18 January 31 • 2019
jn

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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