{"id":1921,"date":"2006-09-11T18:29:59","date_gmt":"2006-09-11T22:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/11\/on-911-an-inter-faith-reality-check\/"},"modified":"2006-09-11T18:29:59","modified_gmt":"2006-09-11T22:29:59","slug":"on-911-an-inter-faith-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/on-911-an-inter-faith-reality-check\/","title":{"rendered":"On 9\/11, an inter-faith reality check"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jewish World Review<\/a> Ira Rifkin September 11, 2006<\/p>\n

He polished the prose of Muslim leaders so their views would be marketable. He invited them home to break bread. He even attacked his co-religionists in print for not being more realistic. No more. <\/em><\/p>\n

In January 1985, the Los Angeles newspaper I worked for assigned me to the religion beat. My first story was a feature on what was then a new phenomenon in Southern California, a fully licensed Muslim parochial school. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

About 35 youngsters attended South Pasadena’s New Horizon Preschool and Kindergarten. It was the first of its kind in Los Angeles County and it operated under the auspices of the Islamic Center of Southern California, then as now one of this nation’s preeminent Muslim institutions. New Horizon’s purpose, I was told, was “to teach the values of Islam to the new generation.” <\/p>\n

New Horizon, which now has grown considerably over the past two decades and now has several branches, was my introduction to Islam and to Muslims. Since then I’ve spent considerable professional time exploring the American Muslim community. I’ve also sought out participation in Jewish-Muslim interfaith activities; I’ve broken bread with Muslims at their homes and at mine, and at the White House at official presidential Ramadan break-the-fast events. <\/p>\n

I fully embraced, even relished, these opportunities. Information and dialogue, I believed, could lower if not eliminate the barriers of suspicion that kept Muslims and Jews from understanding each others’ hopes and fears. We live in the United States, not the Middle East, I told myself. Here, reason might prevail. <\/p>\n

Sadly, I no longer have much faith in that coming to pass. Five years after the Twin Towers crashed and the Pentagon burned I find myself profoundly soured on the idea that the two communities can ever work together to defuse the disharmony between them. Certainly not for the foreseeable future. Perhaps never. <\/p>\n

. . . more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jewish World Review Ira Rifkin September 11, 2006 He polished the prose of Muslim leaders so their views would be marketable. He invited them home to break bread. He even attacked his co-religionists in print for not being more realistic. No more. In January 1985, the Los Angeles newspaper I worked for assigned me to … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islam","category-religion-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1921\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}