Muslim Leadership Initiative

Last updated

The Muslim Leadership Initiative, or MLI, is an educational program of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. The program invites North American Muslim leaders to explore how Jews understand Judaism, Israel and North American Jewish identity through a Zionist lens.

Contents

The MLI program is a thirteen-month fellowship consisting of academic study, site visits in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, ongoing learning opportunities in the United States, and public-facing programs in the United States and Canada. While the MLI program concentrates on the Jewish experience in and through Israel, participants also engage Palestinian leaders, communities and institutions from Israel and the West Bank. The stated aim of the program is the improvement of relationships between North American Jewish and Muslim communities. However, citing its ties to the Shalom Hartman Institute, critics argue that the ultimate aim is to undermine Muslim solidarity with Palestine.

Origins and Objectives

MLI is overseen by the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and co-directed by Imam Abdullah Antepli, [1] Public Policy Professor at Duke University, and Yossi Klein Halevi, a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. The two conceived of the MLI program over several years, and deliberately modeled the program, [2] including class structure and academic themes, on existing Rabbinic and Christian leadership models already in place at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Their stated objective in designing the MLI program was to reach those large segments of mainstream North American Muslim and Jewish communities between which there are few, if any, substantive relationships; their objectives for the program furthermore indicated the hope that the MLI program would educate North American Muslims about Judaism, Zionism and Israel, but that an outcome of the program would be reciprocal. While the MLI program itself is a one-directional educational experience, public-facing programs have presented various opportunities for North American Jews to learn about North American Muslim communities and Islam.

Participants and Public Programs

Alumni of the MLI program include Wajahat Ali, playwright, frequent television commentator and contributing op-ed columnist for The New York Times, Rabia Chaudry, attorney and author of the New York Times bestseller, “Adnan’s Story,” and Haroon Moghul, the Fellow in Jewish-Muslim Relations at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Other participants have written about their experience in a special series [3] for Tablet magazine, or have been otherwise published [4] at Tablet.

The program has graduated over fifty participants, with another fifty currently in their thirteen-month fellowships. Participants are selected for their commitment to mainstream Muslim communities, as well as their reflection of the ethnic and racial, professional, religious and geographic diversity of North American Islam. Critics of the program argue that Muslims who participating in the Muslim Leadership Initiative program are promoting the dangerous narrative that makes Judaism and Zionism one and the same – despite protest against this conflation by some in the Jewish community. [5]

Criticism

Critics have objected strongly to Muslim participation in a program run by the Shalom Hartman Institute, which receives funding from groups in the United States that have been accused of otherwise supporting Islamophobic activities. [6]

Other critics of the program, such as Palestinian activist Ali Abunimah, argue that by running counter to the objectives of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the MLI program undermines solidarity with Palestine. Further, some critics have argued that the program “faithwashes” [7] the occupation of Palestine, transforming what is primarily a political dispute into an interfaith exercise. According to them, "faith-washing" reframes Israel's occupation of Palestine into a centuries-long religious conflict between Jews and Muslims, erasing Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people. [8]

The MLI program has also been supported and praised. In response to critics within the North American Muslim community, one participant in the program, Haroon Moghul, noted that MLI incorporates site visits to the West Bank, invites Palestinian leaders to address participants to further dialogue, is itself intended to challenge Islamophobia (and anti-Semitism) and does not demand advocacy [9] of any political position, nor repudiation of any.

David Horovitz of The Times of Israel called MLI [10] a "high-risk, taboo-shattering initiative — a vital step, they hope, toward Muslim-Jewish healing in America and beyond." Gary Rosenblatt of The Jewish Week described MLI as "a model exercise in expressing honest, often painful, views with more than just civility. The MLI members and the handful of Hartman faculty were able to convey empathy and personal affection for each other without standing down an inch from their fervent beliefs."

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zionism</span> Movement supporting a Jewish state in Palestine

Zionism is an ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century and aimed for the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people through the colonization of Palestine, an area roughly corresponding to the Land of Israel in Judaism, and of central importance in Jewish history. Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, and as many Jews as possible. Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Zionism became Israel's national or state ideology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neve Shalom</span> Village in Israel

Neve Shalom, also known as Wahat as-Salam is a cooperative village in Israel, jointly founded by Israeli Jews and Arabs in an attempt to show that the two peoples can live side by side peacefully, as well as to conduct educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples. The village is located on one of the two Latrun hilltops overlooking the Ayalon Valley, and lies midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Falling under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council, in 2022 it had a population of 367.

In the 20th century, approximately 900,000 Jews migrated, fled, or were expelled from Muslim-majority countries throughout Africa and Asia, primarily as a consequence of the establishment of the State of Israel. Large-scale migrations were also organized, sponsored, and facilitated by Zionist organizations such as Mossad LeAliyah Bet, the Jewish Agency, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. The mass movement mainly transpired from 1948 to the early 1970s, with one final exodus of Iranian Jews occurring shortly after the Islamic Revolution in 1979–1980. An estimated 650,000 (72%) of these Jews resettled in Israel.

Scholars have studied and debated Muslim attitudes towards Jews, as well as the treatment of Jews in Islamic thought and societies throughout the history of Islam. Parts of the Islamic literary sources give mention to certain Jewish groups present in the past or present, which has led to debates. Some of this overlaps with Islamic remarks on non-Muslim religious groups in general.

Arab–Israeli peace projects are projects to promote peace and understanding between the Arab League and Israel in different spheres. These are part of a broader attempt at a peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. Sponsors of such projects can be found both in Israel and Palestine.

The one-state solution is a proposed approach to the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. It stipulates the establishment of a single state within the boundaries of what was Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948, today consisting of the combined territory of Israel and the State of Palestine. The term one-state reality describes the belief that the current situation of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict on the ground is that of one de facto country. The one-state solution is sometimes referred to as the bi-national state, owing to the hope that it would successfully deliver self-determination to Israelis and Palestinians in one country, thus granting both peoples independence as well as absolute access to all of the land.

<i>Isratin</i> Proposed solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict

Isratin or Isratine, also known as the bi-national state, is a proposed unitary, federal or confederate Israeli-Palestinian state encompassing the present territory of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Depending on various points of view, such a scenario is presented as a desirable one-state solution resolving the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, or as a calamity in which Israel would ostensibly lose its character as a Jewish state and the Palestinians would fail to achieve their national independence within a two-state solution. Increasingly, Isratin is being discussed not as an intentional political solution – desired or undesired – but as the probable, inevitable outcome of the continuous growth of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the seemingly irrevocable entrenchment of the Israeli occupation there since 1967.

Arab Jews is a term for Jews living in or originating from the Arab world. Many left or were expelled from Arab countries in the decades following the founding of Israel in 1948, and took up residence in Israel, Western Europe, the United States and Latin America. The term is controversial and politically contested in Israel, where the term "Mizrahi Jews" was adopted by the early state instead. However, some anti-Zionist Jews of Arab origin actively elect to call themselves Arab Jews.

The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center is a Christian liberation theology organization based in Jerusalem. It was founded by Palestinian Anglican priest, Rev. Naim Ateek, the former Canon of St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yossi Klein Halevi</span> American-born Israeli author and journalist

Yossi Klein Halevi is an American-born Israeli author and journalist.

In world politics, Jewish state is a characterization of Israel as the nation-state and sovereign homeland for the Jewish people.

Shalom Hartman Institute is a Jewish research and education institute based in Jerusalem, that offers pluralistic Jewish thought and education to scholars, rabbis, educators, and Jewish community leaders in Israel and North America. The institute aims to promote pluralism and liberal values in Israel and the Jewish diaspora and to preserve the democratic character of Israel. Hundreds of rabbis and Jewish lay leaders from North America attend the institute's programs each year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donniel Hartman</span> Israeli rabbi and philosopher

Donniel Hartman is an Israeli Modern Orthodox rabbi and author. He is President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc H. Ellis</span> American scholar (born 1952)

Marc H. Ellis was an American author, liberation theologian, and a retired university professor of Jewish Studies, professor of history and director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Baylor University. He was a visiting professor of several international universities, including the University of Innsbruck, Austria and the United Nations University for Peace, Costa Rica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racism in the State of Palestine</span>

Racism in the Palestinian territories encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in the Palestinian Territories, of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, irrespective of the religion, colour, creed, or ethnic origin of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. It may refer to Jewish settler attitudes regarding Palestinians as well as Palestinian attitudes to Jews and the settlement enterprise undertaken in their name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Jacobs (rabbi)</span>

Richard Jacobs is a Reform rabbi and the president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the congregational arm of the Reform movement in North America which represents an estimated 1.5 million Reform Jews in nearly 900 synagogues across the United States and Canada. He is the first Union president to have served most of his career as a congregational rabbi. Before being installed as URJ president in June 2012, he served for nine years at Brooklyn Heights Synagogue and then for twenty years at Westchester Reform Temple in Scarsdale, New York.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group</span>

The Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group is a non-violent conflict resolution group established in 1992 in San Mateo, California. Its first meeting was held in a local neighborhood residence. As of September 2019, the group remained active and continued to meet monthly in members' homes. The one-to-one, face-to-face method of conflict resolution, modeled by this dialogue group, was increasingly looked to globally by educators, researchers, journalists, activists, trainers, and strategists including the U.S. Department of State, which distributes the dialogue group's instructive films in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ali Abunimah</span> Palestinian-American journalist

Ali Hasan Abunimah is a Palestinian-American journalist who has been described as "the leading American proponent of a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict". A resident of Chicago who contributes regularly to publications such as the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, he has served as the vice-president on the board of directors of the Arab American Action Network, is a fellow at the Palestine Center, and is a co-founder of The Electronic Intifada website. He has appeared on many television discussion programs on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and other networks, and in a number of documentaries about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, including Collecting Stories from Exile: Chicago Palestinians Remember 1948 (1999).

The Alliance for Middle East Peace (ALLMEP) is a group of over 100 leading non-governmental organizations working to foster reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians, and between Arabs and Jews in Israel and the wider region.

Yehuda Kurtzer is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. He has written and lectured widely on Jewish history, Jewish memory, leadership in American Jewish life, and the relationship between American Jews, Israel and Zionism. In 2012, he was named one of the "36 under 36 young educators, thinkers, social justice activists, philanthropists and artists reinventing Jewish life" by The Jewish Week.

References

  1. ↑ "Abdullah Antepli | Duke Divinity School".
  2. ↑ http://www.chronicle.com/article/A-Muslim-Rift-in-Academe/235069 [ bare URL ]
  3. ↑ "Muslim Leadership Initiative".
  4. ↑ "In Erdogan's Post-Coup Turkey, Anti-Semitism is on the Rise". 19 October 2017.
  5. ↑ Abunimah, Ali (2015-01-04). "Islamophobia bankroller behind organizer of Israel junket for US "Muslim leaders"". The Electronic Intifada. Retrieved 2018-12-07.
  6. ↑ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/reports/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/reports/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc/
  7. ↑ "An Interfaith Trojan Horse: Faithwashing Apartheid and Occupation". July 2014.
  8. ↑ Sana (2015-01-03). "And the Faithwashing Continues: Second Cohort of Muslim Leadership Initiative Participants Leave for Israel". The Cool Table. Retrieved 2018-12-06.
  9. ↑ "Why I Went to Israel". HuffPost . 21 January 2015.
  10. ↑ "The partnership: How a bold American imam and his skeptical Israeli host bridged the Muslim-Jewish chasm". The Times of Israel .
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.