When Jews and Muslims came together for a “twinning” event on Nov. 16, the Pico Union Project was filled with jamming, rapping, rhetoric, dancing and more.
“It’s the only way we will ever find peace — through the arts and dialogue. So this is a really good start,” Genie Benson, Keshet Chaim Dance Ensemble executive director, told the Journal.
As she spoke, IKAR Chazzan Hillel Tigay’s band played, and dancing attendees — approximately 400 people turned out — swarmed the open space between the front row of the venue’s pews and the stage. The event, titled “Together in the City of Angels: A Musical Celebration of Muslim Jewish Unity,” was part of the Weekend of Twinning, which is actually a monthlong season of events that involves faith communities around the world, as far away as Morocco. It involves social justice-oriented, educational and cultural events that promote dialogue between Jews and Muslims. It is the brainchild of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU), an organization founded by hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, who serves as chair, and New York-based Rabbi Marc Schneier, who serves as president. In partnership with the Islamic Society of North America, it promotes Jews standing up for Muslims, and Muslims standing up for Jews. It also works on Jewish-Latino relations and Jewish-African-American relations.
The goal of the group’s work with Jewish and Muslim communities is to push back against anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, FFEU Muslim-Jewish Program Director Walter Ruby told the Journal during a reception following last weekend’s concert. To that end, faith leaders in Los Angeles recently created the Southern California Muslim-Jewish Forum (SCMJF).
The event at the Pico Union Project also marked the launch of SCMJF, which includes leaders of synagogues and mosques advocating on behalf of one another. Members include Wilshire Boulevard Temple Rabbi Susan Goldberg, King Fahad Mosque’s Mohammed Akbar Khan, Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue’s Rabbi Judith HaLevy and Imam Jihad Turk, the president-designate of Bayan Claremont, an Islamic graduate school of Claremont Lincoln University and Pacifica Institute’s Atilla Kahveci.
“The relation[ship] between Israel and its neighbors in the Muslim world is quite tense, and that sentiment spills over to relationships here,” Turk said in an interview at the Pico Union Project. “Our aspiration for events like this and for the many different Muslim and Jewish organizations that were represented here today is that religion is not tribalism, that religion is something that, when done right, calls us as human beings to our higher selves and, when we take religion and faith seriously, both of our faiths, Islam and Judaism, call us to combat immorality, criminality, violence, hatred, wherever it’s found.”
The group aims to serve as an umbrella body in L.A. that focuses on strengthening Muslim-Jewish relations locally — instead of, say, the Anti-Defamation League on the Jewish side and the Muslim Pubic Affairs Council, one of SCMJF’s partner organizations, on the Muslim side, Ruby said. Source: Jewish Journal