SAN DIEGO — “Iftar” is the break-the-fast meal at sunset each night during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Ordinarily, participants–often including welcomed non-Muslims–will eat a prodigious meal together and share family stories and high points. On Thursday, two organizations teamed up to host a different kind of Iftar that brought together celebrants from around the world and from several different religions.
The Combat Anti-Semitism Movement (CAM), led by Sacha Roytman-Dratwa and the American Muslims Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council (AMMWEC), led by Anila Ali, brought together 28 other speakers and well-wishers for an intellectual feast discussing, among other points, the good that might come out of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the order of their presentations, there were the following participants:
Imam Qazwini of Orange County opened up the session with a reference to a passage in the Koran (28:24) describing Moses escaping from Egypt toward Midian and calling out, “I am in need of any good You can send down to me.” This was a sign of Moses’ humility; even though he had been brought up in a royal Egyptian household, he knew he needed God’s help, in contrast to the Pharaoh, who thought of himself as a god. During the month of Ramadan, the iman said, one is supposed to reflect on the two voices one may hear in one’s head. That of ego, which exercises a kind of tyranny over the mind, and that of conscience, which is reflective. During the month of Ramadan, he explained, “We try to flush out the voice of tyranny.”
Faryal Khan, a member of the AMMWEC board said Ramadan is a time not only for families to gather together and to celebrate, but also to reach out to other communities. Exemplifying her point, musician Charnjeet Singh, a member of the Sikh community, sang a prayer about a Sikh master who had lost two sons, but who believed in spreading love.
Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet Refusenik who became a member of the Israeli Knesset and today is the immediate past chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, reflected that the coronavirus pandemic sends two important messages to the world’s population. First, he said, our homes and family are very important. Second, there are wars that can only be won when we are united. He said he took pride in seeing in Israel teams of volunteers moving from neighborhood to neighborhood in Jerusalem, whether those neighborhoods be Arab, secular Jewish or Haredi, helping sufferers. Similarly, he said in the north of Israel, there are hospitals helping to cure refugees from Syria, notwithstanding that the two countries are in war.
Sam Brownback, a former U.S. senator and a Christian who now travels the world as a U.S. ambassador for international religious freedom, said the coronavirus “has put the world in a time out,” and within that time out, “all of us are working together to solve this.” It is equally important, he said, for the world to unite against anti-Semitism and other forms of hate. “We want everybody to practice their faith in a peaceful way.” This is a key moment for faith leaders “to stand up in admiration for each others search for God”
Los Angeles Police Department David Kowalski, who heads his department’s counter-terrorism force, said “Our efforts prioritize helping communities combat hate.”
Houda Nonoo, a member of Bahrain’s tiny Jewish community who served as that Arab nation’s ambassador to the United States, said there is a long history of acceptance in Bahrain of Jews, going back in her family to the time when her grandfather served on the city council of Manama. While she was growing up, she went to Catholic school and was taught by nuns. Now she takes pride in escorting visitors to Bahrain to her synagogue.
U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) in a prerecorded video commented that it is important for Jews and Muslims to stand together to turn back the tide of bigotry. Iftar, importantly, brings families and different communities together.
Ahmed Shaheed, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, said while people have reached out to each other, sight should no be lost of the fact that during the pandemic, “entrepreneurs of hatred have gone into overtime,” adding that he believes anti-Semitism is a “menace to all.” He said leaders have an obligation to promote interfaith friendship because “we all have a common destiny.”
Ellie Cohanim, an Iranian born Jew who immigrated to the United States shortly after the Islamist Revolution, rued the arson at Iran’s Tomb of Mordechai and Esther as well as threats by that country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini to rid Jerusalem of Jews. Cohanim, who is the U.S. Assistant Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, said up until the time of the Islamist Revolution, Jews had lived peacefully in Iran since leaving ancient Israel following the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem during the First Century BCE. She commented that Judaism in Iran had predated both Christianity and Islam, and that Jews had been important contributors to Iranian society. She added that she sees hope in a changing dynamic in the Middle East, with flights from the United Arab Emirates to Tel Aviv to bring vaccines to Palestinians; A Saudi Arabian sheikh leading a delegation to Auschwitz, where he called Holocaust deniers “like Nazis themselves,” and a high official of Bahrain saying “Israel is a nation here to stay and we want to have peace ith it.”
Farnat Zabair, a member of the AMMWEC board, said as the daughter of a Muslim father, and a Jewish mother, she has learned to see beyond differences and to appreciate them.
Judea Pearl is the father of the slain Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl, whose last words to his Pakistani captors before being decapitated, were “I’m Jewish.” Judea, who has since worked for reconciliation among religious groups, said his son’s message is that we must learn “to embed the dignity of being different within the oneness of mankind.”
Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani diplomat stationed in London, also known as a poet, said early in his life he knew little about Judaism, but that he later learned the richness of Jewish culture, and the similarities in Jewish and Muslim beliefs. The coronavirus pandemic, he said, has helped the world see how connected we all are, and this applies not only to coronavirus but also to other issues facing the world such as poverty and climate change. He told a story of a Sufi, an Islamic mystic, who asked an angel where heaven could be found. “In the heart with love,” the angel replied. “And hell?” “In the heart without love.”
Bashra Mateen, a Pakistani immigrant to the U.S. and an AMMWEC board member, told of immigrating to the United States where she has found good neighbors and friends, among them Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians.
Maya Soetoro-Ng, who is an Indonesian half-sister of former U.S. President Barack Obama, urged all the people listening in on the Zoom call to meditate right there and then for 30 seconds on what their definition of peace might be. She challenged people, particularly students, to join in peace projects, and to “lean into their discomfort and challenge their biases.” She said instead of having debates, discussions should be structured as academic presentations, in which sources of storytelling can be compared, first one, then the other, to find and learn about each other’s suffering.
Karen Paikin Barall, director of government affairs for Hadassah in Washington D.C., commented that a bill to confront anti-Semitism through Holocaust education has passed both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and now awaits signature by President Trump. She said once the bill is signed, Hadassah will undertake a grassroots effort to have school teachers apply for the funds for teaching materials. She said the program will not only benefit the Jewish community, but members of all faiths.
Anastasia Serberis, introduced as the youngest member of the AMMWEC board, is a member of the Greek Orthodox Church. She said that “interfaith dialogue is paramount to revealing commonalities.”
Rabbi Simon Jacobson, who runs the Meaningful Life Center in New York City and is the author of Toward a Meaningful Life, said he grew up in an Orthodox household that was non-dogmatic toward other religions, and that he was moved by religious diversity. He posed the question, “Why do we need labels?” and answered “labels are for clothing, not for human beings. We are all created in a divine image.” The coronavirus pandemic, he said, has the potential for creating a paradigm shift in how we treat each other. Always before such shifts, there is some disruption or destruction, such as when a baby chick emerges from an egg. “Do we focus on the egg or the new life?” He said adherents to every religion may come to recognize that “we are part of one organism” and that each of the 7.5 billion people on the planet represents a “unique musical note in a symphony.”
Zarir Bhandara, a Zoroastrian cleric, said similarities and differences among religions are different sides of the same coin. He said we should focus on similarities to bring about unity, but should also appreciate differences, which he said are “essential for growth and evolvement.”
Dinah Frieden, a Jewish board member of AMMWEC, said the organization enables people to share their cultures within an atmosphere of inclusion.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chou, an Asian-American, said in a video message that the breaking of bread together in a traditional Iftar gathering, “can break down barriers.” The pandemic affects every faith and every nationality, she said.
Richard Hirschaut, regional director of the American Jewish Committee in Los Angeles, said the U.S. Senate has before it a bill that would require law enforcement officials to undergo refresher courses every five years on recognizing and combating hate. He said “relentless attacks” on Asian Americans and Jewish Americans during the pandemic “can’t be part of the new normal.”
Deborah Cunningham Skurnik said that she grew up Catholic, married a Jewish man, and since has become friendly with Anila Ali, the Muslim president of AMMWEC, and with Dinah Frieden. As a Catholic, a Muslim, and a Jew, she said, “we call ourselves the Jerusalem sisters.”
Shelly Krajacic, a member of the National Education Association’s executive committee, said NEA believes that schools must prepare students to live and thrive in a diverse and interdependent world. As the mother of an 18-month old daughter, she said, her goal is to have her daughter held in the arms of people of every description. Furthermore, she said, educators should prioritize peace-building.
The final speaker was Rabbi Gersh Zylberman of Temple Bat Yahm of Newport Beach, California, who was given a glowing introduction by Anila Ali. She said years ago when there was an outbreak of Islamophobia, Temple Bat Yahm opened up its doors to the Muslim community, welcoming them in interfaith activities. “Temple Bat Yahm now is our second home,” she said.
Zylberman said that during the time of physical distancing in the coronavirus pandemic, we don’t have to be emotionally distant from each other. He recited in English the lyrics of the Hebrew song, “H’nei Matov” — How good it is for brothers (and sisters) to be together. “Peace,” he concluded, “will be a time when we treat each other with love and compassion.”
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com