Ramadan ended this week with Eid al-Fitr, the festival of breaking the fast. This year, for the first time, my community, Kol Chai Hatch End Reform, hosted an Iftar during Ramadan for our Muslim neighbours and friends. It was an extraordinary interfaith evening for us, and we are not the only ones to have done this – several Progressive synagogues now regularly host Iftars for their local communities.
A successful Iftar is rarely a one-off event. My community is in Harrow, one of the most multi-cultural boroughs in London, and we are embedded in a number of interfaith organisations that helped us pull this off, meaning that we are regularly in contact with local mosques, churches and migrant and refugee organisations.
Reaching across the religious divide feels particularly important right now since October 7. Our communities here in the UK have been riven by a conflict over which we have very little control. As Jews, we have an obligation to repair our broken world, tikkun olam, and there are few better ways of doing this at the moment than working with our local Muslim communities, who have also had a tough time over the past year and a half.
Many of the people who attended our Iftar had never been to a synagogue before, so just holding an interfaith event can shift the dial on how we perceive each other. And that works in both directions; if we never talk to each other, then it’s easy to build up misconceptions about what other communities think or believe about Jews.
All three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) share the story of Abraham welcoming strangers, offering food, rest and hospitality. In our tradition, this act of hospitality makes Abraham the paradigm of chesed – loving-kindness – and the lesson is much the same in Islam. The mitzvah of hachnasat orchim, welcoming guests, is premised on the notion that our guests have much to teach us. The principle actively invites ‘otherness’ into our lives.
This week should lie at the heart of our religious practice. Every time we gather to pray, we end the Amidah with a prayer for peace, but peace in the world is not possible without peace and co-operation between religions. Interfaith work does not just make us better people, it makes us better Jews.
We know that fundamentalism and fanaticism are rampant in almost every world religion. Now more than ever, we have a responsibility to affirm pluralist values in an increasingly polarised world. As Rabbi Hillel said: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, then when?” (Pirkei Avot 1:14)
