This award is presented to highlight the important work
your congregation is doing in the areas of education,
dialogue and interfaith cooperation. We were inspired
by your congregation’s
sense of community responsibility. The work of tikkun
olam is our common endeavor, and that work merits respect
and
appreciation. Your congregation will serve as an inspiration
to so many other congregations that will be encouraged
to undertake their own Social Action projects.
Salaam Shalom
In July 2002, the Brattleboro Area Jewish Community (BAJC)
in collaboration with the School for International Training
(SIT) decided to embark on a bold experiment. At a time
when relations between Jews and Muslims worldwide are particularly
strained, and when Israeli-Palestinian relations are in
stalemate, BAJC and SIT agreed that it was incumbent on
Jews and Muslims elsewhere – even in Vermont – to
do what we could to open up the lines of communication.
The result was a remarkable week of workshops held at SIT,
entitled “Salaam Shalom” and consisting of sessions
on Hebrew and Arabic language, Jewish and Muslim history,
culture, art and music, and discussion sessions on problems
facing our peoples.
The week culminated in what may have been the first Jewish-Muslim
interfaith worship ever conducted in the United States.
For the BAJC, the motivation for this collaboration resulted
in part from a series of discussions held during our Torah
services on the subject of “Shield of Love.” We
recalled that despite the terrible insecurity facing all
Europeans during World War II, small numbers of courageous
individuals rose to a higher calling and came to the rescue
of some of our parents and grandparents in France and in
Holland and in Denmark. The image that came to mind was a
shield of love, and it was erected by these “righteous
Gentiles” not for relatives, not for close friends,
but for people who were essentially strangers.
We concluded that these persons were doing something genuinely
holy in having such rachmones, and providing such assistance
for persons not like themselves, indeed for people who may
have seemed strange, suspicious, a group apart. We found
the image of the shield of love a haunting one, particularly
now, during this time of such conflict and vulnerability
in the world. And we found ourselves wondering if we, Jews
of this generation, might now provide such a shield of love
for others – for people not like ourselves, for people
facing greater insecurity than we, for people living in sukkahs
more vulnerable than ours. When we thought of persons in
our country who best fit that description after September
11, and who are most in need of such a shield of love, we
found ourselves thinking specifically of Muslims.
As a first step, the congregation decided to do what it
could to foster better understanding between ourselves and
Muslims in our own community.
The BAJC-SIT collaboration began in June 2002 with a jointly
sponsored showing of the award winning film “Promises” about
Israeli and Palestinian children. The film was widely advertised,
attracted a large audience, and was followed by a lively
panel discussion co-chaired by a Jordanian activist in her
country’s women’s affairs, and the Shaliach Tzibur
of BAJC.
Encouraged by this response, the two organizations embarked
on the Salaam Shalom Project. SIT agreed to take administrative
responsibility for the workshops, while BAJC took responsibility
for the interfaith service. Each workshop was filled nearly
to capacity, and the reports from most of them were glowing.
Importantly Jews and Muslims participated in each of them.
In planning the Interfaith Service, particular efforts were
made to address the history, both in traditional Judaism
and traditional Islam, of excluding female leadership. Accordingly,
the service was led by two women - Yasmeen Chaudhuri, a Muslim
from Pakistan and Beatrice Fantini from Bolivia whose roots
go back to the Sephardic Jews of Spain, and two men – Souleye
Diallo, a Muslim from Senegal, and James Levinson, Shaliach
Tzibur of BAJC.
The service, held on a Friday evening, included Jewish Shabbat
prayers, and traditional Muslim prayers. Explanations were
offered for each of the prayers – for example the connection
between the Hebrew Bar’chu, and the Muslim call to
worship offered by a muezzin or imam; and, when singing Shalom
Alechem, the close association of these Hebrew words with
their Arabic equivalents.
Much of the speaking in the service sought to underline
the connections between Judaism and Islam through the ages,
beginning with Isaac and Ishmael. It was interesting for
many to learn that the Akedah story of Abraham and Isaac
in the Torah becomes the story of Abraham and Ishmael in
the Koran, and that the very same word in Arabic and Hebrew, “korban” or
sacrifice, is used in describing the vitally important traditions
of animal sacrifice that both religions have shared at times
in their histories.
The Muslim leaders noted that the Prophet Muhammad’s
feeling of connection with Judaism went so far that in the
year before his “hijra” or migration to Medina,
Muhammad actually prescribed a fast for Muslims on Yom Kippur,
commanded Muslims to pray three times a day as do Jews, instead
of only twice daily as had been the case earlier, and instructed
Muslims to pray facing Jerusalem. Although these prescriptions
changed subsequently, this chapter from the evolution of
Islam speaks volumes about the respect Muhammad had for Judaism
in the 7th century.
Jumping forward a few hundred years to the Middle Ages,
the Jewish leaders spoke about our “golden age” in
Spain – not Christian Spain but Islamic Spain, noting
that this period, which saw the emergence of such Jewish
figures as Maimonides and Abraham Abulafia, was a time of
considerable mutual respect and tolerance. This rich period
also saw the emergence of the evolution of our respective
mystical traditions, the Kabbalists in Judaism, the Sufis
in Islam, both believing in the possibility of a direct and
very personal experience of the divine. Among the best known
offshoots of these traditions are the Mawlawiyyah order of
Sufiism, whose members are known in the West as “whirling
dervishes,” and the Chasidic tradition of Judaism founded
by the Bal Shem Tov.
The service leaders then explained that even in the 20th
century, and in the Middle East itself, there was a most
auspicious series of meetings between Emir Sherif Feisal
(the great grandfather of the present King of Jordan) and
Chaim Weitzmann who later became the first president of Israel
(with Colonel T.E. Lawrence - Lawrence of Arabia - serving
as translator. Feisal and Weitzmann became lifelong friends,
and spoke often of the “racial kinship” and “ancient
bonds” linking their people. We spoke about “what
might have been” had that spirit of cooperation been
maintained. And we prayed together for a resolution that
would live up to the commitments expressed 84 years ago by
these great leaders.
The culmination of the service was the reading of the Torah
in Hebrew by Souleye, a section from Kedoshim urging us to “love
thy neighbor as thyself;” and then the chanting of
the Fateha, the beginning of the Koran in Arabic by Jim Levinson
with a melodic line remarkably similar to the Hebrew haftorah
trope. As Jim chanted, the Muslims in the congregation quietly
joined with him.
The service concluded with the entire congregation, standing
and arm in arm, singing “We Shall Overcome” the
hymn of an earlier struggle – but this time with words
appropriate to our hopes for reconciliation between our peoples.
There were few dry eyes in the room. Afterwards one Muslim
woman said to the Jewish woman sitting beside her, “I
had given up. I didn’t believe I would ever see such
a day.”
The standing room only congregation then retired to a potluck
supper designed to meet both the requirements of Kashrut
and Hallal.
The Jewish Muslim connection has continued in Brattleboro
with Muslim participation for the first time in broader interfaith
activities – including a commemorative service on Sept
11 2002 – and in joint messages prepared for the larger
community.
Beyond what was accomplished in bringing Jews and Muslims
together, the service had two other valuable outcomes for
BAJC:
- It attracted a considerable number
of “Jews
in the woods” to the congregation, individuals and
families which had earlier been estranged from institutional
Judaism, but who were captivated by this highly unusual
initiative;
- It brought to a close an unfortunate period
of bitterness and acrimony with the local newspaper.
With an editor who
had earlier served as correspondent in Jerusalem for
the Vatican Press Service, and who is married to a Palestinian,
the paper had become one-sided in its coverage of Middle
East events. After personal meetings, however, the paper
became an active participant in Salaam Shalom, publicized
the events, and thereafter became considerably more balanced
in their coverage and editorial policy.
In the end, those involved found ourselves in agreement
that we must continue to work together, that we must not
allow ourselves to be defined by our extremist elements;
and that we must not define one another by such extremists.
And we found ourselves in agreement on Hatikvah – the
hope:
That we will, one day, reach that point where both Jews
and Muslims can remember our malignant pasts without being
its slaves;
That some day we will reach the point where the children
of Isaac and the children of Ishmael finally can be reconciled
and live together in peace.
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