This Hanukkah and Christmas, remember it takes all of us to stand up to hate | Opinion
In the United States, threats to Jews tripled in the year after the Hamas attacks, and last year's reports of anti-Muslim bias were the highest in nearly 30 years of tracking.
Hanukkah begins on Christmas Day this year, and Jewish communities will celebrate our ancient triumph over oppression by placing candles in our windows ‒ shining our lights not only to brighten our own homes, but also out toward the world. Many Muslims mark this season by spending time with loved ones and giving their time at work or as volunteers so that their colleagues and neighbors can celebrate their respective religious holidays with their families.
Every day, we send our Jewish and Muslim children into the world with joy in their identities, aspirations for their successes and whispers of prayers for their safety.
Recently, news of hate crimes have permeated our headlines and social media pages, including in our hometown of Chicago. Last month, masked assailants attacked two Jewish students who were showing support for Israel at DePaul University. In nearby Downers Grove, police said a woman attacked a Muslim Palestinian couple at a Panera after she asked them, “Are you Palestinian?”
These are just two stories among countless incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia, both of which are on the rise in America since the horrific attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, in Israel and the continuing devastation in Gaza and across the Middle East.
In the United States, threats to Jews tripled in the year after the Hamas attacks, and last year's reports of anti-Muslim bias were the highest in nearly 30 years of tracking.
As leaders with 20 years of experience in interfaith work, and as mothers to young Muslim and Jewish children, we believe that these dual bigotries of antisemitism and Islamophobia are a risk to the future of our families and our nation. And we believe that there is a powerful, overarching and deeply American approach to this essential work: committing ourselves as a nation to the promise of pluralism.
Outside actors pit American Muslims against Jewish communities
As we seek to address the harms of both antisemitism and Islamophobia, it is imperative to ground our work within the larger goal of reducing all types of religious, ethnic and other forms of bias and discrimination.
All too often, we get caught up in tunnel vision on the prejudices our own communities face. Social media amplifies this, making sure we only hear stories that affirm our worldviews and fears, which become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our friendship and ongoing conversations have illuminated how often our respective communities encounter discrimination and yet, how infrequently those stories are shared within the other community.
Furthermore, outside actors, rather than standing up as allies to both American Muslims and Jews, often pit our American Muslim and Jewish communities against one another, seeking to lift up one community at the expense of the other.
Framing our efforts to address antisemitism and Islamophobia within a vision of pluralism allows us to have a guiding light for our work ‒ not just something to work against, but something to work toward. If we seek to build communities that honor our diverse identities and deep differences, we can increase respect for all communities far more effectively than attempting only to address particular forms of bias without attending to the well-being of the entire community.
While it is important to educate about both antisemitism and Islamophobia separately, given that they are each distinctive forms of prejudice, it is also effective to utilize a pluralism approach to reduce both of them.
We know from both research and experience that promoting pluralism ‒ which we understand as respect, genuine relationships and common action across diverse communities ‒ meaningfully improves attitudes about diverse groups and reduces both antisemitism and Islamophobia.
Relationships matter in reducing antisemitism, Islamophobia
The IDEALS report ‒ a groundbreaking national study of religious diversity in higher education conducted jointly by Alyssa Rockenbach of North Carolina State University, Matthew Mayhew of The Ohio State University, and Interfaith America from 2015-19 ‒ showed that engagement in social interfaith activities is an important predictor of growth in college students’ positive attitudes toward both Muslims and Jews.
And the Pew Research Center has shown that when people personally know someone from a religious group, including Muslims and Jews, they report having significantly warmer feelings toward that group.
Relationships matter significantly in reducing both antisemitism and Islamophobia. We see this relationship building in the work we do daily.
At Syracuse University, Imam Amir Duric and Rabbi Ethan Bair, two chaplains who had established a friendship before Oct. 7, 2023, launched a Jewish Muslim Dialogue Fellowship to bring students together for dialogue, relationship-building and storytelling ‒ learning about each other before diving into challenging topics.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Muslim student collaborated with Jewish Social Services, the Alpha Lambda Rho Muslim interest sorority and campus student services offices to pack essential items for newly arrived refugees.
Starting with our circles of influence and social media spaces, we should ask ourselves: Are we hearing multiple narratives and life experiences through our interactions?
Stepping out of our echo chambers, we must build relationships that may feel risky and uncomfortable, with hopes that we can step into our best selves as upstanders in the face of discrimination against communities that are not our own.
Our belief in the promise of pluralism is not only anchored in our professional experiences, but also in our respective religious traditions and civic commitments to build abounding communities for our children grounded in values of respect, relationship and common action.
We strive to instill in our children both pride in who they are and curiosity about those who are different from them.
We need to support each other, and we also need more than just Muslims and Jews to pay attention to the rise of antisemitism and Islamophobia. It will take all of us, together, to stem the rise of this hate and to actualize pluralism, building beloved communities for us all.
Jenan Mohajir is vice president of external affairs at Interfaith America, where Rebecca Russo is vice president of higher education strategy.