c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein received a phone call this week (July 18) he’s not sure he would have received a few years ago. A Syrian-American friend called to say how sorry he was about the violent conflict now roiling the Middle East.

Not sorry for any particular group, stressed Stein, a rabbi at Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles.

“He was sorry for it all. And I’m sorry for it all, and that’s where our common ground is,” Stein said.

Such encounters between Jews and Muslims in America might have been hard to imagine for many members of both communities during earlier periods of violence in the Middle East. But an unprecedented swell of interfaith activities followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and Muslims and Jews have since discovered common ground as U.S. religious minorities with shared theological and social values.

Agreement on Middle East politics has been far more elusive. This week’s events _ Israel’s bombing of Lebanon after Hezbollah guerrillas kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and launched hundreds of missiles _ has challenged those new relations. Both Muslims and Jews are deeply connected to the region through family ties but more often through religious bonds.

“It always makes it more difficult. And given our attachment to that part of the world, it puts a strain on things,” said Malik Khan, president of the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Mass. Khan’s center has carried on a successful interfaith partnership with Temple Shir Tikva, a congregation a few mailboxes down the road. “But our effort is to build bridges and strengthen those bonds.”

Though exact numbers on how many Jewish-Muslim interfaith groups exist in America are elusive, it’s clear that they can be found across the country, from San Diego to Boston and Milwaukee to San Antonio. A “National Survey of Arab/Palestinian/Jewish Dialogue Groups,” sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking, found that most of the groups it surveyed were one to five years old. The survey, conducted in 2003, also found that groups usually met once or twice per month and ranged in size from five to 20 people, though some had 100-person mailing lists.

When the Islamic Masumeen Center in Hopkinton, Mass., and the American Jewish Committee launched their dialogue in 2003, “there was extreme skepticism in both communities,” said Mahmud Jafri, president of the center. There were also concerns about how to build trust and whether certain issues could or couldn’t be discussed, he said. “Thus, the first year or two was spent tiptoeing through the tulips to make sure we really had a bona fide dialogue partner.”

Now, that group has more than 80 members from several congregations in suburban Boston and meets formally four times a year, and informally much more often. Both Jewish and Muslim members of the group agree that it’s been time well spent during which they have established basic agreements, beginning with the idea that no conflict can be solved by violence.

“I’m clear that the understanding of our Muslim partners of Israel is much deeper than it was ever before,” said Suzi Schuller, associate director of the Boston chapter of the American Jewish Committee, which initiated the dialogue with Hopkinton’s Islamic Center. Like a few other Jewish groups and congregations, the AJC arranged trips for American Muslims to Israel which both sides say have improved Muslim understanding about Jewish concerns about Israel.

Jews and Muslims in the United States have also found common ground as Americans. “Why should I let (Israeli-Arab) fighting come between me and other Americans?” asked Abdul Rauf Campos-Marquetti, who belongs to Albuquerque’s Islamic Center of New Mexico, a mosque whose “peace walks” with nearby Temple Nahalat Shalom have evolved into more regular activities such as concerts, interfaith prayers and dinners. Campos-Marquetti and other Muslim and Jewish activists stressed that their two faiths are as close to each other as Judaism and Christianity.

In some communities, Muslim-Jewish relations have become close enough that they can talk about Middle Eastern politics, even passionately but without losing their tempers, said several interfaith leaders. “We have fierce discussions,” said Jafri. “You do see people being passionate about their issues and you do see people taking a stand.” As long as people “agree to disagree” and keep an “environment which is simple,” the passion is OK.

“Times like now, things can become a little tense. But the relationships we have developed are pretty solid,” said Campos-Marquetti. “And when you develop a warm friendship, that supersedes those things.” But, he added, newer interfaith dialogues that his mosque has started with two other, more conservative Jewish congregations may be too fragile to withstand debates about Middle Eastern politics.

Rachel Havrelock, a Jewish studies professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, worries the Jewish and Muslim Students group she helped start in November as part of a broader Jewish-Muslim studies Initiative may not be able to survive the turmoil in Lebanon and Israel.

Some of the group’s members are Lebanese and Israeli and in their home countries now.

“Whenever they come back, we’ll have to find a way to talk with each other,” said Havrelock. “I think there’s going to be a lot of anger and emotion.”

DSB/PH END SACIRBEY

Editors: To obtain photos of the University of Illinois’ Jewish and Muslim Students group, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.