Interfaith Insight - 2023
Permanent link for Deep divides on Israel and Palestine. What can be said? by Douglas Kindschi, Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Founding Director, Kaufman Interfaith Institute, GVSU on October 31, 2023
Recently the Religion News Service published an opinion piece written by two leaders at Interfaith America, an organization dedicated to unlocking the positive potential of our country’s religious diversity. The writers have deep personal connections to the situation in Israel and Gaza, as well as many years of working in this national interfaith organization.
One of them, Rebecca Russo, is an American Jew who has visited Israel frequently and worked with Hillel, the Jewish student outreach on many college campuses, and has many close and extended family members living in Israel. She writes about her family members, “My love for them and concern for their wellbeing – along with the wellbeing of all Jews worldwide whom I consider my extended family – is the primary reason I have felt constantly terrified these past two weeks.”
The other writer, Jenan Mohajir,is a Muslim American who in college was an active leader in the a Muslim student group. She continued working with Interfaith America (formerly the Interfaith Youth Corp) for 17 years. She is also the mother of “three beautiful children who are part Palestinian, part Irish, part Indian and fully Muslim.” She continues, “Preserving the dignity of Palestinian life and narratives is deeply important and personal to me, as it is preserving the dignity of my children’s family and their own stories.”
The two recognize each other’s positions but come together on “the importance of seeing each other and each other’s people as fully human.” They also hope that in the midst of the disagreements, both professionals and students “will lead with care, creating space to honor the distinctive pain of both Israelis and Palestinians.”
While they mourn the thousands of innocent people who have died in Gaza and in Israel, they are not trying to argue the moral equivalence of the differing positions, but calling for compassion and the honoring of human life. Read their full article here. (https://religionnews.com/2023/10/20/campuses-should-model-care-engaging-deep-divides-on-israel-palestine-and-beyond/)
The way these two colleagues at Interfaith America acknowledge these fundamental human values, while strongly disagreeing with each other on the conflict, is the kind of respectful dialogue that we at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute have worked to achieve.
Too much of the conflict in that part of the world is and has been based on each partytelling the history of past injustice rather than seeking future ways to support each community’s flourishing. Disagreement is inevitable in such times as these, but we must still care. Care for the suffering and dying, care for the history of injustice, and care for the humanity of those with whom we disagree.
Shalom, Salaam, Peace.
