Israeli media is reporting on an agreement between a group of Jewish rabbis and Muslim imams to hold joint events during a summit described as being designed to strengthen ties between mosques and congregations. According to the Times of Israel report, the major Muslim organization involved is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA):
Islamic Society of North America
November 25, 2014, Some 60 rabbis and imams in the Washington area agreed to hold events together during a summit this week designed to strengthen ties between mosques and congregations.
The participants in Sunday’s summit — part of the seventh annual Weekend of Twinning throughout the world — included 20 rabbis from across the religious spectrum.
The Jewish and Muslim clergy said they would join in an upcoming event to package food for the hungry and homeless.
The afternoon also featured frank discussion about the Middle East conflict and how to stress the two religions’ similarities rather than their differences.
‘The point of this event is to bring together rabbis and imams as a first step toward the goal of bringing our congregants together,’ Rabbi Bruce Lustig of the Washington Hebrew Congregation said in a statement issued by the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which sponsors the twinning weekend. ‘It is vital that we bring together grassroots Jews and Muslims to do acts of social service together while connecting on a human level. We need to a great deal more to connect our young people.’
Sayyid Syeed, the national director for the office for interfaith and community alliances of the Islamic Society of North America, agreed in his statement.
Of late, ISNA has been engaged in an active program of interfaith cooperation that has included partnerships with Jewish organizations and visits to concentration camp sites in Europe. Past posts have discussed the ISNA twinning program in the US and the decision by two rabbis in western New York to pull out of the effort, charging that ISNA is involved in Islamic fundamentalism. In April 2011, the GMBDW reported that ISNA had announced the expansion of its mosque/synagogue “twinning program” to Latin America. Yet despite these new efforts, ISNA continues maintain strong ties to both the US and Global Muslim Brotherhood and has failed to date to acknowledge any aspect of its actual origins or its history of fundamentalism, anti-semitism, and support for terrorism. For these reasons, the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch concludes that ISNA remains, as it always has been, an integral part of the US Muslim Brotherhood.
For a detailed analysis of ISNA and its recent history, go here.
