Educating Youth About the 'Other': A New Form of Inter-religious Dialogue

July 2, 2007

By Maha Akeel

Using new communication technology and allowing creative, curious minds of Muslim and Jewish youth to explore, question and interact with each other, the ‘Children of Abraham’ organization is breaking new grounds in inter-religious dialogue. After the success of an initial photography project depicting the similarities between Islam and Judaism, the non-profit organization ‘Children of Abraham’ was founded in 2004 by Ari Alexander, an American Jew, and Maria Ali-Adib, a Syrian Muslim, based on the core values of discovery, dialogue and respect to foster dialogue between Muslim and Jewish youth via the Internet. Matching gifts were solicited from Eli Epstein, an American Jewish businessman, and Mohamed Alabbar, CEO of Dubai’s Emaar Realties, in order to establish an essential organization precedent whereby funds supporting the New York-based organization would come from a balanced combination of Jewish and Muslim sources. Ali-Adib left the organization a year later and was replaced by Gul Rukh Rahman from Pakistan as Co-Executive Director.

‘Children of Abraham’ has been featured in media sources in Muslim and European countries. In 2007, the organization focused on the development of a pilot project in Morocco and the fourth version of its online Global Discovery Program (GDP) linking teenagers from Dubai, Moscow, Paris, New York, London and Montreal.

‘Post 9/11, the treatment of Muslims in the west, the hate and distrust that was all around us played a large part in determining the path I would later take,” said Rahman to the Journal of her decision to join the Children of Abraham.

As for Ari Alexander, while he was in Beirut and Damascus completing his post-graduate studies, he learned about Muslims from within and it changed his attitude and perception. He wanted a way to bring this experience to young people before their minds were made up and expose to the “other” through direct dialogue.

Rahman worked as a journalist and volunteered with NGOs helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan where she grew up and lived before moving to the US nine years ago and meeting the first Jewish person in her life. “I had grown up with little knowledge about Jews or Judaism. Most of what we were taught was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where the distinction between Jews as people and Israel as a political entity was never made clear. The fear and stereotypes ran as deeply as they run about Muslims these days,” she said adding, “Seeting young people commit acts of violence in the name of Islam and the hatred that is fed to these young people was also a factor of why I wanted to get involved in an initiative which focuses on educating the young people.”

She admits that ten years ago she would not have dreamt of a situation where she would interact with a Jewish person and become friends with them. She was only taught that Jews are the cause of the misery of the Palestinians and that they have a shared religious heritage but was not ready to separate the people from the politics. She draws the same parallel with reference to Muslims and how most people in the West cannot separate the action of a few from a large part of the Muslim community. “There is no doubt that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become one of the major problems between Muslim-Jewish relations. But the conflict should be seen as struggle of a homeland for people and it should not become a source of division amongst two religions.”

Convincing Jews and Muslims to support the organization is a challenge due to suspicions on both sides of each other, according to Rahman and Alexander, but there are those who believe that it is about time to reach out to each other, break the stereotypes and reduce hatred and fear of each other. “The stakes are high for both communities and educating the youth and the ‘other’, fostering understanding and building bridges is an important need of our times,” said Rahman.

With the growing trend of Islamophobia in the West, it is indeed about time to counter this phenomenon by advocating dialogue and understanding especially among the young and impressionable. Rahman blames the September 11 attacks and other terrorist acts in Madrid and London as well as global politics and western media for the stereotypes of Muslims as violent people, but she also blames the supposedly Muslim groups calling for “jihad” against civilian people. “In my opinion, our own inability to portray ourselves correctly, strategically and skillfully also feeds into the problem,” she said. The Muslim world needs to educate others about Islam and Muslims and she believes that ‘Children of Abraham’ is in a unique position to help fight Islamophobia. “The fact that there is Muslim support breaks the stereotype that Muslims at large do not support educational, bridge-building initiatives. Education is a tool that is needed to fight Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and young people are most open in unlearning the prejudices given the opportunity.”

The organization’s Global Discovery Program is an intensive four-month online seminar that is designed to act as an educational gateway to bring together Muslim and Jewish youth from eleven cities across the world. Using photography and the Internet, the participants investigate a wide variety of topics and go through a journey of mutual discovery. They examine their current, as well as prospective relations, engage in thought-provoking discussions about their common Abrahamic roots, their social and cultural similarities and differences, the globalization of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its effects on global Jewish-Muslim relations.

Upon completion of the online program, each country delegation of three students has the opportunity to apply as a team for grants from Children of Abraham to launch initiatives in their local communities that continue their work with Children of Abraham.

Another project by the organization is the ‘buddy chat campaign’ which aims to bring one million Muslim and Jewish youth together online, but they are still working on the details of this campaign. The organization is currently in the process of establishing an office in Casablanca, Morocco where they already received letters of endorsement from officials there. “The first project in Casablanca will be an oral history project where young people are given video cameras to interview their grandparents and other elders in the community about their memories of the relations between Muslims and Jews in Morocco when they were kids,” said Alexander.