Muslim and Jewish students met Monday evening to eat dinner
together after a day of fasting and to pray for peace.
The gathering, held behind Kerckhoff Hall at 5:00 p.m. drew
about 100 attendees, including members of the Muslim Students
Association and the Progressive Jewish Students Association. The
groups scheduled the event as an opportunity to get to know each
other better, rather than debate the political situation in the
Middle East.
In recent months, multiple instances of friction between Muslim
and Jewish students have been reported on campuses across the
country, often resulting from controversies surrounding the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Monday’s event was an effort to
focus on values shared by both groups.
“We are here to promote the common ideals across religions
of peace and good food,” said Brian Sassounian, PJSA member
and third-year economics student.
MSA students have been meeting at Kerckhoff Hall throughout
Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, when Muslims are
called to fast from sunrise to sundown. On weekdays, except for
Friday, MSA students have eaten dinner together to commemorate
iftar, the breaking of the daylight fast.
Jewish students at the event also fasted, though Monday is not a
traditional fasting day in Judaism.
Jewish attendees refrained from food for unity with Muslims, so
all at the event had spent the day fasting, said PJSA co-president
Stephanie Hanna, a second-year sociology student.
The meal began after the conclusion of Muslim students’
evening prayers. Jewish students who waited on the side joined with
Muslims, eating kosher pasta and salad, and Kentucky Fried Chicken
that was specially prepared to meet Muslim dietary standards.
As the students got to know each other over dinner, prayers were
read in Arabic and Hebrew, later translated into English, asking
God for peace.
The first seven verses of the Quran were read in Arabic and
English by Alana Kadden, a third-year business economics student.
She was followed by Hisham Mahmoud, a graduate student in Islamic
studies who read a modern Jewish peace prayer from a Hebrew
text.
“Let peace fill the earth as the waters fill the
sea,” recited Mahmoud in Hebrew.
Kadden and Mahmoud read the prayer in English together as a
dialogue.
Students in both the MSA and PJSA called the evening a
success.
“It was very, very positive,” said Mohammed
Mertaban, a fourth-year psychobiology and French student and MSA
president. “A lot of the tensions (between Muslim and Jewish
students) have already been dissolved.”
The PJSA plans future discussions between Muslim and Jewish
students, and asked all at the event to sign up for future
meetings.