This year Jews will observe Passover, celebrating the ancient Hebrews exodus from slavery to freedom, from March 27th to April 4th; while Muslims will begin the fasting month of Ramadan on March 13. This chronological closeness between the two holidays occurs only once in every 30 years, so let us use this rare opportunity to celebrate the friendship and solidarity that has grown up between Muslims and Jews in America in the three decades since the last close encounter between Passover and Ramadan. Let us join hands and vow to stand together in support of diversity, equality, human rights and democracy; bedrock American values which must remain intact if our two faith communities—the largest religious minorities in America—are to survive and thrive over the long run.
Until the dawn of the 21st Century, most American Jews and Muslims had little to do with each other. We were kept apart by feelings of fear and mistrust attributable in large part to the century-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the American Muslim community grew over the past 50 years from a fraction of the size of the Jewish community to nearly its equal, leaders in both communities came to understand the danger that mutual estrangement could potentially lead to violence. Without fanfare these pioneers began a process of reaching across the psychic barricades and building ties.
It all begins with a willingness to reach across the psychic barricades
The two of us were deeply involved in this relationship-building process over the past decade and a half which brought together tens of thousands of Muslims and Jews for animated conversations in which they discovered the common values undergirding both faiths. These include a reverence for life expressed in the precept found in Quran and Talmud that if we save one life it is as though we save the whole world; and the commitment in both faiths to serve people in need, which led members of synagogues and mosques to go together to homeless shelters across America to feed hungry people. Another was a shared belief in the moral imperative to “Welcome the Stranger” which caused Jews and Muslims in recent years to stand together against the draconian limitations on immigrants and refugees, including former President Trump’s repugnant ‘Muslim Ban’, thankfully voided by President Biden on his first full day in office.
A final principle at the core of our Muslim-Jewish alliance is an open-ended commitment to stand up for each other when either community is under attack. The rise of nativism and xenophobia in America since 2016 has led to a scarifying rise in incitement and hate crimes directed against both Jews and Muslims. Jews across the country demonstrated against acts of violence against Muslims, like the pulling off of women’s’ hijabs (head coverings) and spoke out at zoning boards across the country in support of the right of Muslim communities to build new mosques—a right routinely given to churches and synagogues but sometimes denied in the case of mosques. For their part, Muslims stood in solidarity with Jews when Jewish cemeteries were desecrated in 2017 and in the aftermath of the horrific massacre of 11 Jews at prayer at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018. Members of the Pittsburgh Muslim community immediately rushed to the synagogue to declare their solidarity, while Muslims across America raised $200,000 online within 48 hours for the stricken Pittsburgh Jewish community.
While President Trump is gone, the toxic brew of fear, loathing and conspiracy theories known as Trumpism is still very much with us, as tragically are murderous hate crimes such as the savage killing last week of Asian-American women in Atlanta. Now more than ever, it is incumbent on our two communities to stand together as a bedrock component of a wider coalition committed to safeguarding American values and preserving democracy.
We believe that if
Muslims and Jews—alienated from each other for decades by the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict—can achieve reconciliation, that will serve as an
inspiring example for people of diverse faiths, racial backgrounds, and
strongly held political/cultural viewpoints that they too can connect with each
other, It all begins with a willingness to reach across the psychic barricades
to someone we have been conditioned to fear and declare, ‘We Refuse to be
Enemies’.
