The First Comprehensive Muslim-Jewish Engagement Field Report

The folks at the University of Southern California's Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement have released the very first report on the dialogue occurring between Muslim and Jewish communities in the United States. From their press release:

Debunking conventional wisdom, Muslim and Jewish groups throughout the United States are dialoguing with one another in increasing numbers. A report on the field of Muslim-Jewish engagement issued by the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (CMJE) indicates that the number of organizations and groups with missions to build relationships between Islamic and Jewish communities in the United States has been growing since 2001 and has risen significantly in the last two years.

This report marks the first comprehensive survey of the burgeoning field and provides recommendations for strengthening and expanding the work done by practitioners. “To grow the field of Muslim-Jewish engagement, we first need to understand it,” says Dafer M. Dakhil, CMJE founding co-director.

CMJE represents the only academic think tank and resource center in North America dedicated specifically to Muslim-Jewish relations. The Center collected data from organizations in the United States and Canada and from participants in the second annual Weekend of Twinningsm, a program that partners mosques, synagogues, and other organizations for a weekend of interfaith programming. The surveys revealed the following trends:

• There has been a significant increase in the formation of these groups after 2001. Nearly half of the groups founded since then were formed within the last 24 months.
• While these groups largely rely on a small core of volunteers, they have extensive networks. Over half of responding groups reach 100 people or more annually. Over a quarter report reaching over 500 people.
• The tech-savvy nature of these groups allows them to reach expanding numbers. Nearly two-thirds possess a website.
• The groups have aspirations to expand their public presence but lack financial and staff resources.
• Groups desire online educational, leadership-building and programmatic resources.
• Events like the Weekend of Twinningsm lead to ongoing organizational relationships that extend beyond formal programming.

Groups engaging in this groundbreaking movement range from intimate groups to national collaborations. In Atlanta, for example, the Jewish-Muslim Women’s Baking Circle brings women of all ages around a kitchen table to bake and build relationships across religious boundaries. The group describes itself as “an informal gathering of women who meet from time to time to bake and talk.” The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding — the organization responsible for the annual Weekend of Twinningsm has created the largest Muslim-Jewish initiative to date. Groups’ objectives include everything from basic education and combating hate to community action and policy advocacy. While much of the focus is external, “the deepest change that students of Muslim-Jewish engagement experience is in their own self understanding,” says Rabbi Reuven Firestone, founding co-director of CMJE.

Volunteer Opportunity with Tav HaYosher

Tav HaYosher, the independent regulatory organization launched by Uri L'Tzedek, is looking for volunteers! From their latest newsletter:

The Tav HaYosher is seeking volunteer Compliance Officers to certify kosher restaurants that they meet ethical standards. Dedicating only a couple of hours every 2 months, you will have the opportunity to be at the cutting edge of local Jewish activism and a crucial member of volunteer community ensuring kosher restaurants meet ethical standards of employee treatment. Please contact info@utzedek.org to discuss.

Judith Antonelli on Shemitta - "The Land's Sabbath"

In her masterpiece, In the Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah, Judith Antonelli provides an historical and cultural context for the Biblical narratives and laws, sourced in the Rabbinic textual tradition, with a pervasive concern for humanism and ecology. Declaring "Mother Nature" to be the theme of the Tora portions of Behar and Behuqothai, Antonelli describes the relationship between the seven-year cycle of land use and rest, and the seven-day cycle of human activity and rest:

When you come to the Land that I am giving you, the Land must rest in a Sabbath to Hashem. Six years you will plant your field, and six years you will prune your vineyard and gather her crops. In the seventh year there will be a Shabbat Shabbaton for the Land, a Sabbath of Hashem. (Lev. 25:2-4)

I will command My blessing to you in the sixth year, and the Land will produce crops for three years. You will plant in the eighth year but will eat from the old crops until the ninth year. (Lev. 25:21-22)

Every seventh year the Land had to have a Sabbath, just as every seventh day the Jews had to have a Sabbath. Furthermore, enough food would be produced in the sixth year to last until the ninth year, just as the double portion of manna given in the wilderness on the sixth day lasted through the Sabbath.

Just as refraining from working at our jobs on the Sabbath requires faith that God will provide enough income for us, so too the observance of Shmitah requires faith that God will provide enough food. On a purely physical level, Shmitah allows the land to regenerate itself by lying fallow for a year; on a spiritual level, Shmitah affirms that the land belongs to God and may not be subjected to unlimited human exploitation. Similarly, the Sabbath allows us to regenerate ourselves by "lying fallow" for a day, and affirms that our creative endeavors also ultimately belong to God.

That the Jews found it difficult to have such faith is indicated in Leviticus 26:34-35. Because Shmitah was not observed, the Jews were exiled. Only through desolation was the Land of Israel given the rest it needed. The seventy years off Babylonian exile are said to correspond to the seventy Sabbatical Years that the Jews neglected to observe (Rashi). The term "Shabbat Shabbaton," which is also used to describe Yom Kippur (Lev. 16:31; 23:32), implies a relationship between Shmitah and atonement.