Arrival Day

Jonathan of Head Heeb fame writes about a blogburst for Arrival Day, the day 350 years when Jews first came to America. Once more New York stands at the forefront of American history (sorry, needed a little bit of New York purity after being defiled by the RNC last week).

I remember growing up in a religiously diverse neighborhood, and knowing what both a menorahand christmas tree were at around the same time; wanting latkes all year-round; having a small dreidel collection. One of my friends growing up was named David, a Russian Jew who I thought was cool because he sounded like what I thought the character Colossus from the X-Men was supposed to sound like. I never put much thought into religious differences, until I became an adult, and then oddly enough it was intra-faith far more than inter-faith that I found myself thinking about.

The search for authenticity is terribly important to all communities, but for the Muslim (American) community, I found it both a source of promise and peril. Working off Rachel’s post, I think there are three things that are holding back the formation of a Muslim American identity: (I have blogged, or will blog, about these issues separately.)

1. The need to define Islam as one thing, through a convenient checklist.
2. The conflation of religious identity with ethnic and racial identities.
3. The “religiousization” of political issues.

I see this, the formation of a Muslim American identity, as being important and related to Arrival Day, because I’m not sure we’ll ever see a similar sense of belonging for Muslims until that time. Leila talks about an Arab-American identity, and I wonder many of the same things regarding Muslims. Aziz posts an interesting letter from friends of his about Muslim and American, and I think it is exactly the type of thing Muslims need to be doing, but don’t believe that they are. It is a step.

Aziz also talks about Jews as a role-model for other immigrant communities. I agree that Muslim immigrants can learn from all other immigrant communities in the US. However, I was at a meeting of what I thought was educated and intelligent Muslims talking about trying to present a more positive vision of Islam. The discussion veered into the long-term vision for a Muslim-American community and the Jewish community was mentioned. Rather than talking about the formation of ethnic enclaves by early immigrant groups, the use of social capital to improve educational and economic opportunities, or a deep seated association with the religious community irrespective of actual religious faith what I heard disturbed me: What we needed to learn from the Jews is how to stick together to run American society. As much as I hate to say it, I am amazed at the deep-seated Judeophobia present not only amongst Muslims, but amongst the population as a whole. I also believe, that as expressed Judeophobia is frowned upon in public, Islamophobia tends to increase as a more acceptable alternative. I agree with Aziz that more needs to be done for Muslims to think beyond their parochial identities.

Seeing through the eyes of others is incredibly important if we are to live together as Americans. An event like Arrival Day gives me that hope. And for those interested, this year for Eid al-Fitr, I’m going for some cheese blintzes.