In US, some Muslim-Jewish interfaith initiatives are strained by Israel-Hamas war
World
In US, some Muslim-Jewish interfaith initiatives are strained by Israel-Hamas war
Shireen Quaizar was wracked with doubt. For years, the school psychologist has been active in Muslim-Jewish interfaith dialogue, but the Israel-Hamas war left her reeling.
“What are we doing with talking to each other?” she recalled thinking, frustrated by a conversation about the exact number of Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike. “This doesn’t work.”
But she decided to fight that thought and tackle the hard discussions once again. Later, Quaizar, who is Muslim, met with women like Aviva Seltzer, the daughter of a rabbi and a Jewish school principal who was raised with the belief that “but for the existence of Israel, we’d all be dead.”
The two had come together for a conference in New Brunswick, New Jersey, convened by the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, an organization seeking to build trust and friendships between Muslim and Jewish women.
These conversations are becoming increasingly difficult, with the war and its polarizing reverberations in America testing and straining some interfaith relationships more than ever. For many, the losses are too personal, the emotions too raw.
The latest violence, triggered by the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, is prompting some to question the point of these conversations — and how to have them — while steeling the resolve of others to keep going.
“We’re very courageous, you and I, because we don’t stop talking,” Seltzer told Quaizar. “The minute we stop talking, there’s no hope.”
Quaizar nodded and said, “We’re doing the hardest work right now.”
At the event, Sisterhood co-founder Atiya Aftab, a Muslim, told participants that simply showing up was an achievement. Next to her, Roberta Elliott, who’s Jewish and the nonprofit’s president, said she couldn’t have gotten through the previous weeks “without my Muslim sisters.”
They’ve seen the challenges mount.
There are “all these barriers now to come to the table,” Aftab said in an interview.
She’s questioned why she’s not walking away herself.
“Sometimes it seems insurmountable to have conversations with people who have a diametrically different viewpoint,” Aftab said. “Faith is what keeps me there — and hope.”
Part of the difficulty of discussing the war was underscored in responses to the organization’s public call earlier for a cease-fire. Elliott said some Jewish women would have preferred the group advocated for a humanitarian pause instead.
More recently, heated debates also erupted over what to call Israel’s military action. Tensions flared on members’ WhatsApp groups.
“We’ve had to remind people that they need to step back, that they need to take deep breaths,” Elliott said. Still, she said, “this is what we’ve been preparing for ... to try to be a comfort for each other and try to achieve something together.”
But in the Israeli-Palestinian context, some critics say many interfaith efforts fall short. Detractors argue that focusing on Muslim-Jewish relationships also risks inadvertently reducing the conflict to religion, ignoring all factors at play or overlooking the diversity of communities, including non-Muslim Palestinians and Jewish supporters of the Palestinian cause.
Aftab said wading into areas of disagreement, especially after establishing trust, is necessary for meaningful interactions.
