On Bloomy and the Islamic Center of Long Island

More thoughts on Mayor Bloomberg and on a wonderful evening I spent last weekend at the annual dinner of the Islamic Center of Long IslandAn anonymous person responded to my posting on Mike Bloomberg asking how I could say, "I'm not a Bloomy fan." Well, I agree he has done a better than expected job, he's proven very compentent, though I dont see a lot of compassion on his part for those who aren't sharing in prosperity, for those who cant afford their rent and could end up in the streets. I specifically begrudge him the heavy handed police tactics he employed during a major anti-war march in February 2003 just before the beginning of the Iraq war (the police forced a crowd of 100,000 or more onto sidewalks, waded through the crowd with horses in a way that could have caused panic and stampeding and prevented most of the marchers, including myself, from reaching the destination and hear the speeches despite having given authorization), his mass arrests of protesters during the GOP Convention and then holding protestors illegally for up to 72 hours. Those were police state tactics that Bloomy employed to kiss up to and prove his Republican bona-fides to George Bush and I dont forgove and forget so easily when a politician blithely violates citizens' First Amendment rights to petition the government in the public square and puts the lives of thousands at risk with thuggish police tactics.

I went this weekend as a guest to the annual dinner of the Islamic Center of Long Island (ICLI) about which I wrote in the Jewish Week when that institution was attacked as "extremist" by Cong Peter King, despite having been involved in outreach efforts to the Long Island Jewish community for 15 years (they held a joint Ramadan-Succot event this year) and despite having denoounced the 9-11 attacks and terrorism in general. Farouque Khan, a founder and the chairman of the board of ICLI, took part in a highly praised trip to Israel this year together with two rabbis, several Catholic priests and Jewish, Muslim and Catholic high school students. The mosque is overwhelmingly composed of professionals (especially doctors and lawyers), mostly from India and Pakistan. Nassau District attorney Kathleen Rice showed up to praise the mosque and its leaders and members, and to condemn Peter King's attacks, as did King's defeated rival in the recent congressional race, Dave Mejias, as well as did Rabbi Jerome Davidson of Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, and other clergypeople. The leading imam at ICLI told attendees that it is not enought for Muslims to be loyal American citizens; they need to stop thinking in terms of 'them' and 'us' because "We Americans are all in one boat."


Sitting in the audience at the event, and enjoying a wonderful meal and warm hospitality with my gracious and welcoming hosts, I thought about how far they were from the demonic description of Muslims habitually tossed around in the Russian media; in places like the Jewish Russian Telegraph and by a recent guest columnist on this blog, Boris Gorbis of LA, who wrote in part;

"Our individual system of values has at its core two beliefs: One - every life is sacred and two – subject to the rule of law, each person has autonomy over his or her actions. The Muslim world’s system of values is different – it rests on two symmetrically opposite propositions. First, infidels spread spiritual and physical uncleanliness and, second, Koran obligates every faithful Muslim to stop the infidel’s sacral uncleanliness by conversion or annihilation.”

So what am I to make of the dissonance between my own life experience, which has included many wonderful, personally enriching encounters with Muslims, in the U.S. Israel and countries like Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Senegal,and Boris' flat assertion that believing Muslims are all out to destroy us? I wonder again how many personal encounters Boris has had with Muslims and how he came to his conclusion that every faithful Muslim must either try to convert or annihilate non-Muslims (None of the hundreds of Muslims with whom I have had personal encounters in my life have sought to do either). Yes, there is a big problem with Islamic extremism in the world, yes, we all know what happened on 9/11, yes, I worry deeply about Islamic rejectionism vis a vis Israel, but the worst mistake we can make is to tar all Muslims with one brush; to essentially say, there is nothing to say to Muslims, they are our blood enemy y fsyo (thats it). It is so incredibly important to build bridges between the Russian community and moderate Muslims; to stop mutual demonology and help people on both sides to be aware that we are all human beings and have to find a way to live side by side in peace and hopefully, with ever growing personal contact, whether in Midwood, Brooklyn or in Israel.