Source/Credit: Daily Gazette | NY
By Linda LeTendre | January 4, 2010
In light of the recent ugly and downright nasty portrayals of Islam and Muslims, I'm thrilled to live in a town where faith communities will line up and all but push each other out of the way to sponsor a program that will help people to better understand our Muslim neighbors.
This coming Sunday, Jan. 9, at 5:30 p.m., the Saratoga Peace Alliance, the Kairos Community, Temple Sinai, the Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church as well as the Quakers and Unitarians are sponsoring a good old-fashioned “teach-in” with the Ahmadiyya Mosque of Rotterdam Junction to give people an opportunity to learn about the basic values and tenets of Islam -- and most importantly to ask questions and express concerns. The event will be held at Temple Sinai, 509 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. To register email templesinai1@gmail.com or call (518) 633-4781. (Space is limited so it is best to sign up.)
Ever since 9/11, American Muslims have been reviled by many political personalities and by the fringes of our culture with the tacit assistance of the U.S. government and of much of the media. Based on nothing more than suspicion, thousands of Muslims in the United States were put under surveillance, questioned and detained. Some had their property seized. The infamous FBI sting that ensnared three innocent Muslim men and sent them off to prison, leaving their families in dire straits, happened in our own backyard in Albany.
This past summer we witnessed the media-manufactured spectacle of the proposed Islamic Center with a chapel in downtown Manhattan. No, it was not a mosque right at Ground Zero. And even if it was, so what? Does anyone think there would have been so much as a peep if plans for a church or synagogue right smack dab in the middle of Ground Zero had been announced?
When the media got done setting up this pathetic story with painfully inaccurate information and outright lies (whatever happened to real journalism, the kind with integrity?) politicians took full advantage of the situation without a one saying, “Knock it off! This is America; one of our founding and foundational principles is freedom to practice our religion without government interference and we don't stand for this kind of crap!”
The Hebrew prophets time and time again called us (and still do) to correct oppression and seek justice (Isaiah 1:17) and Amos 5:24 says: “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. This call is the foundation of peace making." (By the way, the quote from Amos is on the memorial to those who were killed while witnessing for the Civil Rights Movement.)
Originally, the program was going to be a project of the Saratoga Peace Alliance and the Kairos Community (an informal faith community that does not accept any form of state-endorsed or sponsored killing) but when Rabbi Rubinstein of Temple Sinai overheard me telling someone about it he immediately jumped in and said, “We want to be part of that.” The co-rabbi of the temple, Rabbi Motzkin, was just as quick, saying, “Yes and we can have the program here at Temple Sinai."
When Rev. Eckman of the Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church learned about the event he too made it clear that PNECC was not going to be left out. It was the same story with the Quakers and Unitarians. Their collective response has left the cockles of my heart so warm they're about to catch fire.
As a whole, our American Muslim brothers and sisters simply want to live side by side with you and me as Americans, proud of our collective national heritages. As makers of peace, we owe them nothing less than to help them do just that.
Read original post here: Waging peace: Making peace with the help of Islam
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