Jewish Muslim students find common ground on campuses

Thursday 21 Apr 2016 - 12:41 Makkah mean time-14-7-1437

New Horizons Head of School Amira Al-Sarraf teaches in the school’s Peace Garden. Image from Jewish Journal (JJ)

Pasadena City, California (IINA) - A large group of students recently gathered outside an Islamic day school in Pasadena in California ignoring the hot sun, enthusiastically jumping up and down, Jewish Journal (JJ) news reported. 
Some of the children were wearing yarmulkes and others had on hijabs seemed to be of no concern to anyone.
“I knew that we would be different, but we are really all the same. Even though our religion might show the world who we are, it doesn’t show what’s inside of us, and it doesn’t mean that we don’t want to be friends,” said 13 year-old Kayla Dadbin, at Sinai Akiba Academy.
This is the fifth year of the interfaith exchange, which was started by Rebecca Berger, a middle school Judaic studies teacher at Sinai Akiba who was named a 2009-2010 Professionals Fellow by NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change. The 35 year-old said she was motivated to start the project after asking her Judaic studies class one day, “What do you know about Islam?”
“The answers came back: ‘They pray in a mosque.’ ‘They read the Qur’an.’ And another student added, ‘They’re terrorists,’ ” Berger remembered. “I was really upset. There was nothing in that moment that I could say that would convince those kids that they weren’t terrorists. I knew that the only thing that could change this kid’s beliefs was if he met a Muslim kid and came to the realization for himself. I said to myself, ‘This is what I want to do.’ ”
She was introduced to Aysha Mehdi, an Islamic studies teacher at New Horizon, which has an ongoing relationship with Weizmann Day School, a Jewish day school in Pasadena.
In May, for example, students from both Weizmann and New Horizon traveled together to Washington, D.C.
Berger and Mehdi spent a year crafting a curriculum for a two-day exchange program between their schools. Students from each school spent a day at the other’s campus. With help from consultants, they created activities and questions that would engage students while promoting the core objectives of creating interpersonal relationships, learning about Judaism and Islam and discovering their shared commonality as minority religions in America.
Before meeting, all of the students take an additional unit about the other school’s faith and exchange a series of three emails with an assigned “buddy.” Berger said she has found this age group is ripe for exchange.
Unlike with many adults, the focus here isn’t on politics.
The two-part program began in February, when 90 seventh- and eighth-graders gathered at Sinai Akiba for a day of activities focusing on the theme “Giving to People.” After hearing a speaker talk about homelessness in Los Angeles, the students packaged toiletry items into hygiene kits for the homeless. Other activities included an art project centered around what it means to make an open-minded community, and an abbreviated Jewish prayer session followed by questions and answers.
The exchange continued in March when New Horizon, which was founded in 1984, hosted students from Sinai Akiba.
SM/IINA

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