South Brunswick Muslims Push Back Against Donald Trump

South Brunswick, NJ - It was standing room-only inside the Islamic Society of Central Jersey Tuesday night, where the mosque held an open discussion on anti-Muslim feelings prevalent in America today.

About 10% of the estimated 300 people there were non-Muslims from the surrounding community of South Brunswick township. The mosque’s imam invited the non-Muslims to sit in the front.

“If we allow Trump to intimidate us ... if we pull back, that vacuum will be filled either by the radical crazy jihadists, or by the Islamophobes,” Imam Suhaib Webb, the guest speaker, told the crowd, many of whom nodded in agreement. “This is not a time to be silent ... Our community now has to stand up and say, ‘Someone is suggesting Muslims are not allowed into America - what?! Someone is suggesting that you and I need to carry ID cards?”

“We have no way of stopping these people (terrorists),” he said later in the evening. “Studies have shown that most terrorists do not attend mosques. It’s not as if we have a button we can push. We don’t have the ability to control crazy people.”

The event was also attended by a Christian minister and Rabbi Robert Wolkoff of Congregation B’nai Tikvah on Finnegans Lane in North Brunswick. Both said they are standing in solidarity with the Muslim community of South Brunswick.

“Our faith is being hijacked; what the terrorists are doing does not represent any part of any religion,” said Azra Baig, a female member of the mosque and South Brunswick resident. Baig is also an elected member of the South Brunswick school board, and her daughters attend South Brunswick High.

“To say what they are doing is in the name of Islam is absolutely wrong. They’ve taken a peaceful religion and turned it into ... I don’t even know what they’ve turned it into,“ she continued.

“I remember when 9/11 happened. Then the Boston bombing. We all thought, ‘Please God, don’t let it be a Muslim,’’ said Webb. “Then Paris. Then San Bernardino.”

“Many Muslims, we move to the suburbs, hoping that the gated community will allow us to disappear,” said Webb. “But lo and behold, here it is. Donald Trump fuels me. The more evil these people say, the more the Islamophobes try to come after me ... I push back with what is better.”