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I grew up in a moderate, Muslim-American family—first generation American on my dad’s side, second generation on my mom’s. Both of my parents hoped that raising their three daughters in the U.S. would bring us a comfortable life, and, by the grace of God, we have a roof over our heads, food on the table, money for college, and we even go on the occasional vacation. However, September 11, 2001 drastically changed my family’s sense of comfort in the U.S. and altered the way we looked at the world. After 9/11, my family wasn’t comfortable identifying openly as Muslim and operated by one simple rule: culture is for the world, religion is for the home. Even though I felt like an outcast as one of the only brown kids in school, I was encouraged by my parents to embrace my Indian/Pakistani heritage. However, I was also told to always conceal my religious beliefs from the public. It never made sense to me, even as early as a 6-year-old. Why could Christian kids freely celebrate ...

Why travel to come home again? As the Interfaith Center entered its second decade, the idea of an interfaith journey to the Middle East found its way back to our leadership table.  Put aside in prior years, this idea seemed to come of age along with us.  What did we need to experience from afar that would help us come back home and better serve the Greater Philadelphia region? So 19 of us – Christian, Muslim and Jewish Philadelphians, including four Board members and myself – ventured on our first  Dare to Understand  trip to the Middle East this October. Our extraordinary guide, Julian Resnick, an educator born in South Africa who has made his home in Israel, introduced and led our trip with this intention: “Most of the important questions, conversations and dilemmas can be considered wherever we find ourselves in this world. We can talk about freedom in our living rooms, but talking about freedom in Birmingham, Alabama adds something. We can ...

Sunday, October 18:  Our Last Day - Post by Christina We began the day with worship at St. George's Cathedral, the seat of the diocese that covers Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, and Lebanon. The service was a combination of English and Arabic not one  service for each but all together.  The sermon was given in both, the hymns were English but we sang in Arabic as well which was given us to do phonetically. For the two most important prayers, the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed we said them each in our own language, such a joyful noise to the Lord! Except the last few phrases of the Creed which were in English, so the effect was a wash of sound that coalesced into unity in reciting the end. So beautiful. After the service we  met with Dean Hosam Naoum,  (Judy's counterpart), the Rabbi Levi Kelman from Kol HaNeshama, the synagogue we attended Friday night, and the Kaddi, or head magistrate of the Islamic Legal Courts (Sharia court) in Jerusalem. ...

Sat, Oct. 17:  Our day in the West Bank: Three Palestinian cities, Bethleham, Ramallah and Rawabi -  Post by Christina. Today is Shabbat and things are so very quiet. Whether you keep the Sabbath or not, everything slows down and you must alter your behavior. No paper, no cappuccino, different elevators....this is not a complaint, far from it, I wish there was a day with a slower pace in the US, a day when things are different.    No paper, no cappuccino, different elevators....this is not a complaint, far from it, I wish there was a day with a slower pace in the US, a day when things are different. After a quiet breakfast we got on a different bus with a different driver and a new guide to take us to Bethlehem. They are East Jerusalem residents and the bus is not an Israeli Company. Riman, a Palestinian Muslim woman, was our guide for the day. She and the Palestinian driver Khalid were able to just drive us through the check point at the border of Israel and the ...

Friday, Oct. 16:  Post by Christina We started our day with a tour of the 1967 line. The Muslim Brotherhood has called for a day of rage so our drive is altered. We had plann ed to go into East Jerusalem today and we are planning on the West Bank tomorrow, so we are making some changes. They have cancelled the home visits in East Jerusalem. We have now driven the Seam (road that divides East and West Jerusalem) and we head to the Museum of the Se am. The Museum on the Seam is a fringe place, you see the logo they created "Coexist" everywhere. They were established 20 years ago with funding from the municipality and a private German family but that has changed and so they will close in 2 months after this last exhibit which opened when we walked in the door. It is in a building just next to the gate that existed in 1967 between Israel and Jordan, now East Jerusalem.  It is a space for artists to explore the difficulties of coexistence and most of the art i...

October 15th:  Post from Christina Another beautiful day here, but our guide Julian has posed the question: Is a place still beautiful when evil things have happened there, or are happening? The answer for me is clear, God made this world a beautiful place and nothing humans do can take away the intrinsic beauty and holiness of a place.  Zakiya described it as a core of beauty with a crust of ugliness, break through the crust and the beauty is still there. So back to my point, despite the violence and the evil rhetoric and the stupidity, this was a beautiful day. We spent the morning at Yad Vashem. This time I made it through. At our last visit I was unprepared. While I had known the numbers and many of the details, the profundity of the decimation of Poland, Jews, Christians, and Roma overwhelmed me when I saw it in picture after picture, clothing, shoes, books, letters, all attached to people who look like my family and Tom helped me walk through quickly and get out....