Iftar Ba-Sukkah
Once in a (half) lifetime opportunity! 
Midwest Jews! Help bring Chicago’s Muslim and Jewish communities together as we host our fellow descendants of Abraham for an evening of what both traditions do best: eating, prayer and schmoozing. Our Muslim brothers and sisters are currently in the month of Ramadan. They fast from dawn to sunset every day for a month (and you thought Yom Kippur was rough) and then break the fast each day with a meal called Iftar. This year, their fast coincides with Sukkot, thus this sweet opportunity to feed some hungry muslims and do something meaningful and positive with our fellow Semites.
Who: Muslims and Jews
What: Iftar in the Sukkah
Where: Anshe Sholom Synagogue, 540 W. Melrose, Chicago Illinois
When: 5:30 – 7:30, October 1, 2007
How much: $5-10 suggested donation to the JCUA for making this kind of stuff possible.
RSVP to Irene at [email protected] or hit her up 312-663-0960 with questions. The skies don’t align like this for another 30 years folks.
Thanks to Ari Hart, for sharing this.
Excellent.
Please tell me somebody is doing something like this in NYC, too?
FYI, if you are looking for more event info here is the Facebook invite:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=4971324181
The first questions to be asked of the Muslims: do you denounce the Muslim acts of terrorism against Israel (and not just part of a “I don’t approve any acts of terrorism….” we hear from their weaselly spokespersons over the years); and do you want to live in peace with a Jewish Israel. Once (if) they say yes to both, then we have something to celebrate together.
To be honest, you also have to turn the question around and be willing to answer: “do you denounce human rights violations against Palestinians (and not just part of a “once their compatriots stop causing trouble” we hear from our Arabophobic own) and are you willing to live in peace in a Jewish Israel side by side with a Palestinian state that will include some land you might consider biblically part of Israel?”
Because if you want a peaceful Jewish state, your choices are compromise or ethnic cleansing. And I fail to see how ethnic cleansing is any better than terrorism.
Meanwhile, if you actually want them to denounce terrorism, why don’t you try spending some time getting to know them, so that they’ll see that you’re fundamentally a good person and they don’t have to try to kill you to live in peace themselves.
Unless of course you’re not a fundamentally good person and they do have to kill you to have any chances at peace. In which case sharing dinner in a sukkah probably isn’t going to help.
At Harvard this year there was a joint Ramadan-Yom Kippur break fast, which was lovely. They also are having a Sukkat Salaam program next week.
We have got to engage American Muslims, for their sake and ours. Especially at the local level, the danger of giving a hecksher to an Islamist group is outweighed by the benefits of putting a human face on the other.
Here’s one in LA:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5800097482
Still looking for one in New York…
Themicah – don’t know how you define ethnic cleansing, if you mean it in the Iraq sense where Shiites and Sunnis are murdering each other in terrorist acts, then yes, ethnic cleansing is terrorism. If you mean the unwillingness of Arab states and the Palestinian territories to let Jews live amongst them, that’s discrimination, but it hardly equals murder/terrorism. And my not being a good person (if you want to make that assumption) gives others the right to murder me? Mmmm, based on that theory I could go on a rampage and eliminate about 20% of the Muslims and maybe 2% of the Jews out there – do you really want to go down that path? Ps – my %s as to Muslims are based on the % that support terrorism – and as to Jews my personal experience
I suspect that the Muslims and Jews who would go to such interfaith events are the ones most willing to see the humanity in one another. Save the ultimatums for the people with trouble understanding that concept.
Adam Shapiro was one such humanity searching Jew who left Judaism, married a palestinian, and became a leader of a terrorist anti-Israeli group, so I’m sure what “humanity” means in this context – if it means those who truly oppose terrorism and are willing to live in peace (which should be a threshold position), then yes humanity is out there – but there’s no harm in making sure we are dealing with real humanists – that’s not an ultimatum, that’s dealing with truthfulness.
Even when there is a chance to speak – a chance for dialogue and potential reconciliation, someone’s always gotta come out of the woodwork to either muddy the waters or start hatin’ outright.
I think this Succot dinner won’t miss Mr. Incorrect here.
Sorry to muddy the waters with sound thinking and realism. I think the leftists amongst us have tried the let’s hold hands and sing Kumbayah for years, the only result has been more dead Jews. No thanks.
Note: I live in Israel, and I have yet to be killed by any of the Muslims that I went to an iftar with while I was in college. And if you’re blaming me for the death of Jews because I went to iftars and inter-faith dialogues, shame on you. That is truly a disgusting accusation. (How I got to that: “the only result [of “holding hands and singing Kumbayah”] “has been more dead Jews.”)
Actually, having attended this event for the last couple years, I can shed some light.
The Muslims who attended tend to be non-Arab- either African, Indo-Pak, South Asian or even European. Part of that has to do with the membership of the partner organization, part to do with geography of the Arab community (centralized on the southwest side, far from ASBI) and the fact that most (not all) of the Arabs and Palestinians in Chicago are immigrants for whom this would be a luxury during a work shift.
I’ve found it to be a profoundly good exchange and learning exercise and a time to find some common ground on a civics level. The Iftar B;Sukkah is not a one-off. It is part of a year round dialogue initiative by JUCA.
Also, R. Lopatin did his PhD on Islamic Fundamentalist Attitudes towards Jews. I think in the process he learned enough to know where to draw the line between sensitivity to our Islamosphizin without endangering Jewish life…
Thanks for mentioning this. I’m going to talk to somebody at my shul about doing some interfaith programs based around the holidays. This really does sound great.
Thanks to incorrect, too, for giving my scroll-wheel finger a little extra workout while I read through comments.
Yes, sir, because ALL Arabs want to murder us. Even those at interfaith events. Oy…