“Deceitful.” “Very Repugnant!” and “Hateful enemies and blasphemers of the name of Christ!”

These were the words used by one prominent New York politician in response to one religious community’s desire to build a house of worship. You might think these are the words from last week’s headlines and the house of worship in question is the so-called “ground-zero” mosque. But in fact, these words came from the lips of Peter Stuyvesant, then governor of New Amsterdam and the group in question were 20 Jewish families petitioning for the right to build a synagogue on the island we now call Manhattan in 1654.

Stuyvesant never granted those early American Jews that right and the first Jewish synagogue on American soil was not built in the burgeoning metropolis of New York. Instead, the Jewish families moved further north, accepting Roger Williams’s premise of religious liberty, to Newport, Rhode Island. [Williams, you will recall, established the colony of Rhode Island as a haven for minority religions of the colonial era. Hence, our neighbor to the south houses not only America’s oldest synagogue, but also its first Baptist Church, first Quaker meeting house and the first American community of French Huguenots (Calvinists)].

Resistance to the building of Jewish worship sites was not restricted to New York, nor to the colonial era. It took an act of the state legislature in 1843 to allow Connecticut’s Jewish community the ability to build their synagogue. Anger and outrage expressed at the time sounds eerily familiar: “The Jews have outflanked us here and effected a footing here in the very center of our own fortress,” roared the New Haven Register. “Strange as it may sound, it is nevertheless true that a Jewish synagogue has been established in this city…Yale College divinity deserves a court martial for bad generalship!”

As recently as 1999, residents of New Rochelle, N.Y. fought to stop the building of a synagogue claiming that its erection would bring “rats,” “traffic” and “creeping commercialization.”

Of course, similar tactics have been used against minorities of all types. Catholic-Americans faced fierce opposition and suspicion when their numbers increased and they sought to build schools and churches. President Kennedy had to overcome accusations of disloyalty and concerns that he would “cow tow to Rome” rather than the American people in order to be elected as America’s first Catholic President.

Whether it’s human nature or something uniquely American, religious bigotry, fear of differences and distrust of the other seem woven into the American DNA. It is precisely for this reason that the American founders created the First Amendment. That document guarantees religious liberty, the right to gather and worship, and freedom of speech (among other rights) to all Americans, not just the ones with which we are most familiar. And it has been the enforcement of this doctrine, despite repeated attacks on it, that have enabled the American Jewish community to grow, prosper and become so successfully a part of the American mainstream.

We owe our very existence as a community to the ability of Americans to overcome their fears and learn to at least tolerate, if not love, their neighbors.

In light of this history, in light of this past, we Jews have an obligation to safe-guard the doctrines of religious freedom and liberty. We must, at the very least, look at the experiences of others in this country with the same compassion, openness and benefit of the doubt we have asked for, and often received, for ourselves. We must ask, what lessons do we Jews take from our experience as we look at the controversy surrounding the proposed Muslim Community Center in Lower Manhattan? We can make every effort to look at the real facts of the case, minimize the hyperbole and fear mongering and condemn the scape-goating and stereo-typing of any group that seeks to join the fabric of American religious life. As illustrated above, we have too often been the victims of the same kinds of rhetorical broad-brushes to fall for it ourselves and allow it to be used against others. We must counter the myths and lies that have been spread about this center and urge people to look at all the facts before taking a stand.

For instance:
The proposed Muslim Community Center will not be at and was never proposed for “Ground Zero.” It is to be located two blocks away in an abandoned department store that the community has been using for “overflow prayers” since 2009.

It is not a mosque, it a community center. It will include child-care and school programs; cooking classes, bereavement groups, a soup kitchen, meeting rooms, a large auditorium and a swimming pool as well as a prayer space within that will be operated as a separate institution.

It is not a new presence in lower Manhattan. There has been a Muslim community in that neighborhood since 1972. This particular prayer community was founded in 1985. They have been part of Lower Manhattan for over 20 years.

This project did not come out of the blue. Leaders of this community have been talking with and worked in partnership with other lower Manhattan social service agencies for years. They have been involved in at least one of the 9/11 victims support organizations since 2001 and have and are consulting with neighborhood committees, planning and zoning boards, etc. They have been meeting with the leadership of the NY JCC on a regular basis to learn about the creation of a community center.

They are not “radical Islamists.” This community follows the practice of Sufism, a mystical form of Islam that is more open to Western ideas, encourages the participation of women, and accepts members from many backgrounds. The Imam and his wife have both, pointedly, vociferously and repeatedly denounced Muslim radicals and terrorists.

The lies that have been spread, some of the most vicious and pernicious forms of hate speech, are, unfortunately, all too familiar to us. To tarnish the reputation of an entire religion, group of people or even one individual based on the worst stereotypes imaginable should be anathema to Jews. We must stand for a calming down of the rhetoric; a return to civil speech and honest inquiry and for the promise of America as inscribed in George Washington’s letter to the congregation in Newport: for an America “which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

Rabbi Elyse

Posted: August 28th, 2010 under Rabbi's Column.
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