Groups at Odds in Middle East
Get Along Well in Our Borough
By Josh Spiro
Special to Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN — We no longer need to imagine a God’s-eye-view of our neighborhood thanks to Google Earth, but we can still envision a divine smile cast over the peaceful, pluralistic Petri dish that is Brooklyn.
The borough is known for its diversity, and many groups with close relationships to the Middle East— be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Israeli, Arab, etc. — call it home. Whether they connect to that tumultuous region on the other side of the world through pilgrimages, phone calls to relatives, or simply by talking politics, it’s clear that for many religious Brooklynites, homeland is a powerful but nuanced concept.
Given the problems the Abrahamic faiths have living shoulder to shoulder in that region, their coexistence in Brooklyn is an admirable feat. Curious, but hesitant to look a gift horse in the mouth, the Eagle asked local community leaders what it takes to maintain this equanimity.
The first puzzle is why people immigrate and fall into a demographic pattern similar to the one they left behind. Father Khader El-Yateem, who presides at the Salam Arabic Lutheran Church, explained that his church came to Bay Ridge in 1995 along with a growing community of Arab and Middle Eastern Christians. However, his explanation of how communities form and why they leave their homes could apply to any group.
“There are many different reasons [for the wave of immigration]. One of them is because of family who have been living here, and our community is community-oriented. People leave the Middle East for “four major reasons: because of war, occupation, bad economics, bad regimes.”
Father Jim Root, of Our Lady of Lebanon Church in Brooklyn Heights, added, “back in Pittsburgh, the majority of [the Lebanese] moved to wherever there were other Lebanese … they helped each other with language, with customs, to assimilate into the American — to adapt, I should say — into the American milieu; to survive.” But, Father Root explained, it can also be a matter of religious necessity that causes communities to aggregate and sometimes seclude themselves.
Insularity in any group, however, can be a detriment to interfaith communication. Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of Congregation Mount Sinai said that when he first came to the synagogue in 1972, there had been years of respectful relationships between the three religions but not much interaction with local Muslims. But that began to change, he said. “From the Muslim perspective I think they recognized that if we’re gonna live with each other we have to learn about each other.”
Dialogue Sparked
By 2000 Intifada
Two particular events served to give Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities the wake-up call that they needed to come together and to pre-empt hostility. One of the events was 9/11, but the first event came a year earlier. Marcia Kannry, the founder of the Dialogue Project, one of the main hubs of Brooklyn interfaith activity, said, “This didn’t just happen because of 9/11... the idea for the Dialogue Project began in September of 2000 … Ariel Sharon marched on the Temple Mount and ... horrible things were being said. The report of all the violence that happened was not just Palestinian violence towards Israelis but Israeli violence towards Palestinians. It was all ugly, horrible stuff every day.”
Dialogue is not always a warm and fuzzy process, but rather rests on creating a safe space to share what can be gritty, uncomfortable truths. Linda Sarsour, the acting director of the Arab-American Association of New York, said of her participation in the project that there was initially “a lot of ignorance, people not understanding Muslims, ‘Why are they here, what are they doing?’ Some people were saying ‘Oh, we’re scared they’re going to take over the neighborhood,’ things that were disturbing but at the same time I was happy that people got to the point where they ... were able to be honest.”
Providing a hypothetical example of how participants on both sides of the dialogue could make unsettling remarks, Kannry said, “When I heard Mohammed say that he would die for Palestinian cause I felt scared because does that mean he would die fighting my nephew? And you know I get just as scared when I hear my nephew say all right, he’ll die if he has to for greater Israel. It scares me just as much.”
There have been occasions where fighting and discrimination have flared in little pockets, but for each story like that, there is a story of people going out of their way to help one another. Father Root mentioned the swastikas that were graffitied onto Congregation B’nai Avraham on Remsen Street. He said, “That guy, the one who did it, it was an individual as you know, and he was not a well person.”
Religious leaders often say that these are often isolated acts and make overtures that can do wonders to prevent bitterness and recrimination. But their work goes beyond the preventive, and the spirit of community is really buoyed, to take one example, by stories like the Christian members of Root’s congregation who lost their home in a fire. They were immediately given shelter and assistance by their Muslim neighbors.
Why Not the Middle East?
When leaders were asked point blank how different groups can live together in Brooklyn when they are at loggerheads in the Middle East, three strains of answers emerged. Unsurprisingly, the first was that this is exactly what America encourages. Imam Ibrahim el-Terkawy of the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, said, through a translator, “The American law respects different faiths. There’s not much prejudice or discrimination existing in this area [so we are] able to live in same neighborhood without any conflict.” Rabbi Samuel Weintraub of the Kane Street Synagogue in Cobble Hill echoed that sentiment, “Obviously we’re in a state of peace here there’s a tradition of democracy and tolerance and all of us, certainly the Muslim and the Jewish community.”
The second category of answers was that the struggle was endemic to land and the governments across the ocean, and was consequently left behind like an unwanted Samsonite. Wael Mousfar, President of the Arab Muslim American Federation said, “It’s a different issue that we’re dealing with in Brooklyn, no one took over somebody’s land and no one committed aggression against the other, so there is no reason for the tension, and there is no reason to fight, and there is no reason to misunderstand.”
Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham, the one religious leader interviewed who professed no interfaith activity, said that here, “It’s not about borders, it’s about making a living... [in] Israel it’s discussing if I own it if you own it; here we know the country belongs to America.”
The third reason coexistence is possible is the Almighty... dollar. Father Root said, “Think about the industrialization of America also, I mean many people are coming to the new world to make a living for themselves.” Ms. Sarsour added, “If you’re a customer and you’re walking into a different business that’s not owned by someone of your own [group] you’re still a customer, and your dollar is worth just as much as anyone else’s dollar.”
A fourth reason, likely omitted out of modesty, is that these community leaders themselves often make it a priority to promote understanding and outreach.
But the ultimate question is can we export this zeitgeist of tolerance and brotherhood? Some leaders think we can. Rabbi Weintraub said, when “people know and respect each other’s faiths [it] builds trust in the Diaspora and hopefully as a consequence in the homeland, that can only help the process of finally bringing peace. So it’s not a direct engagement, but I hope it’s an indirect engagement.”
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© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2009
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