Last week I had the privilege of attending the 68th annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland’s Community Relations Committee (CRC). The featured speaker was Abraham H. Foxman, the outgoing national director of the Anti-Defamation League. (You can watch the full video recording of his speech here.) The event was held at the beautiful Anshe Chesed Fairmount Temple, the oldest existing synagogue in Cleveland, originally established in 1841 as a German Orthodox congregation.
As I was walking through the hallway to the auditorium, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the Temple’s history—the walls were covered with photographs of the Temple’s graduating classes going back to the early 20th century. Anshe Chesed has a long legacy of leading civil rights and interfaith actions, from Rabbi Brickner’s activities in the 1930s to current leadership’s involvement with the Greater Cleveland Congregations, a coalition of faith leaders currently focusing on educational and prison justice. And of course, I remembered Rabbi Lelyveld (1958-1986), who was a national leader in civil rights activism.
I appreciated Rabbi Nosanchuk’s opening remarks. He brought up the legacy of Yizhak Rabin, the Israeli Prime Minister (1974-1977, 1992-1995) who was assassinated for leading Israel toward a two-state solution by signing the Oslo (and Taba) Accords, which created the Palestinian Authority as the representative of the Palestinian nation, and recognized the PLO as a negotiation partner. The rabbi’s acknowledgement of Palestinian concerns was offset by a video illustrating Northeast Ohio’s support for Israel during last summer’s war.
While the Federation’s CRC’s mission is to build bridges with other religious, ethnic, and racial groups, the keynote of its annual meeting focused on the bleak realities of global Anti-Semitism. Foxman gave examples of rising Anti-Semitism, but warned against comparing today’s hatred to that of the 1930s and 1940s. According to Foxman and the ADL’s most recent studies, Anti-Semitism is at its highest in Middle Eastern and North African countries. Foxman drew a direct tie between rising Anti-Semitism in Europe and its rising Muslim population, describing Muslim immigration as a “human conveyer belt of Anti-Semitism” to Europe. He shared his belief that the future of the Jews in Europe depends on European countries’ ability to “integrate” and “assimilate” their Muslim populations.
Surrounded by reminders of Cleveland’s incredible legacy of producing leaders in human and civil rights, the global discussion left me with local concerns. Given the widespread bias and stereotyping that seem to exist between faiths, I felt an urgency to foster stronger local Jewish-Muslim relationships. I started at the Museum a few weeks ago, and I remembered hearing about a 2014 interfaith dialogue program with Rabbi Nosanchuk and Imam Mohammed Magid of the Islamic Society of North America. Conversations like these are critical to building respect and understanding, but they are just the beginning. I wondered what our Cleveland Jewish communities could do to strengthen ties with Cleveland’s Muslim communities. Will we be complacent with our fear of the other, or will we be brave enough to challenge ourselves and continue to grow as Jews and as American citizens?
—Hadas Binyamini, Coordinator, Student Learning & Community Engagement
