In early January at the height of the fighting in Gaza, bFM’s Joe Nunweek rang up AnjumRahman and myself to pick up the conversation from where we left off from our 2006 Aotearoa Ethnic Network Journal articles on Jewish and Muslim perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The bottom line: While Anjum and I have different perspectives on history and the core issues, we continue to be good friends and seek to support those who work for peace.
Thanks to Joe and bFM for running excellent, balanced, and yet probing interviews.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chair of the Muslim Charities Foundation, Dr Hany El Banna and the Head of the Movement for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, are calling on people of all faiths to give generously to the Faiths Working Together Appeal to help rebuild shattered lives in Gaza.
“I hope that all people of faith – and all of goodwill – will support this initiative by giving generously and by using all available websites and other resources to contribute and to spread the word.” – Dr Rowan Williams
“I warmly support this initiative as a model for cooperation between the Abrahamic faiths and welcome the practical concern for all the victims of the conflict, regardless of faith or nationality.“ –Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield, Head of the Movement for Reform Judaism.
Donations will be collected by Christian Aid and then used by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief to fund their relief, reconstruction and post emergency work.
“We dialogue NOT to mix all religions into one. We dialogue simply to make friends. We are NOT about diluting our faith. We are about affirming and sharing our faith and religious identities. We, from different faith communities in Luton, inspired by our own faith, express confidence in ourselves and in one another to spread the way of peace and dialogue for resolving any conflict situations that may arise from time to time, due to what may happen locally or globally. We commit ourselves to be the eyes, ears and conscience of our communities in Luton. And therefore, offer ourselves as instruments of healing where there is pain, reconciliation where there is confrontation, calm where there is anger, sharing divine love where there is hatred.”
The Guardian’s Islamophonic and Sounds Jewish podcast teams have joined forces in an inspiring podcast. If you don’t listen to any other podcast audio this year, listen to this, as it’s a model for how we can work together to explore the crunchy issues:
The first half of the podcast focusses on how the conflict in Gaza has affected Jewish-Muslim relations in the UK, and moves on to a feature on to the Mu-Jew Crew – a Muslim-Jewish theatre team, and finally to a Muslim-Jewish comedy duo.
The damage done by the Gaza conflict to Jewish-Muslim relations runs deep, but this podcast shows that we can keep the conversation going, and look for new ways of working together to build a better future.