Love the Stranger   

Tikkun Magazine, September/October 2009 Under 25 Essay Competition

by Rachel Berkowitz

In college, you're supposed to question your identity. At Wesleyan, where I went to college, students spend a tremendous amount of time discussing their political identities, their sexual identities, and their identities as shaped by their socioeconomic statuses. What we don't talk about as much are our religious identities-we tend to talk about religion in private, with our closest and often like-minded friends.

I grew up in rural upstate New York, with a very strong awareness of being a minority as a Jew. The first time I visited Israel, in fifth grade, I felt a tremendous sense of belonging. Restaurants were kosher, people spoke Hebrew, and I didn't have to explain to anyone what my holidays were or why I couldn't go out on Friday night. After that trip, all I wanted to do was go back, and I later spent a month between my junior and senior years of high school living in Jerusalem.

The next time I went to Israel was on Wesleyan's interfaith Muslim-Jewish dialogue trip during the spring of my freshman year. Before the trip, I knew very little about Islam, and I didn't know any Muslims. (I'd actually already met Jamal and Kulsoom, but I didn't know they were Muslim, because we hadn't talked about it.) I clearly remember our first group discussion, before the trip, about the offensive cartoons of Prophet Mohammed that had recently appeared in Danish newspapers. I remember being acutely conscious of everything I said, wondering whether I was going to offend any of the Muslims in the room. But after spending three and-a-half days in Istanbul and six in Jerusalem, we understood each other within the contexts of our faiths, and felt comfortable discussing almost anything.

One day on the trip, we went into East Jerusalem for lunch. East Jerusalem is the Arab side of Jerusalem, and I had been told on a prior trip to Israel that it was not a safe place for a young Jewish woman. As we walked into East Jerusalem, I began to see and hear Arabic everywhere instead of in Hebrew. Men in kippot and tzitzit were replaced by women in hijabs, and I got more and more anxious. All the warnings I had ever heard about East Jerusalem were repeating themselves in my head. Just as I was thinking that I had felt much more comfortable when there were men in kippot around, my Muslim friend Maggie turned to me and said, "I see a lot of women in hijabs. That makes me feel safe."

At the same time, we'd had exactly the same thought, which was completely the opposite thought. It was a really incredible moment, and I was able to feel safer and relax knowing that Maggie felt safe. It also occurred to me that in the rest of Jerusalem, where I'd felt so at home, my Muslim friends might have felt uncomfortable; I hadn't seen that perspective before. In the Torah, there's a line that repeats over and over again: "Be kind to the stranger in your midst, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." My experience in East Jerusalem was a reminder of what it is like to be a stranger.

I came home from the trip with some very close Muslim friends, as well as memories of the intense and growth-filled discussions we'd had. These friendships have caused me to examine and explore and strengthen my connection to my own faith. Something changes when we recognize each other's backgrounds, when I acknowledge that I, a Jew, am talking to you, a Muslim or Christian or Hindu. This change allows us to have deeper and more meaningful relationships with one another. Interfaith engagement for me was primarily about having incredible conversations.

It wasn't until my junior year that I realized the connection between interfaith work and social justice, and the importance of reaching out to the rest of campus. That year, my friend Nadeem organized an interfaith fast-a-thon during the month of Ramadan. Students fasted for the day, and donated what they would have spent on food to the local food pantry. His goal had been to raise $1,000; we raised $4,000. For me, it was a reminder of the change that can happen when a few people come together to motivate others. In regards to interfaith engagement, it helped me to realize the importance of not just talking together, but doing together. Feeding the hungry is a value that we can all agree on, whatever our religious or political background. This past year, I worked with Nadeem and another friend to plan a second fast-a-thon. In addition to students, we involved Middletown residents from local religious communities and service clubs, and we raised more than $11,000.

The commandment, "Be kind to the stranger in your midst, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt," is not merely a call to remember our own enslavement in Egypt and empathize with the stranger-we're also told to "be kind"; we're told to act. For me, that means working for social justice and planning events like the fast-a-thon. It also means starting conversations about faith and interfaith on my campus. There's a ton of peer support at my college for a student who's questioning his or her (or hir) sexual identity, but not nearly as much for someone questioning faith or religious identity. My hope is to get people talking, so that faith stops being something we only discuss in private, so that we can recognize what we have in common and work together toward social justice.

Rachel Berkowitz recently graduated from Wesleyan University. She was a fellow with the Interfaith Youth Core in 2008-09 and is currently studying at the Pardes Institute for Jewish Studies in Jerusalem.

This essay was submitted to Tikkun's Under 25 Writing Contest in the summer of 2009. The other essays can be found here or hit the back button if you got here from the Writing Contest intro page.