Report on August 22nd Meeting at Mt. Pleasant Community Centre
August 29, 2004
Dear friends,
Shalom aleichem / as-salaam aleikum! Nearly a week has gone by since our Sunday, August 22, event at the Mt. Pleasant Community Centre. I want to briefly share with you my impressions and my sense of what we've accomplished.
First of all, it was tremendously successful in bringing together people from many different backgrounds. It was a beautifully diverse and colorful crowd. Most of us were Jews and Muslims of many different ages and orientations. Also there were Sikhs, Christians, Hindus and others. It was very beautiful and inspiring. My guess is that ~120 people were there, including, of course, many who are on this list as well as many newcomers.
I was most touched and inspired when, after the entire program was over and most people had left, a tall, dignified middle-aged Muslim woman, wearing very modest clothing from head to toe, somewhat hesitantly approached me and introduced herself. She asked if she could attend one of our Jewish prayer gatherings. I told her that of course she could. She asked if she could come in her attire. I said, again, of course she can. But, she asked, wouldn't people object? I replied that members of the Ahavat Olam Synagogue might weep for joy at seeing her with us – and we would like to visit her community as well if they'd welcome us. She went on to tell me that she didn't even want to come to the gathering that had just taken place. She did not want to meet or talk with Jews at all. She was, in her own words, very closed. One of her Muslim friends convinced her that she should at least come, see and listen – it would only be fair. She told me she had been feeling very closed even as she sat among us when the program began. When she heard the speakers – and in particular one song we sang – she said her heart opened and now she wants to join us in reaching out across the divide. I felt that if even one person was affected in this way, we are making a difference, thank God, ilhamdulillah, baruch ha-Shem.
I am most grateful to brother Karamud Din of the Masjid ul-Haqq for proposing the event exactly because he believed that there are many people who would be touched by such a broad gathering in a public space. Karamud Din did a tremendous job in reaching out to many people in the Muslim community who on their own probably would not have come into contact with us. In addition, he invited Mr. Hardial Singh Garcha, president of the Guru Nanak Spiritual Society, and several other Sikh neighbors. He arranged for scrumptiously fresh samosas to be served by a whole team of helpers from the masjid after the speakers' talks. Karamud Din has been a strong, clear and very gracious partner and teacher in this entire process and I thank God for his presence.
I am also very grateful to Imam Fode Drome of the Masjid ul-Haqq for his deeply faithful and unhesitating support as a partner and guide in this most important work of bringing God's people together. His talk at the gathering urged us all to recognize that we must have peace within ourselves before we can create it with anyone else.
I am grateful as well to a long list of others who contributed very significantly:
• Dr. Janina Diodati, superintendent of the Catholic schools, spoke to us about her personal inspiration to walk this path and about how inspiration and holiness can radiate out from a small, humble beginning.
• Captain Muhammad Suleiman Mahtab (ret.) of the Pakistani navy and Prameyaji Chaitanya, the pandit of the Shree Mahalakshmi Hindu Temple on 11th Avenue near Kingsway, who each spoke of within the previous week having shared the groundbreaking experience of Pakistanis and Indians jointly celebrating their two countries' Independence Day
• Itamar Erez, an Israeli, and Emad Armoush, a Syrian, who began the program together with beautifully moving guitar and bamboo flute music
• Joe Markovitch of Solly's Bagelry and Lorisa Schouela who each donated several dozen delicious little Jewish sweets called "rugelach"
• and everyone who came that afternoon.
The significance of the event is far greater than the number
of people who attended. We were able to send a message to thousands in
the local Jewish and Muslim communities that we are indeed able to come
together as thoughtful, respectful, loving people who are united rather
than divided by our faiths.
The local branch of the Canadian Jewish Congress sent a notice of the
event to every Jewish organization in the Vancouver area. Its chair sent
a personal note endorsing our efforts and one of its board members attended
-- a far more positive response than several months ago when we began.
The Jewish Weekly Bulletin newspaper carried a story about the gathering
to several thousand Jewish homes.
In the Muslim community, Nusrat Hussain, the editor of the Muslim newsweekly The Miracle, personally came, took photos and wrote his own report. In addition, Tabassum Firoz wrote a very positive story for another Muslim weekly, Al-Ameen, which is posted to this website with her kind permission. These two reports will reach into thousands of Muslim homes. In addition, the Vancouver Courier's August 25 edition carried a very supportive editorial opinion piece by writer Pat Johnson (see http://www.vancourier.com/issues04/084204/opinion/084204op1.html).
I am very grateful for our partners in this ongoing walk of peace and mutual discovery. I truly believe we are sharing in fulfilling God's will for us.
B'Shalom,
Rabbi David Mivasair