Two major Jewish and Muslim organizations unveiled an interfaith dialogue curriculum yesterday and are urging their hundreds of thousands of members to use it. Both sides say it is the broadest Jewish-Muslim interfaith effort in the continent’s history.
As reported in the Washington Post:
The manual and video are built around five sessions that touch on topics including the place of Jerusalem in Jewish and Muslim tradition and history. The toughest potential sticking points will probably be related to Israel and to stereotypes both groups carry about the other, Mark Pelavin, director of interreligious affairs for the Jewish group, said in an interview. “Jews want to know how Muslims feel about terrorism in the name of Islam, and Muslims want to know how Jews feel about Palestinian suffering.
According to Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, North America’s largest Jewish movement, “As a once-persecuted minority in countries where anti-Semitism is still a force, we understand the plight of Muslims in North America today,” Yoffie said yesterday. “We live in a world in which religion is manipulated to justify the most horrific acts, a world in which — make no mistake — Islamic extremists constitute a profound threat. For some, this is a reason to flee from dialogue, but in fact the opposite is true. When we are killing each other in the name of God, sensible religious people have an obligation to do something about it.”
Read it all here.