by joshua brandt
correspondent
Amidst all the bonhomie, exhortations and parables at an interfaith gathering Sunday, Feb.18, was a statement that was stunning in its simplicity and audacity.
Addressing a packed crowd at San Francisco’s Jewish Community Center, Maha ElGenaidi of the Islamic Networks Groups responded to a question about how pervasive distrust has been between Muslims and Jews regarding the issue of Israel and Palestine.
“Well, the issues of Palestine and Israel are not central to my life, and perhaps not to a lot of American Jews as well.”
Although the comment was quickly buried beneath an avalanche of other audience questions, ElGenaidi’s one sentence spoke to the larger issue surrounding the discussion called “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”
The issue was one of framing — in other words, when a Jew, Muslim or Christian encounters a person from another faith, what sort of historical baggage form their perceptions?
In addition to ElGenaidi, the speakers were the Rev. Alan Jones of Campbell United Methodist Church and Rabbi Stephen Pearce of San Francisco’s Reform Congregation Emanu-El. Paul Chaffee of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio moderated the talk, one of a series of interfaith discussions among the “Abrahamic religions.”
ElGenaidi took the mainstream media to task for fomenting controversy and ignoring issues that might bridge the divides between various communities.
“Any major Islamic Web site in this country will have articles denouncing terrorism, but they don’t receive any coverage because it’s not sexy enough,” said ElGenaidi. “The media is looking for extremist voices, and those voices then represent the images people have of our community.”
She said the media’s appetite for controversy has contributed to a siege mentality in the Islamic community.
“I am terrified of a time when neighbors become enemies, and people are subject to ‘home invasions,’” said ElGenaidi. “It’s happened before, so why can’t it happen again?”
Jones concurred, wryly commenting, “There surely must’ve been something happening in the news last week besides the death of Anna Nicole Smith.”
Jones also chided adherents to the Christian faith who “ignore and betray the teachings of Jesus” by not reaching out to adversaries.
Likening his own spiritual development to a “jigsaw puzzle,” Jones said that, rather than viewing adherents to other beliefs as a stranger, he views the “other” as having a piece of a puzzle necessary to complete him.
Pearce also employed a more personal narrative to explore the concept of the “other.” Commenting on a recent trip to Turkey, Pearce noted that it was his first visit to a mosque, and that he was a “little hesitant” going to a Muslim country as a Jew.
However, “the embrace we got was absolutely unbelievable,” he said. “Someone can only be viewed as the ‘other’ when you don’t know them.
“Sin crouches at our door, but we must be its master.”
Pearce mapped out a seamless thread of violence and fratricide harkening back to Cain and Abel, and said that biblical tradition holds that killing one individual also wipes out “entire generations” that may have sprung from their seed.
The discussion was part of an ongoing series sponsored by various religious and interfaith organizations as well as the American Jewish Committee, Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, and Jewish Community Relations Council.
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California