The necessity of Jewish Muslim dialogue
November 26, 2008
Mike Ghouse, of the Foundation for Pluralism in Dallas, Texas has written an excellent piece on the importance of Jewish-Muslim dialogue, in which he describes a screening of the film “The Monster Among Us” at the Dallas Jewish Community Centre. One of the film’s central theses is that the new face of European antisemitism is Muslim.
Ghouse says some brilliant things in his article:
Watching this film (as well as other films in the past) and listening to the responses of the audience has confirmed my belief that one of the primary obstacles to peace is simply inadequate communications stemming from the unwillingness to see another point of view. There are certainly rotten apples in the barrel, but focusing on them to the exclusion of the positive only exacerbates the problem. Muslims and Jews need to dialogue without keeping a score or blaming the other.
The guardians of traditions have a role to preserve their way of life for their respective communities. Occasionally their role has led them to marginalize the “other”. We need a change, and this change will need to come from the hitherto silent moderate majority in both communities. This is a responsibility we need to step up to.
This very much mirrors my own “Don’t tolerate intolerance” line … but Ghouse’s key statement is this:
If you are a Muslim and don’t say anything against anti-Semitic rhetoric; if you are a Jew and smile when you hear anti-Arab or Anti-Muslim rhetoric; if you are a Baptist and rejoice anti-Mormon rhetoric; if you are a Catholic and remain silent when some one belittles the practices of Hindu, Wicca or Pagans; then do you have the right to complain if some one is anti-you? This is a serious question, the more you are silent about it, the more you are justifying anti-sentiments against your own creed. No, if it is not good for you, it is not good for others either.
The whole article is well worth a read, and the above statement is particularly worth reflecting on. If we remain silent in the face of bigotry against others, we lose our right to complain when others are bigoted against us.
Dave
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: antisemitism, dialogue, foundation for pluralism, islam, jewish, mike ghouse, muslim, usa.
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1. Miriam Levinson | March 1st, 2009 at 12:45 am
It’s a delicate balance between maintaining a religious belief system and tolerance, mainly because our religions teach some level of intolerance. Judaism does not advocate tolerance of the idol worshiper; if the idolator is a Jew, Judaism’s approach is very severe, calling for the death penalty if it were a religiously legal option (it isn’t in these days). If the idol worshiper is a non-Jew, Judaism’s approach is to wipe out idol worshiping through force of instruction, and I believe this is Islam’s requirement as well. In no way is there an attitude, “I’ll worship my God and you worship yours, and everything’s just rosy.” So we shouldn’t strive for tolerance becoming “acceptance.” That’s not possible for the sincere adherent to his/her particular faith. Yet we should strive for understanding each other and that will help bring about the optimum level of tolerance and the ability to respect and respectfully disagree.
2. Dave | March 1st, 2009 at 4:14 am
Miriam, you speak of “Judaism’s approach” as if there were only one approach. Luckily there is no one true approach in Judaism, and even the Talmud allows for many valid viewpoints on the same issue.
That said, you are spot on when you say that we need to have the ability to respect and respectfully disagree. Unfortunately, this becomes very difficult if you have only “one approach.
3. Miriam Levinson | March 1st, 2009 at 4:03 pm
The example I gave was idol worship. Can you tell me what the Talmud has to say about various acceptable approaches to a Jew’s turning to idol worship? I’m not a Talmud scholar by any stretch, but it seems to me that the Talmud primarily analyzes various approaches right before settling onto one official one.
4. Dave | March 1st, 2009 at 5:53 pm
I’m no Talmud expert either, but my understanding is that a person cannot commit the offence of idol worship unless they understand that they are committing such an offence – and that the interpretation of exactly what constitutes idol worship (eg looking at an image) has changed over the centuries. Do you not think that the practice of many people, even so-called devout people, amounts to idol worship? It’s all a matter of interpretation.