"Spread Hummus Not Hate" organizer Symi Rom-Rymer signs a pledge of peace with a Muslim student from the University of Maryland - Courtesy of Walter Ruby
The Bridge-builders of America
By Dr Akbar Ahmed
American University
Washington, DC
Amid increasing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and deepening tensions between the Jewish and Muslim communities globally, some might think it impossible for Jews and Muslims to peacefully coexist in today’s world. But in these troubling times, in recent years, I have had the privilege of working with two of the great American Jewish champions of peace who are seeking to strengthen relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities: Walter Ruby and Andra Baylus.
I first met Walter Ruby several years back through his work as the Muslim-Jewish Program Director at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Not only has he been gracious in including me in his efforts to build bridges between the faiths, but his support even helped in the writing of my new book, Journey into Europe: Islam, Immigration, and Identity , as he introduced me to Samia Hathroubi, a leading French Muslim activist, and two Tatar leaders from Crimea, all of whom I had the opportunity to interview and feature in the book.
Walter introduced me as well to Andra Baylus in their joint efforts to organize the Spread Hummus Not Hate tour, an annual Jewish-Muslim bus tour through the DC area which promotes Jewish-Muslim friendship and our standing up for one another against bigotry. For the last two years, I have welcomed the tour to American University for a culminating rally celebrating bridge building between all faiths. Walter and Andra always made a special point at each rally to welcome a muezzin to perform the azzan, set aside a prayer space for Muslim tour participants and audience members, and feature a number of Muslim leaders from around the region, including American University Muslim chaplain Imam Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, in the event proceedings. In a time of increasing hatred and prejudice in the US, this rally has been a powerful display of the power of unity and has given many in the community great hope for more peaceful relations between the faiths.
My research assistant Anna Brosius, who played a key role in organizing the 2018 rally on my behalf, said of Walter and Andra’s leadership in coordinating the event, “It was inspiring to see the commitment of Walter and Andra towards building bridges .The model they set of collaboration and dialogue across religious lines left an enormous impression on the Muslim and Jewish students and faculty in attendance, who enthusiastically hope to continue the work of Muslim-Jewish dialogue on campus.”
Walter and Andra have a long career of reaching out to others in knowledge, understanding, and friendship. Walter began his career as a journalist, working for Israeli and American Jewish newspapers, including the Jerusalem Post and The Forward , from the 1970s through the 2000s. Beginning in the late 1990s, he co-founded an early online platform to stimulate dialogue between Jews and Palestinians called the Jewish-Palestinian Encounter. However, in the mid-2000s, he began pursuing a career change. In Walter’s words, his career shift began when “Bereft at the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and inspired by the World Congress of Imams and Rabbis which I attended in Seville, Spain in 2006, I decided to devote myself to strengthening communication and cooperation between Muslims and Jews worldwide.” In 2008, Walter joined the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Here, as part of his work to foster grassroots bridge-building initiatives between Jews and Muslims around the world, he jump-started the innovative Season of Twinning, a global event held every November and December during which thousands of Muslims and Jews in cities across the world held joint events focused on learning about the other, standing together against bigotry, and participating in joint social service projects.
Andra spent the bulk of her career as a schoolteacher teaching English to non-native speakers with the goal of helping immigrant children become more integrated into American society. After retiring, she became heavily involved in building bridges between faiths. She was invited to join the Fairfax County, Virginia Government’s Faith Communities in Action “Clergy and Leadership Council” and for several years participated in the steering committee of the annual 9/11 Unity Walk in Washington, DC, a bridge-building event linking DC’s houses of worship, an effort which I co-founded alongside Senior Rabbi Bruce Lustig and Episcopal Bishop John Chane in the early 2000s. Andra is also active in the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, among other bridge-building organizations.
Walter and Andra co-founded the Greater Washington Muslim-Jewish Forum several years ago in response to “the upsurge of hate crimes and an increase in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, and in acknowledgment of the need to deepen Muslim-Jewish engagement.” Their two marquis events each year are the Spread Hummus Not Hate tour and the Summit of Greater Washington Imams and Rabbis. The Summit seeks to encourage stronger partnerships between mosque and synagogue leaders and communities in the DC region for the sake of promoting Muslim-Jewish friendship and service initiatives which cross faith lines, such as the Syrian Refugee Health Fair, which brought together Muslim and Jewish dentists and doctors to provide services free of charge to recently arrived Syrian refugees in the area.
Time and time again, Walter and Andra are on the forefront of addressing the growing Islamophobia Muslims face around the globe. The Greater Washington Muslim-Jewish Forum assisted in the process of gaining government approval for the building of the McLean Islamic Center in Northern Virginia, which both described as “a signal and unfortunately rare victory over a growing national campaign by Islamophobes to oppose the building of mosques.” Alarmed by rising anti-Muslim rhetoric around the globe, they even sponsored a Holocaust Remembrance and Genocide Awareness Event to remind the world of the horrors that can be caused by ethnic and religious intolerance. In an effort to persuade American political leaders to take a stance on these issues, Walter and Andra also included a stop on their annual Spread Hummus Not Hate tour in 2017 at the US Capitol to lobby members of the House of Representatives to pass anti-hate crimes legislation. They both demonstrated outside the White House to encourage the Administration and Congress to take a forceful stand against the massacre of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Both say that they frequently encounter people who, when hearing of their work to bring together Muslims and Jews around the world, doubt the viability of such initiatives and assume that such a job is terribly difficult. They say that even given increased tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, “There has been increasing understanding that improving Muslim-Jewish relations here at home is so important in its own right that neither community can afford to put it at risk in order to have the 633rd futile debate about who is right and wrong in the Middle East. We live in Washington, not in Nablus or Tel Aviv; and are rightfully focused on improving the situation here at home.”
According to both, their effort in building bridges “has been the best and most uplifting work either of us has ever done. What makes it worthwhile is watching Muslims and Jews of all ages and backgrounds; men and women, students, young professionals, imams and rabbis; doctors, lawyers, teachers and so many others; encountering each other for the first time and being transformed by the experience.”
(Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington DC. He is a Wilson Center Global Fellow. He was the former Pakistan High Commissioner to the UK and Ireland and in 1970-71 was Assistant Commissioner in East Pakistan. This article was written in 2018)
