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Hello friends, I want to join Rabbi Arthur Waskow in calling on everyone to read from the Koran on September 11 as an act of solidarity with the Muslim community of the United States as they suffer the insult of the terrible act being committed on that day in Gainesville, Florida.

The best way to resist hatred is with love, humiliation with respect, ignorance with knowledge, alienation with friendship.

Reading from the books that some would burnBy Rabbi Arthur Waskow | 8/31/2010 Devoting Jewish Holidays to Peace Interreligious Relations Rosh HaShanah Yom KippurClick here to see a listing of all recent blog postsIn New York, speaking out for freedom and diversity might mean joining a vigil at 7:15 pm Friday evening September 10 at 51 Park Place [near the Park Place stop of the #2 or #3 subway], the location of the Muslim-rooted community/ cultural center that has been the object of both attack and warm support. That date/time has been chosen by the support group New York Neighbors for American Values. See their website here. Some religious folk have urged that gatherings in synagogues, churches, and/ or public places on September 11 or 12 read together from the Quran, Torah and Talmud, the Christian Gospels, and other sacred texts.Since many American Jewish and Christian households may not have a Quran at hand, we have selected just three passages that lend themselves to the message of peace, dialogue, and compassion.”There shall be no coercion in matters of faith.” 2:257 [Asad]“Behold, we have created you all from a single male and female, and have made you into nations and tribes so that you might come to deeply know one another [not to hate and despise each other]. Truly, the noblest of you in the sight of God is the one who is most deeply conscious of God. Behold, God is all-knowing, all aware.” 49:13 [Asad]“True piety does not consist in turning your faces towards the east or the west — but truly pious is he who believes in God, and the Last Day; and the angels, and revelation, and the prophets; and spends his substance — however much he himself may cherish — it — upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggars, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage; and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and [truly pious are] they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril: it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God.” 2:177 [Asad]These translations come from Muhammad Asads The Message of the Quran: The Full Account of the Revealed Arabic Text Accompanied by Parallel Transliteration publ by The Book Foundation, England, 2003. This edition includes many many notes citing authoritative Muslim scholars explaining the texts.Some texts that seem much more violent also appear in the Quran. So do such texts in the Torah, the Gospels, the Upanishads, etc. But the great teachers of all our traditions have insisted that “all their paths are peace.” All teach that some version of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is the central wisdom.

via Reading from the books that some would burn | The Shalom Center.

Lest anyone doubt the direction and agenda of the Christian right, here is a clear statement of approval of John Jay that only Christians should rule the United States. So how could Jews with any sense of their own safety and security promote this extremism, welcome Christian extremists to Israel and take their funds for the settlements? Because the Israelis who take the money and support put their interests above those of American Jews, they don’t think American Jews should be living in America anyway they should be in Israel, they calculate that the threat against them from Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims is more immediate than the the chance that radical Christians could one day take over the American government.

Of course, this entire way of thinking is very misguided. It never pays to think this selfishly, it always comes back on your head. Better to think in terms of justice and liberty for all, the true American way.

Editor’s note: Robert Knight is a senior writer for the evangelical Coral Ridge Ministries and a senior fellow for the conservative American Civil Rights Union. He helped draft the “Defense of Marriage Act,” the 1996 law in which the federal government defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman, and is the author of “Fighting for America’s Soul: How Sweeping Change Threatens Our Nation and What We Must Do.”

(CNN) –

John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote in a letter to a friend, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

via U.S. was born a Christian nation – CNN.com.

Translation of my weekly column  at Alquds Newspaper (Arabic)

By: Aziz Abu Sarah
Tuesday 24th of October

Last week I was surprised when pro-Israel and well-known Jewish politician, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, expressed his support for the construction of the Islamic Center near the wreckage of the World Trade Center’s twin towers. The news of the center continues to draw the negative attention of media outlets, many of which have questioned whether Muslims have the right to build Islamic institutions in the United States.

Moreover, media coverage of the Cordoba Initiative’s plans to build an Islamic community center in Manhattan has been largely inaccurate. Many of the facts have been changed or misreported: the center has been described as a mosque, when in fact it is a community center with a mosque, and the location has been described as Ground Zero, when in reality the center is two blocks away and shares the neighborhood with a strip club and gambling parlor. In addition, the community center intends to open its doors to non-Muslims, and will contain a number of social and recreational activities. The center will have a swimming pool, a gym, a theater, a restaurant, a library, an art gallery and studios, and a memorial to the victims of September 11th. However, misleading reports have created widespread and popular opposition against building the center.

Nor is Bloomberg alone in his support for building the center. Many other Jewish rabbis and leaders across the United States have lent their support to the project. In fact, the support among the Jewish community has been so vociferous that when Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) spoke out against the center, thousands of American Jews responded by signing a petition supporting the Cordoba Initiative’s plans.

The problem is the United States is less than three months away from midterm elections, and many politicians are using the center as a campaign issue. Politicians have used the construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero to play on voter fears about Islamic influence in American society, and in doing so have encouraged the spread of false information.
Fortunately, the Cordoba Initiative and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf have handled the subject positively. Despite the political circumstances and approaching elections, they have succeeded in communicating effectively with many American leaders and individuals. The Cordoba Initiative has also mobilized significant support for the center and managed to overcome legal obstacles, which will allow construction to begin soon. Although some are still trying to convince the project managers to change the location of the center, they have been unsuccessful thus far.
It has not been easy for the Cordoba Initiative to attract support for its center from Jewish and Christian leaders. For the past several years, Arab community leaders and Muslim scholars led by men like Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, have been reaching out to the American public through interfaith projects. In addition, they have sponsored joint programs to serve local communities. These efforts have fostered new friendships across the religious divide.

One example is the Adams Mosque near Washington, DC. Last Ramadan, the Adams Mosque was over capacity with worshipers for late-night prayers. Needing extra space, the Imam of the mosque, Majid, approached a local synagogue, who agreed to let the Muslim worshippers use their space. Such experiences are positive examples of how Jewish and Muslim communities have been redefining their relationship.
Many assumed that the Jewish-American community would be the first to cry foul over the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. There is a tendency to view Muslims and Jews as traditional enemies, given the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Increasing dialogue and cooperation, however, is turning these stereotypes on their head. Some Muslims and Jews are even finding common ground for joint projects by building a consensus on sensitive issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, agreeing on the need for a two-state solution as well as the importance of security and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
After 9/11, the American Muslim community was forced to reevaluate its relationship with the American public. The Muslim community suddenly found its loyalty to America questioned, and was accused of being a breeding ground for terrorism. However, many Muslims in the United States refused to play the role of passive victim. They began to search for ways to reach out to American society and challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about Muslims. Though this process has been difficult and is still in infancy, these efforts have met with some success.

The Muslim community has also made a special effort to reach beyond the majority, seeking avenues of communication with other minority groups across the U.S. This is important, as the limitation of freedom for any reason is never isolated to one minority, but often impacts other groups and liberties as well.

Despite facing many challenges in recent years, Muslim communities in the United States have been able to remain part of American society without compromising their Arab or Muslim identity. Ultimately, this experience may provide an important model for Muslim minorities in other Western countries. In addition, their example provides hope that in the future, Muslim Americans can be the bridge between the West and the Muslim world.

This expresses some of my feelings since returning from Syria. More poems by Huda can be found here.

The Peacemakers

by Huda Orfali

Friday, September 15, 2006

Dedicated to His Holiness Pope John Paul II and the Grand mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Hasoun

The Peacemakers

Collaboration by Peter Paton and Huda Orfali

As the religious divide grows

In the troubled world

They call for dialogue and harmony

In a country where prayers are heard

From two divine neighbors

The church and the mosque

They echo one another

In one call for love

In the world of Islam

He is a shining light

Who teaches tolerance

And unconditional love for all

A spiritual leader

Of great virtue and purity

Who extols and promotes

The Brotherhood of Man

A magnificent orator

Whose words celebrate the truth

Healing all the divisions

That separate faiths and beliefs

A tireless and blessed worker

For the oppressed and the poor

Who embraces all humans

As sacred children of God

In the world of Christianity

He was a shining light

His touch healed the divide

When he visited the Umayyad mosque

Where his namesake is buried

And prayed with his Muslim brethrens

A Saint who embraces all humans

As sacred children of God

Peter Paton & Huda Orfali

© 2006

Stories of cooperation and affection have been suppressed by two groups, those whose interests lay in weaponizing religion for nationalist purposes, and enlightenment liberals who wanted to establish society on a secular basis jettisoning the usefulness of clerics as weavers of civil society. But the fact is that along with the harm done by benighted clerics and hierarchies there were also moments of beauty in history that have yet to be extensively documented.

This story below is typical of many today that suggest a new era of global civil society has arrived when Jews and Muslims team up to help Christians on Christmas. But it is not as new as some might imagine. Tales of cooperation, mutual study and reverence, abound in anecdotes passed down from history that our age of militancy has tended to suppress. For a variety of reasons most of us around the globe are trying to crawl our way out of a disastrous latter half of the 20th century which saw many states weaponize religion as an instrument of foreign policy and regional control. Who did this? America to the Muslim world in Pakistan during the cold , the Muslim world to itself, Israel to its settlers and the entire direction of revisionist Zionism, and so on. Stories of cooperation and affection between the three Abrahamic faiths have been suppressed  for a long time by two groups, those whose interests lay in weaponizing religion for nationalist purposes, and enlightenment liberals who wanted to establish society on a secular basis jettisoning the usefulness of clerics as weavers of civil society. But the fact is that along with the harm done by benighted clerics and hierarchies there were also moments of beauty in history that have yet to be extensively documented. A notable exception is the Abrahamic Family Reunion.

Ilana Meallem was featured recently in the Jerusalem Post as one of the most extraordinary bridge builders of the Abrahamic Family of the Middle East, torn apart by colonial and nationalist wars in this past century. She is as extraordinary as her great great grandfather, the Ben Ish Hai. She told me yesterday that when he died in Bagdhad, after being chief rabbi for so many years, the entire city came to a standstill. Muslim and Jew alike, mourned him as a sainted mystical figure. That was 1909, and we just left 2009. What a difference a century makes.

Detroit’s Muslim community joins Jewish groups to help with Mitzvah Day
By Sherri Begin Welch

The region’s hungry don’t stop needing food because it’s Christmas.

Children and seniors living in group homes need visitors even more on Christmas.

Their needs don’t take a holiday.

But the people who serve them day in and day out can, thanks to the annual volunteer efforts of many, including Metro Detroit’s Jewish community, on Christmas.

For several of the past 18 years, Metro Detroit’s Jewish community has provided hundreds of volunteers to make sure clients are served, while giving many Christians a chance to enjoy all or part of Christmas with their families.

This year, nearly 900 Jewish volunteers plan to pitch in.

Their efforts give many employees at local nonprofits “a chance to observe their holy day and know that the people they care for all year around are being cared for,” said Micki Grossman, co-chairwoman of Mitzvah Day in Metro Detroit, which is organized by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and the Jewish Community Relations Council.

This year, for the first time, the region’s Muslim community is collaborating with the Jewish groups.

You can read the whole article at Crain’s Detroit Business here.

After 40 Years of Wilderness, J Street Meets at the River’s Edge: Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow

Tonight and for the next few days, in Washington DC, 1200 people are gathering in the name of a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” US policy. Because of my broken leg, I can’t be physically there. But my mind and spirit and 40 years of my work are there today.

Forty years ago, in the summer of 1969, I visited Israel for the first time. On the same trip, guided by a brilliant Israeli kibbutznik-sociologist, Dan Leon, I also visited Palestinian leaders in Hebron, East Jerusalem, and Gaza — old-fashioned notables, social workers, lawyers.

To a person, they told me they had marched and spoken out against occupation by Jordan or Egypt, and would oppose occupation by Israel. They said they had no objection to Israel as it had been before the 1967 war. They wanted to be citizens of a free Palestine, at peace with Israel and Jordan and everyone else.

I saw an occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem that was still relatively mild. (There were as yet, in the areas I visited, no Israeli settlers grabbing Palestinian land.) But I came back to America knowing this occupation was deeply dangerous. I knew this as a secular historian, and I knew it as a Jew who had just rediscovered the power and truth of the Passover Seder – that call to liberation from all pharaohs, all occupations.

This is what I knew: No occupation by one people over another, against its will, can be mild forever. Sooner or later, fury will rise in those occupied and arrogance in those who occupy. Resistance is inevitable — probably violent, just barely possibly nonviolent. And violent repression is almost inevitable.

So I organized a network of peace activists – some Jews and some not — Dr. Benjamin Spock, Rabbis Arthur Green and Arnold Jacob Wolf, Denise Levertov and Stewart Meacham, Abbie Hoffman and John Ruskay, Michael Lerner and myself (neither of us yet rabbis) — to place a statement in the New York Review of Books calling for a peace settlement between Israel and a Palestinian state.

We were then and for years a voice crying in the wilderness, against rage from the Israeli government and from many pro-Arab activists who urged a “one-state secular democratic Palestine,” and contempt or indifference from all American and Jewish officialdom.

Why am I mentioning this ancient history? Precisely because it was 40 years ago. Now, today, the biblical “40 years in the Wilderness” later, J Street has organized and 20 other organizations, including The Shalom Center, are participating in an historic pro-peace conference in Washington DC, with 1200 people taking part and dozens of Members of Congress joining as hosts.

All 21 groups are calling on a rhetorically friendly US government to push not only for a two-state peace settlement but one joined by all the Arab states. To do so even though that means dealing with a divided Palestinian leadership and a hostile Israeli government. Some of us would say the US should not just mouth support for that peace settlement but insist on it. Use its clout to insist on it.

Will the Obama Administration fulfill its lofty rhetoric? Not yet clear. What would make that happen?

Public demand. Insistence by enough Americans to matter. Americans who care enough to insist.

If my auto accident were not preventing my speaking at J Street, this is what I’d be saying:

That there are only two clusters of Americans who care enough about the Middle East to make a difference.

One is Big Oil and its allies the Cowboy Neo-Cons who foisted the Iraq war upon us. That difference was a disaster.

And the other is passionate Jews, passionate Christians, and passionate Muslims who view as sacred the region walked by Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, and who have deep ties of spirit and emotion to their brothers and sisters in that region.

Of course we know that some of the passionate Christians, far from seeking peace in the footsteps of the Jesus who said to his own follower, “Whoever lifts the sword dies by the sword,” seek the Great Armageddon War and worship their version of a Killer Christ who will with sword and H-bomb murder all unbelievers.

Some of the passionate Jews seek not the renewal of Jewish culture or their own safety in the everyday joys of Shalom, Peace, that the rabbis taught as the very Name and essence of God — but worship the military might of a State with 200-plus nuclear weapons that can win military control of every foot of land that any biblical verse might have named as Israelite.

Some of the passionate Muslims are so consumed with rage against the Crusades and colonialism of centuries past and the oppressions and occupations of today that they cannot bear the notion of living in peace with former enemies, cannot celebrate the One Who says in the Quran, “I made the many peoples not to despise each other but to know the inner richness of the many different faces of the One.”

For we know, “the worst are full of passionate intensity.”

But so can also be the best. We need an Abrahamic Alliance of the passionate best.

The idolatry of worshipping force and violence, war and terrorism, takes root when there is too little energy devoted to the Infinite.

The Abrahamic Alliance that I call for will need to shape a political majority to back up a nervous, hesitant, peace-wishing President.

But that is not all. It must be rooted in passion for the One Who is Infinite, Whose Infinity shines only in the rainbow of diversity, and Who cannot be served by violence – even, and especially, violence in the name of that One or of Its followers.

May those who are gathering in Washington tonight, and all who thirst for peace and who hunger for freedom find a welcome in the Open Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah.

Shalom, salaam, peace!

– Arthur

Read more of Rabbi Waskow’s writing here and here, and check out more information about the J Street Conference at their website.

Christiane Marie Sarah writes on Jewcy about the complexity of the Christian Jewish Relations and the importance of new ways of engagement:

Jerusalem was busy last week as thousands descended on the city for Sukkot and the annual Jerusalem March. This year’s march drew around 70,000 people, up from the 35,000 who participated in 2008. 20,000 police stood by on Tuesday to oversee the controversial event, after what has already been a tense week in Jerusalem. Thousands of Christians also took part in the march, attending as part of a Feast of Tabernacles celebration hosted by the International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem (ICEJ).

Christian presence is a by now a familiar part of the Sukkot milieu, but Israelis have yet to decide what to make of these “friends of Israel.” Rabbi Tovia Singer has warned that the Christian congregants want to “prey on” rather than “pray for” Israel, and in 2007 the Chief Rabbinate forbade Jews from taking part in the march and other events with ICEJ presence. Minister of Tourism Stash Misezhnikov, however, has justified the event, stating that the Feast of Tabernacles is the largest annual tourist event in Israel, and is expected to generate between $16 and 18 million in revenue.

Who are these “Christian Zionists,” and should they be welcomed by Israelis? These questions return each year, and have also surfaced occasionally during events like the death of Christian fundamentalist Jerry Falwall in 2007. Israeli journalist Evan Goldstein at the time pointed out that “philo-Semites, like Falwell, seem to relate to Jews more as mythical figures from the Bible than as real living, breathing people.” His analysis was based on the thoughts of German philosopher Ernst Bloch, who wrote that a “philo-Semite is an anti-Semite that loves Jews.”

To read the complete article, click here.

From the United States to Europe to the beaches of Alexandria it is all the same question: what holds a society together? Is there are social contract or is there not? Do people not kill each other because the State is stronger, controlled artificially by those in power, a power they wield only for their own selfish benefit? Or can there be something deeper that binds our societies? I would argue that this will be the fundamental question of the future. Increasingly the ties that bind are narrowly religious, while the secular social contract is thinning considerably.  That bodes ill for minorities everywhere. It is time to rejuvenate a commitment to social contract beyond religious affiliation, and only then will we be able to deal with differences and grievances. If there is no social contract then every accident, every incident, every piece of clothing, will become a casus belli, a reason to attack and annihilate the ‘other’. We have done better in history, all over the globe. In my latest book, To Make the Earth Whole, I talk at some length about Dora Europus, an ancient Syrian city in which all the religions were respected equally, Roman, Greek, Jewish, Christian, and we have clear evidence that the city was planned with this respect at the core of the architecture. We can do better today. How else can we  tackle the decline the planet’s fundamental health if we are too busy attacking each other over stupid differences?

I think the title of this piece is too provocative,  but the author points to an important place of tension where the veil is worn by some in the world who are subject to oppression as a result, but in other places it is becoming a weapon against women who would not like to wear the veil. Everywhere I go in the Middle East, women are being pressured with videotapes and comments and innuendo to put on the veil, whether they want to or not. This must be discussed openly as moral problem just as surely as the French must face their own systematic prejudice against those who do choose to wear it.

On Beaches, Intolerance Wears a Veil
By Daniel Williams

Source: www.britannica.com

An excerpt from the article:

If the issue were only bathing attire — or the gradual disappearance of alcohol from open-air seaside cafes to avoid insults from passing pedestrians — the phenomenon might be just a curiosity. But there are sharper signs of intolerance: increasing Christian-Muslim clashes, unfamiliar to old Alexandrine eyes.

On April 4, a Muslim man was allegedly stabbed by his Coptic Christian landlords in a dispute over garbage collection, according to a July 30 report by the Cairo-based Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, a human rights watchdog. When the man died the next day, Muslims praying at a mosque in the city’s Karmouz district chanted “they will die” and then trashed Christian-owned stores, the report said.

There have been similar events over the past three years, including one incident in which Muslims stormed homes they said were Coptic churches functioning without government permits. Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s population, are an indigenous denomination founded in Alexandria around A.D. 61.

The violence is particularly striking in a city whose skyline is dotted by minarets and church steeples and where, at least in the memory of the Alexandrian novelist Ibrahim Abdel Meguid, religion has not always triggered public disputes. He has written two novels of Alexandria’s 20th-century past that reflect a longing for a kind of golden age of diversity.

Another author, Haggag Oddoul, said in an interview: “I wish we could go back to being the city of Cleopatra.”

Link to NYTimes article.

Paths to Positive Change in the Holy Land -
Early Registration Aug-19th

We are s proud to announce an upcoming Citizen Diplomacy tour
to Israel-Palestine, to be led by Rabbi Marc Gopin and Aziz Abu Sarah!
The tour will take place between October 27th and November 5th.
This trip will be unique in that participants will have the opportunity not
only to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but also to participate
in local peace initiatives. 

The tour is being hosted by George Mason University’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and
Conflict Resolution, Sulha Peace Project, and Al-Tariq (the Palestinian Institute for Devolpment and Democracy).

For More information “Click Here”

Hello from Switzerland and Caux. I am curious what my readers think of this video.