Good Afternoon, Everyone,
I know that for some of us, both here and in the larger community, having a Jewish rabbi (as if there’s any other kind) speaking on behalf of a program that opposes prejudice against Muslim Americans seems like an especially big deal. The fact is, it shouldn’t be a big deal at all, for Jews and Muslims have a great deal in common.
As faith traditions, Judaism and Islam share many things, including reverence for the stories of the Hebrew Bible, respect for religious law and scholarship, an identity that combines peoplehood and faith, and the worship of the same, singular God of all humanity, two of Whose names are derived from the same Semitic root: Allah for Muslims, Elohim for Jews. Muslims face Mecca when they pray; Jews face Jerusalem. And as if all of that were not enough, for the particularly observant in our respective communities, pepperoni pizza is, alas, off-limits.
For me, being here is also a recognition of those blessed times in Jewish history when Jews and Muslims routinely treated each other with admiration and respect. So I am here in honor of Muslims from Albania, Bosnia, Turkey and countries of the former Soviet Union, who risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbors during the Nazi reign of terror. And I am here as well to bear witness to those times in the Middle Ages when Jewish philosophers like Moses Maimonides and Hasdai ibn Shaprut served as court physicians to Muslim caliphs and learned Plato and Aristotle in Arabic translation at the hands of Muslim philosophers like Averroes.
Indeed, a Jew and a rabbi speaking out to protest bigotry aimed at our Muslim neighbors is only surprising if one insists upon burdening every interaction between our communities with the weight of all of the world’s geopolitical woes. But that is not what this moment is about.
For me, the best way to tell you what this moment is about is to think back to November 2007, when the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service sponsored by what was then called Austin Area Interreligious Ministries was to be held at a church not very far from here. Three days before the big service, when it became widely known that the Austin Muslim community was cosponsoring the service that year and that accommodations for Muslim afternoon prayers were going to be provided after the Thanksgiving service, the church hastily withdrew its offer of providing a venue for the service. Through a series of lucky coincidences, my synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel, ended up happily providing a venue for the service that year.
It was the largest ever turnout for the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service. People who would never have thought to give up a Sunday afternoon to attend that service came out just to protest the way the inhospitable congregation had behaved.
I will never, ever forget two impressions from that day.
Picture our small chapel, decorated with stained-glass windows with the six pointed Star of David and of course containing an Ark containing holy Torah scrolls. All the chairs had been removed, and prayer rugs had been arranged on the floor. And there, for the afternoon service, the Imam led his congregation in Muslim prayer in our synagogue. It was beyond perfect.
But, perhaps, more to the point, I will never forget when the service began, walking out onto the bema, the raised platform at the front of every synagogue. Not only was the sanctuary packed to the point of being a fire escape hazard, but we had cleared out the first 10 rows of chairs and there, sitting on the floor on prayer rugs, was a kind of United Nations mosh pit of religions and ethnicities, many in traditional dress.
And this is the thought that came into my mind: “I am so very proud to be an American at this moment. Nowhere else in the world could a service like this take place.”
It is in that spirit that I am with you today, standing up as a Jew for my Muslim American neighbors as my brothers and sisters. Especially during Passover, when Judaism demands that we Jews remember that we are descended from slaves and outsiders, I am proud to stand up for you against the haters and the bigots. Time and time again, my people have known what it is to be scapegoated, mistrusted and not allowed to feel at home. And so we will have your back. We will not let what too often has happened to us happen to you.
A couple of our other speakers referenced the biblical injunction to “Love your neighbor as yourself,” which in Hebrew is v’ahavta l’ray’akha kamokha. And a well known rabbinic interpretation of the verse teaches, this means, “Love your neighbor, for he is exactly as yourself.” Thank you.

Tags: Islam, Judaism