18 January 31 • 2019
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continued on page 20

New center aims to help people manage
diffi
cult conversations.

T

he newly established Detroit
Center for Civil Discourse is
holding a panel discussion Feb.
4 at the Wayne State University Student
Center on the past, present and future
of Yemen.
“Yemen is so emblematic of the
importance of different groups coming
[together]; it shouldn’
t just be Muslims
or Arabs or Yemenis talking about it.
Everyone should be talking about it,
”
said Rabbi Asher Lopatin, the center’
s
founder and director.
Lopatin aims to raise awareness of
the ongoing crisis in Yemen, a war-
torn country where Jews and Muslims
coexisted for centuries, and also to
showcase his organization’
s approach
to managing difficult conversation.
The event is being co-sponsored by the
Detroit Jewish Community Relations
Council/AJC and the Michigan
Muslim Community Council and will
feature speakers from both faiths.
It’
s the first public event for the
Detroit Center for Civil Discouse
(DCCD), whose main goal is to offer
a fellowship for Jewish and Muslim
(and/or Arab) WSU students on con-
ducting civil discourse.
The fellowship will launch next fall
with a cohort of 10 to 16 students,
half of them Jewish, half Muslim and/
or Arab. It will start by providing an
academic background on hot-but-
ton issues, particularly the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. That includes an
overview of Muslim-Jewish relations

over the centuries, including the long
periods of relative equanimity but also
the flash points.
“Oftentimes, communities come
in with fairly insular narratives,
” said
Saeed Khan, a WSU senior lecturer
who will be serving as associate direc-
tor for the center. “That then skews not
only the overall discussion, but also
prevents discussion from happening in
the first place.
”
On this firm foundation of facts,
fellows will discuss tough issues — “no
redlines,
” Lopatin stressed. The goal for
the students is not to change opinions,
but simply to learn how to engage
with one another. To that end, they’
ll
become versed in methodologies for
carrying on fraught conversations in a
respectful manner.
“You don’
t have to legitimize the
other side; you don’
t have to give up
your own passionate feelings; and you
can still come together — that’
s the
theory of civil discourse,
” Lopatin said.
Lopatin, like the center, is new to
the Detroit Jewish community, hav-
ing come from New York last year
to establish Kehillat Etz Chayim, a
Modern Orthodox congregation based
in Huntington Woods.
“The pulpit’
s really all about the
importance of the micro — of Jewish
lives, of services, the smaller circle … I
wanted to really balance it on a person-
al level with the broader circle — the
world,
” he said.
To build the DCCD, Lopatin con-

Civil Discourse

DAVID ZENLEA SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Howard Lupovitch, Saeed Khan, Ariana Mentzel,

Emad Shammakh and Rabbi Asher Lopatin

jews d
in
the

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