Civic Groups Exclude Muslims from Dialog about ... Islamophobia!

Here's an announcement of an event to be held in Bethesda, Maryland, in the year 2024 C.E. What's wrong with this picture?

March 17th — Dialogue sponsored jointly by JIDS and JAMAAT on “Islamophobia and Antisemitism,” starting at 3:00 p.m., and held at 6601 Bradley Blvd., Bethesda, MD 20817. The venue is home to a Jewish, Christian and Muslim congregation. We will have a panel discussion led by Todd Green, Director of Campus Partnerships at Interfaith America, and Rabbi Abbi Sharofsky, Director of Intergroup Relations and the Jewish Community Relations Counsel of Greater Washington. We will also hear from an official with the U.S. EEOC, and we will leave plenty of time for small group discussions. RSVP to jids.washington@gmail.com.

Notice anything odd? Panelist Todd Green is a Presbyterian minister. Panelist Abbi Sharofsky is Jewish. So, unless the unnamed "official with the U.S. EEOC" turns out to be a Muslim, there will be no believer of Islam on the stage where "Islamophobia" is to be a central topic of discussion!

Dear members of Jews And Muslims And Allies Acting Together (JAMAAT) and Jewish-Islamic Dialog Society of Washington (JIDS),

Have you heard of this principle: "Don't talk about us without us." You are the authors of this fine example of self-delusion and ethnic erasure.

I must ask you to reflect on the mission of your organizations. Are you a healing force, or are you a flimsy Band Aid covering up a deep, infected wound that needs to be opened and cleansed? Are you exacerbating the problem (racism) that you purport to be solving?

The fact that nobody in these two organizations has noticed this shameful omission (in the notice above) is reason enough to disband them. Let’s examine the problem, and then may I suggest a solution for you to contemplate?

THE PROBLEM

It's the same now as it was in Germany in 1930. Erase them from their places of work. Erase them from the map. Erase them from the history books sitting on your lap. Remove them from their homes. Don’t let them speak. Pretend they don’t exist. Suppress and cancel their voices. Give them no choices. Fence them in a concentration camp. Transform that into a death camp. Finally, pretend there is no death camp. We see that sequence leading to the genocide in Gaza today. It reminds me of what I saw when my family visited the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in 1974, when I was a young man.

Yes, we are in Montgomery County, Maryland, a hub of progressive sentiments in 2024, C.E. Or, maybe we have been a hub of bigotry and intolerance for some time: passing a county resolution to stifle free speech (note: criticism of Israeli policy is not antisemitism); criticizing the director of CASA for calling out a nascent genocide; suspending teachers for expressing their belief in human rights for all; employing police officers who kill men for walking while Black in their own neighborhood; and enjoying the profits of corporations whose only products are war and death.

History is a hard teacher. We should not be surprised that, in a time of genocide, there are civic organizations eager to enable the murderers, eager raise their flutes and violins to produce soft sounds that muffle the cries of tens of thousands of children crushed under rubble, burned with fire, starving for bread, dying from diseases spread by unclean water. No, look over here! See? We are good people! See, I can sit next to a woman wearing a hijab!

Too often, our churches and synagogues are engines of racism. For example, bigotry revealed itself in my own liberal religion (Unitarian Universalism) when a minister said, No, we can't feature a collection of paintings by Palestinian artists here in the church hall because we rent out this space for weddings and such. Palestinian art might frighten away our clients.

Today, all of that home-grown racist tradition serves to uphold the genocide in Gaza, enabled by the United States giving weapons and our U.S. tax dollars to Israel, $4 billion per year. And suddenly $14 billion more, immediately, to replenish the genocidal machine. Senators Chris Van Hollen and Ben Cardin, and Congressmen David Trone and Jamie Raskin all vote for this, year after year. We should be more careful. The fate of the children of Gaza is our fate.

The whole world is watching this genocide unfold in real time on their cell phones. This is extremely dangerous. If I wanted to fuel antisemitism around the globe, I would do exactly what President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu are doing right now: killing 100 to 200 kids every day in Gaza. Attacking the hospitals. Bombing the caravan of families displaced for the fifth or sixth time, families in line waiting for food and drinking water. Thousands of children suffering amputations without pain killers or antibiotics. Now they are starving.

THE U.S. RESPONSE: HOW’S IT WORKING FOR YA?

When fear overwhelmed us on 9-11, and again on Oct 7, 2023, Americans made the mistake of seeking absolute security. We unleashed an enormous, foolish violence against people in the Middle East, and against our own members of the military who have served in the endless wars. The (treasonous) insurrection at the Capitol is one symptom of America's sense of betrayal: The Pentagon's cannonball is pointed at us. These endless wars and genocides do not serve the interests of the American people.

Do we bear any responsibility for all the violence happening in the Middle East? Let's recall, for example, that we shot, like fish in a barrel, unarmed Palestinian men and women, injuring 36,100 and killing 217 in the year 2018. We've held 2 million people in an open-air prison for 16 years; squeezing down the water, food, and electricity, "mowing the grass" every fourth or fifth year, allowing nobody to leave. This is Gaza. Our own Warsaw Ghetto. The U.S. and Israel did these things together, arm in arm, smiling at each other. Then Gaza exploded on October 7, 2023.

A WAY FORWARD

Security on this Earth can only be aspired to when we remember and live according to core values. Moses. Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not steal or covet (Palestinian) land. Thou shall not bear false witness (against the Palestinian people, who did not invent antisemitism, European Christians did). Thou shall not worship a false god (like the blue Star of David or the American flag). Worship only the true G-d.

Who have you chosen to be your G-d?

Cancel you meeting and join your neighbors as they protest the genocide. Get into the street. Call your congressperson. Visit their office. Sign the petitions. End the genocide.

I'm meeting my neighbors of every age, background, and skin color on the sidewalk and in the street as we protest the genocide. Hope is there. Join Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow (also a Jewish organization) as they shut down the Chicago train station, halt the California legislature, block traffic, freeze the U.S. Congress by filling the rotunda with protesters. Join Rabbis for Ceasefire and American Muslims for Palestine as they advocate on The Hill for an end to the violence and a beginning of justice for Palestinians. These are my heroes. We are creating The Beloved Community that we wish to see.

When we actually invite "the enemy" to the table as an equal, and shut up and listen, then we are facing our fear.

"My shaking knees ... my trembling voice ... I saw my fear as simply part of the price I had to pay, part of a down payment on a life free of racial discrimination." (Terrence Roberts, Lessons from Little Rock, p. 88).

“I was born to a traditional Jewish family in 1948 in Philadelphia, and if you were a Jewish kid born at the same time as the beginning of the State of Israel, you were raised in a very powerful combination of traditional rabbinic Judaism and political Zionism. The two were not separated. …
I bought all of the mythology and all of the romance. … I think it was grace that, in middle age, I finally decided it was time to meet this purported “enemy.” [The Palestinian farmer on his own land.] Like Jacob meeting Esau across that river, I saw the face of God. That was really the big, big change for me.” (Dr. Mark Braverman, Director of Kairos USA, speaking at a Voices From the Holy Land Online Film Salon). on September 13, 2020.

Be well and Peace, Steven Sellers Lapham
A 30-year resident of Montgomery County, Maryland

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