Islamophobia and antisemitism condemned by dozens of US interfaith leaders in DC

Two dozen prominent interfaith leaders gathered in Washington, DC Wednesday to sign a declaration against antisemitism and Islamophobia, both of which have spiked since October.

The project was spearheaded by Nina Fernando, executive director of “The Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign” (S2S), founded in 2010. Live-streamed from the National Press Club, the event featured a panel including Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who spoke about the Hamas massacres of October 7.

“Since October 7, the increase in antisemitism has been quite dramatic, and the corollary is true about anti-Muslim violence,” said Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. On October 7, some 3,000 Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel from Gaza and murdered 1,200 Israelis. At least 240 people were kidnapped as hostages.

In the US, university campuses have been hotbeds of antisemitism against Jewish students since October 7, while pro-Hamas protests have taken place across the country. Some 200 synagogues received bomb threats over the weekend of December 15.

The goal of building interfaith alliances is not only to tolerate each other, said Fernando, who has served as executive director of S2S since 2017.

“The question is how can we live well together amidst our differences,” said Fernando, noting the importance of Jewish and Muslim leaders standing alongside each other to denounce all forms of hate at this moment.

“We are naming the problem in one breath, Islamophobia and antisemitism. It’s important to name,” said Fernando.

‘A lot of negativity’

S2S has hundreds of faith-based clergy partners across the country, said Fernando. Yesterday’s declaration came on the heels of years of outreach work.

“We can hold onto our relationships that we’ve built over the years, even if we disagree,” said Fernando. “If we are only talking to ourselves and people we agree with, how would we expect to make change?”

Anti-Muslim rhetoric and hate crimes increased after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, and there is another surge taking place right now, according to reporting from the FBI.

“We see a lot of negativity in the stories that get shared and told in the media,” said Fernando, whose group says “widespread misinformation” is behind a lot of “fear and violent rhetoric.”

This undated photo provided on October 16, 2023, by the Chicago chapter of the Council On American Islamic Relations, shows Wadea Al-Fayoume, a 6-year-old Muslim boy allegedly killed by his landlord over the 2023 Gaza war. (CAIR-Chicago via AP)

In recent months, bullying, vandalism, violence and murder have resulted from Islamophobia, which is increasingly being reported on alongside antisemitism.

One of the panelists pointed to Christian nationalism as a driving force behind the resurgence of antisemitism and Islamophobia, as well as white supremacy in general.

“This crisis is happening when we’re living in a resurgence — and it is a resurgence, it’s not the beginning — of Christian nationalism,” said Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

“I’m very concerned as a Christian leader about its resurgence. It’s the same Christian nationalism that gave rise to the KKK during Reconstruction,” said Owens.

“What Christian nationalism has done is to insist that there is a black-and-white to all of these issues,” said Owens. “It has ‘othered’ everything that is not white and everything that is not a particular form of Christianity,” she said.

‘The realities of the moment’

In his remarks, Jacobs spoke about past examples of Jews and Muslims reaching out to each other.

In 2017, when the Victoria Islamic Center was firebombed, the president of the local Reform synagogue gave the imam of the mosque a set of keys to the synagogue, said Jacobs.

“I share this story because it is part of the trauma of this moment, but at the same time it’s the possibility of this moment,” Jacobs said.

Reform leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs. (Robert A. Cumins/JFNA via JTA)

“It’s not as if we don’t have clues about how to be the people of faith that God wants us to be. To build those bonds in a moment of crisis, we can actually lean on that,” said Jacobs.

Calling the current proliferation of hate “extraordinary,” Jacobs spoke about challenges faced by Muslims and Jews who are visibly identifiable in public.

“If we are in a community in the United States where walking down the street wearing a keffiyeh or a kippah, speaking Arabic or Hebrew, if those are endangering practices, we are all in that moment of danger,” said Jacobs.

Fernando told The Times of Israel about a Muslim-Jewish outreach event S2S began to plan last summer, which was set to take place at the end of November.

Flowers, candles and chalk tributes are seen on May 30, 2017, covering a memorial to two men who were fatally stabbed after shielding two young women from an anti-Muslim tirade on a Portland, Oregon, light-rail train. (AP/Gillian Flaccus)

Despite concerns that Jewish and Muslim clergy would be nervous about showing up after October 7, the event was well-attended and meaningful, said Fernando. Many of the panel discussions are recorded and available online.

“People were grateful for the opportunity,” she said. “They came and wanted to talk about the realities of the moment.”

Fernando also pointed to under-the-radar examples of Jews and Muslims visiting each other’s mosques and synagogues in recent weeks.

“There are so many stories like this,” said Fernando. “From Washington state to Virginia, you have Jews and Muslims visiting each other, usually without media involved.”