Last week @IndeedQuite and I visited my mother for her birthday. A friend of my sister (who wears the hijab) was visiting at the same time. @IndeedQuite (brought up in an Ultra-Orthodox household in Stamford Hill) and she ended up having a lovely chat about Jewish dietary rules, which moved on to a chat about Islam and Judaism more generally. It was a welcome reminder of just how much Islam and Judaism have in common. That chat reminded me of my trips to Israel some years ago. Despite @IndeedQuite’s insistence that it’s embarrassing, I love talking to strangers when I travel - just not on the tube. During my trips, I spoke to Jewish-Israelis, Arab-Israelis, and Palestinians from the West Bank. My abiding memory was how nearly everyone I spoke to really wanted peace. All shared the same aspirations for their children and grandchildren. There were greater similarities between each of their communities - a shared belief in the important of family, hospitality, kindness to a stranger, and the importance of their faith and culture in shaping their respective world views - than each appreciated. Unfortunately, each often shared a fear of the other. A fear not born out of actual interactions, but out of ignorance. An ignorance that led members of each community to be more likely to accept the sensationalist news reporting of the other community, to assume every conspiracy theory circulating on social media to be true, and to assume each community’s extremists reflected the values of the whole. Thinking about it this morning, I wondered to what extent much of the unpleasantness I have seen on my timeline here in the UK is (generally speaking) in part the result of our own Jewish and Muslim communities here in the UK not knowing one another better. In any event, I thought I might give a plug to a lovely community organisation that I recently heard about that is actively seeking to build bridges between both communities. It’s called Nisa-Nashim. It’s a Muslim-Jewish Women’s Network. Its website is here: nisanashim.com and their Twitter handle is @nisanashim. I’d love to hear and share details of other similarly worthy groups. :-)
@FaiselSadiq @IndeedQuite Well said. I'd love to do the same as Judaism and Islam have so much in common, but I'm hesitant to approach, especially in today's climate. Whenever I have initiated, the conversation has been extremely enlightening.
@FaiselSadiq @IndeedQuite This one's really good asian-voice.com/News/UK/London…
@FaiselSadiq @IndeedQuite A great idea, and a worthy cause. It also reminds me that a major factor of the Good Friday agreement was the campaigning by women in Ireland from all sides of the conflict. I hope they have the same results.
@FaiselSadiq @IndeedQuite Profound, as ever, my friend. It does beg the question, though; who gains from stoking the fear in each community and what do they gain? I suspect the answers aren't simple or straightforward.
@FaiselSadiq @IndeedQuite Thank you, Faisel. Building trust through personal contact is so important in overcoming fears fuelled by communal division.