, not to react but rather absorb what was said in
hopes that mutual respect and caring could follow — a tall
order indeed.
"How may one criticize in a manner that is not seen as an
attack? How may one hear criticism in a manner that is not
seen as an assault? That is the challenge for us," said Rabbi
Rosen, an expert on interreligious affairs.
The program underscored the stridency of how Muslims
perceive "fact."
Speaker Najah Bazzy, a nurse who worked with Jewish doc-
tors and patients at Sinai Hospital of Detroit for many years,
set-the stage: "Muslims, because of Moses and because of
Jesus, have a greater responsibility to stretch the hand. From
the bottom of my heart, because I believe in honest dialogue,
if you, the Jews, are the chosen people of the time, and you are
the chosen for all the time, you have a true responsibility to
extend your hands, too!'
Her point is well taken; but to whom you extend your hand,
and why, matters to me.
Be Careful, Cautious
I pray that uninformed Jews in the audience didn't leave
the Farmington Hills synagogue thinking that everything
the Muslim panelists served up was true; that could prove
damaging. But I prefer to see the event as a plus because it
reinforced how local Muslim leaders view not only the Middle
East conflict, but also the national state of Muslim-Jewish
relations. It gave me perspective.
For example, consider speaker Victor Ghalib Begg of
Bloomfield Hills. He chairs the Islamic Organization of
America and co-chairs Interfaith Partners, the Michigan
Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion. He dismissed two
respected commentators on Islamic extremism, Daniel Pipes
and Steve Emerson. And he announced that President Jimmy
Carter speaks for Muslim America in his new book Palestine:
Peace Not Apartheid. The fact-flaunting book blames Israel
for much of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and characterizes
the Palestinians as victims of Israeli oppression. It accuses
Israel of declaring war on Lebanon this summer.
Begg claimed that Muslim America, diverse as it is, has
consensus on Israel's treatment of Palestinian human rights.
I hear that regularly without regard for why Israel has had to
act forcefully in the Palestinian territories: to defend itself in
the wake of repeated Palestinian-arranged suicide bombings
over the past six years.
Muslims are disappointed, Begg said, because American
Jews won't condemn Israeli soldiers when they kill innocent
Palestinian civilians. "On the other hand',' he said, "Muslims
are expected to condemn every incidence of violence by any-
one who claims to be a Muslim anywhere in the world."
Lost in that assessment is that then-Palestinian Authority
President Yasser Arafat declared war on Israel in 2000. In war-
time, innocent people on both sides sometimes are caught in
crossfire. Hamas, a terror broker, strategically places civilians,
especially kids, in the line of fire to elicit world sympathy.
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Imam Mohammad Mardini of the American Muslim Center
in Dearborn condemned terror and any act of murder as
violations of the Koran. He also said suicide is a sin. I applaud
that thinking, but I question how many of those Hezbollah
and Hamas supporters who marched in Dearborn this sum-
mer think the same way.
The imam insightfully asked: "After 50 to 60 years of blood-
shed and clashes, can we meet half way? What shall we do?
How shall we dialogue?" The bottom line, he said, "is that we
would like to see a truce of this conflict." We all would.
Rabbi Rosen spoke reflectively about the Golden Age of
Spain, when Muslims, Jews and Christians "knew how to live
with one another with much more zest, much more justifica-
tion," and "were able to benefit from one another in the areas
of science, art, philosophy."
"If truth be told:' he said, "Jews never suffered the kind
of indignity under Islam that they experienced under
Christianity."
Maybe back then — but times have changed.
What's Before Us
Dialogue today would help, but as a steppingstone. Nothing
will matter unless there's a dramatic shift within Palestinian
society, which does not recognize Israel and which teaches
kids that Jews are apes and monkeys who should die to honor
Allah. This calculated indoctrination, which will take a gen-
eration to overcome, was never raised at the program.
Rabbi Rosen posed two options for Muslims, Jews and
Christians: to live in conflict with one another or in relation
with one another. "It is obvious what is better for the indi-
vidual, not only in the short run but in the long run:' he said.
"You can curse the darkness, or you can light a candle: What
is the intelligent choice, the divine choice?"
I like Rabbi Rosen's optimism. But terrorists have hijacked
Islam and have the world on edge. Interfaith harmony won't
come easy.
"We have to work so hard to not let our souls be distorted
by anger:' said Rabbi Daniel Nevins of Adat Shalom. "But that
doesn't mean intellectually that we shouldn't deal with issues,
confront one another and try to solve problems. We have to
try very, very hard to not allow ourselves to become warped
reflections of hatred."
The ill-formatted Dec. 7 program ultimately will be judged
a success only if it proves to ground the audience not only in
Rabbi Nevins' solution-minded message, but also the reasons
behind the stark differences that still divide Jews, Christians
and Muslims along religious lines.
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December 21 2006
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