Jews, Christians, and Muslims working together

The necessity of Jewish Muslim dialogue

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

4 comments November 26th, 2008

Twinning Muslim and Jewish congregations

JTA reports on a great initiative to “twin” Jewish and Muslim congregations across the USA.  The programme was kicked off by a weekend themed “Confronting Islamophobia and Antisemitism Together”, an indicator that American Jews and Muslims are making earnest attempts to reach beyond the Middle East conflict to join hands in battling prejudices within and against their communities.

Far from there being “too many dialogues“, the more point-to-point connections we develop, the stronger we are as a community of communities.  While we can rely on our umbrella organisations to support our endeavours, the real progress is made by people getting to know, and working with, other people.

What is your religious group doing to extend its hand in friendship to others?

Dave

Add comment November 19th, 2008

The Vatican on Jewish-Catholic relations

Catholic Online ran an interview recently with Father Norbert Hofmann, who is the secretary of the Commission for Religious Relations With the Jews, within the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The Commission is preparing for its 20th conference in November this year in Hungary, which will focus on Catholic-Jewish relations in Eastern Europe.  The offical topic of the conference is “Civil and Religious Society, Catholic and Jewish Perspectives.”  This parallels other interfaith activities underway between different groups, and it’s good that we’re all “singing from the same page in the hymnbook”.

Hoffmann quotes John Paul II: “Anti-Semitism is a sin against God and against humanity. And so the Jews can be sure they have found an ally in the fight against anti-Semitism.”

That’s nice.  But I really look forward to the day when our religious leaders, Jewish Christian and Muslim, feel comfortable broadening their focus in saying that we must respect each others’ religious beliefs, and not be hateful to those of other religions.   May it be God’s will that one day we will be able to say that Jews, Christians, and Muslims stand together against anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, and anti-Muslim activities.

Dave

Add comment July 28th, 2008