c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) For the past 26 years, members of the tiny Temple Shalom synagogue in Fayetteville, Ark., have celebrated Passover without a building to call their own.

But that’s about to change, thanks to an uncommon act of charity that stands to infuse their holiday with new significance and, members hope, be a catalyst for conflict resolution far beyond Arkansas.

Temple Shalom has accepted a pledge from a local developer to donate his time and erect a 6,600-square-foot facility without taking any profit. What makes the pledge even more unusual is that it comes from a Palestinian Muslim who grew up seeing Jews as the people who divided his family, bombed his West Bank village and forced him to flee into nearby mountains for safety.

Fadil Bayyari, a real estate tycoon who amassed a fortune amidst the rapid growth of nearby Wal-Mart and Tyson Foods, had previously donated land for two parks and a school that bear his name. He’s also built two local churches and northwest Arkansas’s only mosque, all at cost.

Nevertheless, he’s aware that none of his prior gifts challenges the status quo of long-simmering tensions in the bold way that this one does. And even though he knows some might regard him as disloyal to Palestinian or Muslim causes, he’s eager to embrace what he regards as an opportunity to put his faith into action.

“My attitude will be: They need to get over it,” he said. “… You can fight until hell freezes over, but if we reach out in friendship, we can break the cycle of violence.”

This unfolding cooperation is likely a first, according to Jonathan Sarna, a specialist in American Jewish history at Brandeis University, who said he knows of no other example of a Muslim offering to build a Jewish house of worship in the United States.

The Arkansas project “suggests that Americanized Muslims are coming around to the American view that all religions are deserving of support,” Sarna said in an e-mail, “and that nothing is more noble than for a member of one religion to assist members of another religion.”

Bayyari, 54, whose slight Arabic accent carries a Southern twang, hasn’t forgotten how his people have suffered at Israeli hands. Checkpoints erected in 1948 kept him as a child in Tulkarem from ever meeting an aunt and cousins who lived within Israel. He regrets that Jewish Americans can buy land in Israel while he’s forbidden to do the same, even though his family has lived in the region for generations.

“I know that’s not fair,” Bayyari said. “But am I willing to put out hatred and fight for it for the rest of my life and feed my family that kind of thinking? No, I’m not willing to do that.

“At some point, we have to forget about it and start all over. I’d rather have friends than enemies.”

Bayyari’s inspiration has roots in practicality as well as spirituality. Palestinians had better lives, he says, when they traded and worked with Israelis between 1967 and 1980 than they did under Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). On a spiritual level, he’s become “intrigued by the similarities” between the Quran and Jewish Scriptures, convincing him that Jews and Muslims are all “children of God.”

For the 50 members of Temple Shalom, Bayyari’s offer in January came at just the right time. Fund-raising efforts had sputtered in 2006 after neighborhood opposition thwarted the congregation’s bid to buy an existing building. The synagogue holds monthly worship at a local Unitarian church and conducts weekly Torah and Talmud study sessions at the University of Arkansas’s Hillel House.

“We feel a little homeless,” said Rabbi Jacob Adler, who leads the Reform congregation part-time and teaches philosophy at the university. It’s perhaps akin to what the Hebrews felt when they worshipped in portable tabernacles during their years in the wilderness after leaving Egypt, Adler said.

At Passover, Jews remember their ancestors’ captivity under Pharaoh in Egypt and God’s provision to keep them safe and set them free. While wandering in the wilderness, Adler recalls, Moses took what turned out to be good advice from an enemy, Jethro of Midian, who suggested he delegate more duties to assistants. A similar dynamic, he says, seems to be playing out this year in Fayetteville.

Bayyari “reminds of” Jethro, Adler said, since it was Bayyari who got synagogue members thinking about new construction as a viable option. Bayyari’s role represents “help from a group that you wouldn’t expect to have help from. One of the lessons is that help often comes from an unexpected quarter.”

Not everyone in the tight-knit congregation has embraced Bayyari’s offer with open arms, according to building committee chairman Jeremy Hess.

“We’ve had one or two people who wonder if this is a genuine offer or if there’s a hidden agenda,” Hess said. But for the most part, he said, Bayyari’s generosity has “galvanized the community” to see the project through to fruition.

Bayyari has also embodied, for some members of Temple Shalom, the spirit of Passover.

“The great significance of Passover to me … is examining our consciences, our own souls, and what we’re doing to maintain freedom for everyone,” said Ralph Nesson, a member of Temple Shalom. In that vein, he says, Bayyari “has made a contribution to … the freedom of overcoming all those stereoptypes that prevent people from embracing and loving each other and communicating with each other.”

KRE/LF END MacDONALD

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