Coexist...

I should be posting on the suggested topic for my class, but I feel that I need to address something that has really been weighing on my heart today. It is, of course, September 11, and this day stirs up sadness, anger, hate, confusion, and so many other emotions in the hearts of Americans and others around the world. To remember what happened on this day eleven years ago breaks my heart, too. I am reminded of exactly where I was, of the thoughts rushing through my fifth-grade mind, of the fears and the sadness that seemed to drown everything else out.

My Facebook newsfeed is overflowing with photographs and statuses dedicated to remembering this day, and I think that the fact that people are remembering and honoring those who died in the attacks is wonderful. However, what is crushing my heart this morning is the number of posts full of hateful, angry comments about Muslims...and most of these comments have been made by my Jewish friends. I am ashamed, and I am saddened to see the disgusting attitudes displayed by my co-religionists. I realize, of course, that the September 11 attacks were carried out by radical Muslim terrorists, but in my mind it is absolutely unthinkable to blame the Islamic faith for that terrible day.

I think that, because I am a convert-in-process, I tend to have a more accepting view of religion. I have managed to break out of the fundamentalist viewpoints, and I can now see the bigger picture. G-d didn't create us to be in a state of turmoil with each other, and He didn't create us so that we could fight and hate and kill and point fingers. This semester I am taking Arabic at my university, and I have been so blessed to be able to become friends with some of the most wonderful, inspiring people I've known. These friends are hijab-wearing, Kurdish speaking, five-times-a-day-praying Muslims, and never once have I heard a hateful thing come out of their mouths. They know I am Jewish. I know they are Muslim. We are able to discuss religion freely, and we have found that although we disagree, we are still drawn to each other as people...because that's just it: we are people. I am not restricted to merely being a Jew, and neither are they to being called Muslim. We all have the same blood, the same emotions, the same facial expressions, and the same sorts of laughs.

So, if a Jew and a Muslim can be friends, why are we hating? Why are we attributing to all Muslims so many awful things and deeds? If to be a Jew means to hate the Islamic, Arabic-speaking world, I am intensely saddened. Today, let's remember what happened on September 11, 2001, but more than that, let's strive to make our world a better place, diminishing hate, and spreading peace.