Gaza War Tests Interfaith Ties On L.I.

Muslim and Jewish leaders hash out a hard-won joint statement after harsh ‘open letter’ against Israel threatens longstanding friendships.

09/16/14
Stewart Ain
Staff Writer

They bent, but they didn’t break.

Rabbi Michael White, spiritual leader of Temple Sinai of Roslyn, L.I., has known Dr. Faroque Ahmad Khan, a founder of the Islamic Center of Long Island in Westbury, the largest mosque in Nassau County, for more than a decade. The two men have spoken many times before each other’s congregations — sometimes even on the freighted topic of Jerusalem — and see each other several times a year.

Through hopeful times in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and through the roughest patches, they have maintained a working friendship — rare in Jewish and Muslim circles — crossing a bridge of religion and culture. So when Rabbi White, whose 900-family congregation is one of Nassau’s largest Reform temples, read an “open letter” written during the war by Khan and two other Muslim leaders he knows well, it landed like a left to the ribs.

Another Jewish leader who also works closely with the three Muslim leaders, David Newman, director of the Long Island office of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said he read the letter, which was highly critical of Israel, and “felt betrayed.”

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/new-york/gaza-war-tests-interfaith-ties-li