Church suppers change to meet changing needs

c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Documentary filmmaker Alex Kronemer wants to help end the clash of civilizations, a battle he says he’s witnessed in one form or another since childhood. His Jewish father and Christian mother divorced and succumbed to religious mud-slinging. His mother’s Protestant ministers asserted most people were going to hell, souring […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Documentary filmmaker Alex Kronemer wants to help end the clash of civilizations, a battle he says he’s witnessed in one form or another since childhood.

His Jewish father and Christian mother divorced and succumbed to religious mud-slinging. His mother’s Protestant ministers asserted most people were going to hell, souring his view on religion even more. But as Kronemer continued seeking faith, he found it in Islam.


Although Kronemer, now 57, considered religion a personal issue, 9/11 compelled him to use his skills to tell stories that would help Americans better understand his adopted faith. He co-founded Unity Productions Foundation, and produced several award-winning films, including “Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet” and “Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain.”

His newest work, “Prince Among Slaves,” airs Feb. 4 on PBS. The film tells the story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahim Sori, an African Muslim prince who was captured into slavery, but persevered with faith and eventually found freedom, redemption and a return to Africa.

This interview has been edited for length.

Q: How did you become interested in documentaries about Islam?

A: In 1998, I was covering the Hajj to Mecca with a film team from CNN and at one point, half a billion people were watching around the world. That gave me the sense of power of television to communicate important ideas to a large number of people.

Before 9/11, most people didn’t know very much about the story of not only Islam and Muslims, but really a lot of the non-Western religions. We’re trying to fill that gap, to try and create content that would help tell the story behind the headlines. Our mission is really peace through the media.

Q: How does your multi-religious background inform your work?

A: A lot. I understand that at the end of the day, one religion or the other doesn’t necessarily keep people good or make people bad; it’s people and the energies and the limitations that they bring to the pursuit of God, the pursuit of goodness, justice. What I realize is that there are flaws in people, and that at that their best, all these religions are trying to lead people in a more positive way.

But religions have had the hand of human beings on them for a long time, and you can find plenty of examples of ideas and pursuits that are harmful and will lead people in a negative way.

Q: How aware were antebellum Americans about Islam and Muslims?

A: In some ways, more than we are today. There were a lot of connections between the Founding Fathers and early America and Islam and the Arab world. Morocco was the first country to recognize America after it declared independence. Thomas Jefferson kept a Quran as part of his personal library. The very smart people who helped found the nation were very widely read and they had read things from the Islamic tradition, too.


Q: How does this affect the notion that America is a Judeo-Christian nation?

A: I think the verdict is still out on how directly Islamic ideals contributed to the founding of the country. But they were a part of the mix. There are very interesting connections to how Muslims were a part of early American history, like the enslaved Africans, of which 25 percent or more were Muslims. These people came from societies that were highly evolved. They brought very sophisticated knowledge that benefited the people that purchased them and the nation. There’s a debt that America owes to the enslaved Muslims.

Q: What’s been the reaction to the film so far?

A: People have commented about not knowing how many Muslims were in America at the time, and on the guy’s story itself. The thing about his story is that he lived one of those universal, archetypal tales, the prince who became a pauper. The idea of people falling from a high place to a low place is a very compelling story line.

Q: In 2000, you spent a year at the State Department as a Middle East desk officer for human rights. How would you gauge State Department interest in the Muslim world at that time, and how has it changed?

A: The interest was not that high. A lot of people felt that they knew everything they needed to know about Islam; most of what they knew were stereotypes and that was pretty much it. After 9/11, that all changed. Now, we’re very much in that world, and that world is now very much in our world. Many people are trying to bring humanity and history to these issues that are too often discussed in divisive and hateful sound-bites.

Q: One your goals is to help end the clash of civilizations. How does it look?

A: I’m an optimist. I think things are getting better, if perhaps only incrementally. But I think the more people interact with each other in a more positive light, or at least a more self-critical light, the more things will improve.


People are getting along on the ground; its only when ideological ideas are reduced to `this guy is your enemy because he’s American, or Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or Shiite or Sunni,’ and they look at each other as expressions of an ideology that you believe is evil and must be destroyed, that’s when you do these bad things that have been happening all around the world.

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A photo of Alex Kronemer is available via https://religionnews.com.

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