2019:01:30

Our idea is simple. We send a Jew and a Moslem to work on a humanitarian project for 30 days and during the 30 days, they live together and work together. We want to change the perception of Jews and Moslems as communities in conflict to a perception of Jews and Moslems as communities who work together to help others. Our hope is that every Jew and every Moslem will, as part of their life, see working on a project with each other as a normal and anticipated part of their life.

We invite you to volunteer to become a part of our Jewish-Moslem reconciliation project. We have projects in India, Uganda, and Bangladesh. We are also trying to create a project in Israel/West Bank.

No one is excluded. We do not care if you are a left wing peacenik or a right wing rejectionist. We do not care if you are a Jew who mistrusts Moslems or a Moslem who mistrusts Jews. We ask only that you are willing to live and work together on a common project for 30 days and be open to the possibility that, during this period, as a result of living and working together, you will see the other in a new and deeper way.

Recently, we sent Rabbi Pesach - an Orthodox Rabbi from Israel with Tzizit worn outside - and Imam Abdullah an Islamic Cleric - to work at our project in the slums of Ahmedabad, India in an area where 2,000 people had been killed in Hindu-Moslem communal violence. Until this project, it is almost impossible to imagine that a very Orthodox Rabbi (Rabbi Pesach] and a conservative Moslem cleric (Imam Abdullah] would ever have had an opportunity to work together and live together in the same space for 30 days.

Imam Abdullah and Rabbi Pesach told us that living and working together was a profound transformative experience. What Imam Abdullah and Rabbi Pesach accomplished with love and respect for each other and love and respect for the communities in which they worked can be seen in the attached photos and videos. Because of Imam Abdullah and Rabbi Pesach, Hindu children visited a Mosque for the first time and Moslem children, for the first time, visited a Hindu temple. Imam Abdullah and Rabbi Pesach organized a peace and harmony march through the streets of Ahmedabad and - to the astonishment of onlookers - Hindus and Moslems carried banners and signs and sang songs about peace and harmony in both Gujarati and English. The Jerusalem Post became interested in the project and wrote an article and made a video, both of which you can visit on this website.

We ask you to follow in the path of Imam Abdullah and Rabbi Pesach and be open to their experience.

Let me tell you more about our projects. I hope that you will consider volunteering for one of the them.

First, we have been asked to send additional Rabbis and Imams to continue our work in India. Also, for any of your friends or family who are not Rabbis (or Imams), we have an education project in Ahmedabad that they can participate in.

Second, we have a project in the refugee camps in Bangladesh to help Rohingyan Moslem refugees who have fled the genocide in neighboring Mynmar. This project is being facilitated by the BTF (Burma Task Force] who work on the ground at the Coxs Bazaar refugee camp. We are asking people to consider this project first because we have been contacted by a Bangladeshi woman who speaks Rohingya, the language of the people in the refugee camps and who is enthusiastic about working for 30 days with Jewish partners in the camps. Her time constraint is that she has to return to graduate school by September 1st which means that she must leave for Bangladesh not later than mid July.

Third, we have an education project in rural Uganda, Beginning in the 5th grade , all instruction in the school is in English instead of the local tribal languages. There are usually 140 children in each classroom. Our project is to send Jewish and Moslem volunteers to work at the school so that the school can divide the 140 students into groups of 15 and 20 which will greatly facilitate their ability to learn English in time for the 5th grade.

Fourth, we are hoping to establish a Daven/Salat project and, perhaps, other projects in Israel/West Bank. The idea of the Davening/Salat Project is not interfaith prayers but Jews and Moslem separately observing their traditional evening prayers [Mariv and evening Salat] but in the same extended space and then sharing a common kosher/halal vegetarian meal with each other and talking to each other.

Reb Matisyahu, who works with our project, went to Jerico on the West Bank for Iftar (the breaking of the fast at the end of each day of Ramadam) at the invitation of Mohamad Jamous, a courageous witness to Jewish-Moslem reconciliation. The event was covered by the Israeli online press.

We know that our task is not easy. Every Jew and every Moslem - including every person who volunteers to participate in our project - can tell us about the evil that the other community has done to his or her community. The reality is that evil has been done. Even though we are volunteers with a good heart, we can not forget this reality. However, there is a reality that is deeper and more powerful than the evil that has been done. When the disciples of Rabbi Wolfe of Zbarazh, a follower of the Maggid of Mesrich - came to him and asked him to exclude all those who had done evil, he responded, "Do you think that I love them any less than I love you?"

The deepest reality is the reality of a common holiness that unites Jews and Moslems and which unites all people everywhere. Every person - and every Jew and Moslem - knows this but this deep knowledge is easily forgotten. Therefore, in Judaism Zachar and in Islam Zikhr - to remember our deep holy nature - is a central term. By remembering who we are, we can break through to see the holiness of the other.

Please consider volunteering for one of our projects. Although there many people who think that there is no way forward in Jewish-Moslem relations, the truth is that we have an opportunity to do something good and important.

Please ask us any questions that you have. You can contact us by using the 'Contact' link and we will respond as soon as possible.

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO TO HELP

If you can not personally volunteer, please help us locate people who may want to volunteer. Please talk to people in your local community and to your friends. Please talk to your Synagogue, Mosque, or to any organization that you participate in. We hope that each Synagogue, each Mosque, and each Organization can find and sponsor a volunteer and pay for his or her travel expenses.

Our only real expense is paying for airplane tickets to fly our volunteers to their project. The host for each project generally provides a free place to stay and vegetarian meals. Each ticket costs approximately "Chai" - i.e $1,800. We ask people to donate Chai ($1,800) half Chai ($900), one quarter Chai ($450) or whatever a person can afford. All donations - even one dollar - are gratefully accepted Also, there are people who are not able to donate money but have accumulated a large amount of frequent flier miles. These people, if they want to, can use some of their frequent flier miles to pay for a ticket for one of our volunteers.

You can donate money by pressing the 'Donate' button of our website.

If you are interested in working on a project, participating in any way, or if you just have questions, please send us an email. We have attached a 'Subscribe' button by which you can communicate with us.