Young Jews and Muslims Unite For a Common Cause!
A New Era of Jewish Islamic Relationship Begins as Washington Metropolitan Area Jewish and Muslim Youth Come Together Face to Face and Shoulder to Shoulder to Demonstrate Their Mutual Concern For the Future of the Planet.
Online, November 3, 2010 (Newswire.com) - In an unprecedented gathering, Muslim and Jewish teenagers and young adults from around the Greater Washington area will come together from 10 AM-2 PM on November 7, 2010 for a day of shared community service in the spirit of Judaism's "Tikkun Olam", Hebrew for "Repairing the World", and Islam's "Islah", Arabic for "Reform and Repair". The young people, aged 13-25, will mulch trees and clean up a stream in Meadowbrook Community Park.
The event, known as "Twinning Weekend and Social Action Day!", will kick off at the Recreation Building, 7901 Meadowbrook Lane, Chevy Chase, Maryland at 10 A.M. Breakfast is planned before the event with Rizwan Mowlana of the Medina Center of Potomac, MD and Rabbi Gerry Serotta, spiritual leader of Congregation Shirat HaNefesh, Chairman of Rabbis For Human Rights North America and Executive Director of Clergy Beyond Borders. The day will close with a pizza party for all of the participating Jewish and Muslim youth.
Participants are encouraged to contact the event coordinator: Dan Spiro: creedroom@danielspiro.com; Phone:(301) 767-6642. To access the event flyer with more details and Registration information, click or cut and paste the below link for "Twinning Weekend and Social Action Day!" which takes place on November 7th, 2010:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dg8hb5jt_699hn55ffnp
The Weekend of Twinnings caps years of activism on the part of the Foundation For Ethnic Understanding (FFEU.org) dedicated to building understanding and trust between the Jewish and Muslim communities in North America. On November 7, 2007 Rabbi Marc Schneier, President of FFEU, FFEU Chairman Russell Simmons and Imam Abu Namous, then-head imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, hosted the first-ever National Summit of Imams and Rabbis in New York. Participating in the event were imams and rabbis from 11 major cities around the United States and Canada, together with experts in the field of Muslim-Jewish relations. The Summit concluded with a resolution to launch a Weekend of Twinnings.
November 7th, 2010, will be the first Social Action activity which is a new component of the initiating sponsor, the Jewish Islamic Dialogue Society (JIDS.org) which began in February of 2009 to encourage getting to know one another through friendly, yet frank encounters. Haytham Younis, local architect and muslim co-founder of JIDS, says, "It would seem impossible for either Jews or Muslims to understand their own civilization and faith without coming to understand their "cousins" and fellow children of Abraham. Muslims and Jews trace their spiritual lineage to some of the same ancestors and accept the Jewish Patriarchs as prophets of God. They share many of the same core principles, including honesty, justice, mercy, generosity, respect for the sanctity of life, and the commitment to scholarship." Jewish Co-Founder, Daniel Spiro, local attorney and author, stated that , " It is the hope of the founders of JIDS that, soon enough, our dialogues will cease to concentrate exclusively on enlightening each group about the other, and evolve to the point where we can work together on projects to uplift our communities, our nation and our world."
The principle sponsors of "Twinning Weekend and Social Action Day", the Jewish-Islamic Dialogue Society(JIDS.org), Congregation Shirat HaNefesh, the Muslim Community Center(MCC) and the Islamic Center of Maryland(ICM), are inviting mosques and synagogues from around the Washington Metropolitan area to join with them in getting their young people involved in this unparalleled Muslim-Jewish event.
Co-Chairs Andra Baylus, member of Fairfax County Government's Faith Communities in Action and Lisa Jo Finstrom, coordinator of Congregation Shirat HaNefesh's "Mitzvah Day" a collaborative effort also taking place on November 7th, both agree that this unique gathering is the next step in, as Mrs.Finstrom posits, " creating a world that most of us everywhere want, where natural resources and species are valued; and as Ms.Baylus suggests, "It is the beginning of a new paradigm in awakening our youth to their religious responsibility as Muslims and Jews to actively engage in preserving our planet for future generations."
This event is being held in conjunction with the "3rd Annual Weekend of Twinnings of Mosques and Synagogues Around the World", which kicks off November 5-7, 2010 with the planned participation of synagogues, mosques and Muslim and Jewish student groups from 25 countries around the globe.
The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (www.ffeu.org), chief sponsor of the Weekend of Twinnings, urges mosques and synagogues around Greater Washington to encourage their youth groups to join the clean-up in Meadowbrook Park. These young Jews and Muslims from around the area are certainly leading the way in stewardship of the earth this November 7th inspired by a common religious commitment to repairing the world and to working together for the betterment of our community and American society as a whole.