By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews
Sufi Muslim minister Jamal Rahman told a story of an Israeli rabbi who lived in a West Bank settlement who had befriended a Hamas sheik. Though they knew they had their differences, and the people they led spiritually may have expressed those differences through violence, they came to an understanding that reached to the heart of their conflict.
“This land does not belong to the Jews. It does not belong to the Muslims. It does not belong to the Christians,” said Rahman of their discussions. “It belongs to God. Let us start from there.”
They only could have this discussion, Rahman added, because they were friends.
That sentiment persisted throughout the evening at an interfaith event on Sept. 15 hosted by Temple B’nai Torah in Bellevue.
Also speaking were Rabbi Arik Ascherman, former executive director of Israel-based Rabbis for Human Rights, Prof. Mark Rosenblum of Queens College in New York, and Jeff Siddiqui of the American Muslims of Puget Sound.
It’s the recognition of the other side that can bring peace to the Middle East and elsewhere. Ascherman told a story of how, several years ago, he helped a Palestinian farmer harvest his olives. The farmer’s son, he said, was one of former Palestinian Authority President Yasser
Arafat’s guards. Though Ascherman was surprised, the son was more surprised that a rabbi would be doing this work for his people, especially because of the negative stereotypes the young man had learned about Jews.
A hoped-for result of that meeting was “when he comes to a crossroads, he would choose the path of nonviolence rather than choose the path of violence,” Ascherman said. “The most important thing I can do is break down stereotypes Palestinians have of Jews, especially religious Jews.”
Ascherman also spoke of a
picture on the wall of his
organization’s office of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marching with Martin Luther King.
“He found a way to make his faith not a wall between people, rather a bridge,” Ascherman said of Heschel.