By Rabbi Sarah Bassin
Reaching Beyond the Choir
“Inspired.” “Energized.” “Confused.” “Naïve.”
I had asked a Jewish audience to share a single word to capture their thoughts of my presentation on Muslim-Jewish relations. I had spent the last hour painting a picture of the broken communication between Jews and Muslims over the last 20 years – the public spats, the failed dialogues and the wounded relationships. I devoted the last portion of the session to envisioning a more positive paradigm and cultivating the tools to get us there.
Some people entered the session eager to acquire the skills needed to strengthen relationships with the Muslims who share their city. They had witnessed the breakdowns but refused to think of “Muslim-Jewish” as synonymous with “conflict.” They walked away from the session recharged. Inspired. Energized.
Photo: NewGround
Others entered as skeptics, poised to dismiss interfaith work as a charming but ineffective effort to bridge an unbridgeable chasm of differences. The cycle of conflict exists for a reason and those who champion engagement with the other don’t understand the threat to their own community. Openness and vulnerability lead to exploitation. Interfaith activists are unrooted. Confused. Naïve.
Those words may have felt cutting in the moment but they were also a gift. It was early in my work as the executive director of NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, though I had long been devoted to interfaith relations. As someone who grew up with a mixed religious background, the importance of interfaith was engrained in my Jewish identity. But my own experience blinded me to the experience of those for whom interfaith was not a self-evident good.
It was beyond my worldview that someone could see interfaith engagement not only as superfluous but as threatening. I realized that I needed to take a step back and explain why the work matters in the first place. More specifically, I needed to make a compelling case for why the work matters to them.
There is something that feels base about using the language of self-interest to undergird interfaith work. I imagine that many of us find ourselves committed to interfaith activism because our highest ideals have led us down this path. As someone who chose to become a rabbi to pursue a career in interfaith relations, I certainly felt compelled by the holiness of the endeavor. My tradition demands it of me. The Jewish philosopher Emanuel Levinas captures my deeply held belief with his claim that we experience divine commandment through the face of the other.
But I am also in this line of work because I believe wholeheartedly that a commitment to interfaith relations and Muslim-Jewish relations in particular tangibly benefits the Jewish people. This work is, as they say, “good for the Jews.”
Rethinking Self-interest
As a teenager and young adult, I despised the “good for the Jews” cliché. It seemed to be an excuse for isolation, a justification for turning a blind eye to the plight of others. But those excuses represent a narrow interpretation of what is good. Those justifications conflate that which is in our self-interest with that which is self-serving.
Asking whether something is “good for the Jews?” is actually a useful question. As my colleagues in community organizing assert, acknowledging one’s self interest is the first important step to social change.
When I engage Jewish audiences now, I open by speaking to that self-interest. I lay out the vast overlapping domestic agendas between the American Muslim and Jewish communities and spell out the missed opportunities for collaboration. I articulate how changing demographics will impact Jewish community relations. Jews are becoming a smaller proportion of the American population and we will need to rely more heavily on coalitions. I cite how the younger generations of Jews understand “Jewish values” more universally than their parents did. Interfaith activism thus has a role in engaging these generations’ Jewish identity.
Photo: NewGround
No part of me imagines that I will transform every skeptic in an hour by framing Muslim-Jewish relations in terms of Jewish self-interest. But I often see something click for Jewish audiences when I cite the 2010 Gallup poll that directly links anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The single greatest predictor for whether someone holds Islamophobic beliefs is whether they also hold anti-Semitic beliefs. This simple statistic reframes the issue from an abstract good to a concrete need. Combating Islamophobia is not some altruistic endeavor for Jews rooted in the collective memory of our own historical persecution. It is a strategic approach to prevent latent anti-Semitism from resurfacing today.
Developing Interfaith Strategies
The rhetoric that we use to describe our work serves to undermine or enhance the power of our impact. Early on, a supporter once described NewGround as “the ones getting everyone to love each other.” She soon learned that this does not begin to capture what NewGround does. We equip Jews and Muslims with the tools, space, and relationships to identify what matters to people in both communities – our fears, our values, our narratives and aspirations. Sometimes, the conversation feels uncomfortable because interests do not always align (for example, we do not expect everyone to agree about how to handle the conflict in the Middle East). But the willingness to articulate what is at one’s core creates the foundation for a more honest and trusting partnership when there is alignment. At NewGround, we are not the ones getting everyone to love each other. We are the ones transforming intergroup relations in Los Angeles from a civic liability into a communal asset.
There will always be a core of people drawn to interfaith work for its more abstract ideals – people who need no convincing of interfaith’s inherent value. But our goal ought to include preaching beyond the choir. There is no shame in rebranding interfaith as savvy and strategic, substantive and smart. Interfaith is all of these things and there is much to be gained by speaking of our work from this angle. Those poised to call us naïve may instead walk away energized. And those who thought us confused may instead find themselves inspired.
This was first published in the Parliament of the World’s Religions Blog, April 17, 2012.
