Amar Razali

Our visit to Synagogue of Micah on last Sunday was in the Tennessean. From left; Rizwan Rozlan, Amar Razali, Scott O'Neal

Straightly copied from The Tennessean. Tuesday, February 17 2009.

Young Muslims, Jews Work Toward Peace
Groups try to bridge gap between religions

By Bob Smietana
THE TENNESSEAN

Shoshana Jaffa sums up the conflict in the Middle East like this: "Everybody wants to meet halfway, but no one knows where halfway is."

Jaffa was one of about 45 Jewish and Muslim teens and young adults who met Sunday at Congregation Micah in Brentwood to discuss the recent fighting in Gaza.

It's part of a dialogue between local Jews and Muslims aimed at building understanding between young people of different faiths. Organizers hope that if young people can learn to discuss the Middle East civilly, perhaps their parents can, as well.

In fact, there was just one rule in place at Sunday morning's meeting — no parents allowed.

"Adults can't have this conversation," Michael Pote, a Sunday School teacher at Congregation Micah, said to the interfaith group meeting in a classroom at the Brentwood synagogue. "Things like this don't happen, and it's a shame."

Pote says that Jewish and Muslim adults rarely discuss the Middle East conflict without ending in a shouting match. He and other organizers hope that young people can show their parents and faith communities a better way.

Sunday's meeting was part of an ongoing dialogue between youth groups at the Islamic Center of Nashville and two local synagogues, Congregation Micah and West End Synagogue in Nashville.

In December, a group of Jewish high school juniors visited the Islamic center for a lesson on the basics of Islam taught by the Muslim youth group. On Sunday, the Jewish teens returned the favor, leading a class on the basics of Judaism.

After the class, Pote, along with Rabbi Flip Rice of Congregation Micah, and Rashed Fakhruddin of the Islamic Center, led an hour-long discussion of the Middle East conflict. The students quizzed one another on everything from the history of Zionism to whether a two-state solution would solve the current conflict.

Several of the Muslim students wanted to know how much Israel's claim to Palestine was religious, and how much was political.

"Most of the people in this room do not believe that Israel is mine because it says so in our sacred texts," Rice said. "That doesn't mean that we don't want Israel to be there, but it's not a deed to the land."

When Rice asked the Jewish youth if any believe that Israel belonged to the Jewish people because the Bible says so, only one student raised her hand. On the other hand, several students said that while Jews had a right to their own homeland, the country should not exclude people of other faiths.

That idea is actually found in the Israeli Declaration of Independence, says S. Ilan Troen, director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

Still, Troen says that the religious connection of Jews to Palestine remains strong.

Students discuss history

During Sunday's conversation, the students also discussed the history of Zionism, which dates back to the 1890s. Inspired by the writings of Theodor Herzl, Jews began to move back to Palestine and buy land.

At the time, Pote said, Palestine wasn't viewed as a paradise on Earth.

"At that time, it was either desert or swampland," Pote said. "This was not ground where you'd say, 'Oh I have to live there.' "

Complicating matters, both the Jewish and Muslim students admitted, is the fact that Palestine has been ruled by outside powers for more than 2,000 years. Jews were forced from the land by the Romans beginning in 70 A.D., after a failed uprising. When large groups began to return around 1900, Palestine was ruled by the Turks, and then the British after World War II, until Israel's independence in 1948.

Sabina Mohyuddin, who helps lead the Muslim youth group, said it was important for the students to get a bigger picture on the conflict on Middle East.

"In the nightly news, it's two minutes. It won't do any justice to the whole issue," she said. Mohyuddin said that she encourages her students to read news accounts and history from different perspectives.

After the meeting ended, the Muslim students took a tour of the synagogue.

Amar Razali, a 22-year-old Muslim student who spent the discussion seated in front of a stained-glass window of the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, said that he was surprised by how much Jews and Muslims have in common.

"We should focus on our similarities, and less on our differences."