The Wrestlers
Midway through their gently impassioned new book, “We Refuse to Be Enemies: How Muslims and Jews Can Make Peace, One Friendship at a Time” (Arcade Publishing, 2021), Sabeeha Rehman and Walter Ruby write:
“...We Muslims and Jews believed we were enemies. Now, thank God, we emphatically refuse to be enemies. We simply have too much healing to achieve, too much tikkun olam and islah to carry out together, for us to waste another minute on fear and loathing. Maspeek. Khalas. Enough is enough.”
Especially in the wake of fresh bloodshed on the Gaza Strip and hate crimes in New York (and around the world), the authors’ sentiment emerges as one that is all too urgent and deeply humanistic. The Pakistan-born and Manhattan-based Rehman and the Maryland-stationed Ruby, both fierce devotees of bridging their respective faiths of Islam and Judaism, have surely penned an informative and mighty book.
Not everyone, perhaps particularly those who’ve lost loved ones in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is going to agree with its premise of attempting to connect with the Other. As a self-called “manifesto” that seeks to do just that, however, as a contemporary work of searing scholarship that aims to dispel falsehoods and searches for commonality between two vast religions, “We Refuse to be Enemies” is noble and important.
The fact that the work is finely written, with passages that echo the shining poetry of “Man is Not Alone” by the late Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, only adds to its intrigue. Under three-hundred pages and comprised of fifteen chapters that probe the murky depths of the Abrahamic faiths while relating sometimes comic personal anecdotes, the book illuminates even as it amuses.
Whether Rehman finds herself in the lap of Jewish motherhood in her early years as an immigrant in 1970s New York, reveling in a newfound sense of community, or Ruby asks world leaders hard questions as a young journalist, the passages in “We Refuse to Be Enemies” compel in both their unexpected levity and unwavering search for the truth.
Powerful Story
An especially powerful story in the book comes in Chapter nine when the ever open-minded Rehman visits Israel with her husband and his fellow doctors in the late 1990s and, due to recent violence in the country, her brethren are questioned about their travels.
“Khalid and I were with a tour group at the Al-Aqsa mosque when a suicide bomber attacked a restaurant in Jerusalem and scores were killed,” she writes. “At that instant, everything changed. We had entered Israel as tourists but exited as potential terrorists.” Upon returning to New York, she explains:
“I was cautious about sharing my experience with my Jewish friends. I didn’t want to offend, so I decided to tell them only if they asked. Of course, they asked. Did I think they wouldn’t? I gave them the entire rundown, and they felt really bad. Some felt embarrassed, and then I felt bad for them.”
Simply, being Muslim and Jewish — or of other religions — in America is increasingly hard these days. It’s an almost counterintuitive statement to make in the twenty-first century but it’s achingly true. One only has to watch the local news or pick up the paper to see horrific incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The fact that some New Yorkers fear leaving their homes underscores an overarching sadness, a near miserable disbelief, felt by both Jews and Muslims that hatred can be so incisive.
Sharp Magnifying Glass
The wonder of “We Refuse to Be Enemies” lies in its embrace of he/she who is different in faith yet similar in kindness. The work’s very dovish nature may be its slight pitfall, though.
Rehman and Ruby do mine the sinewy tunnels of their individual faiths, even going thousands of years back to the inception of Islam and Judaism and spending several pages placing dearly held beliefs under a sharp magnifying glass. However, their book may be not so much the “manifesto” they declare it as a work of pure humanism that, despite its goodwill, just may not mend the shattered hearts of those who’ve been directly affected by violence and grief.
Still, the authors don’t claim to be saviors. In some of the book’s most lucid and passionate moments of dialogue with each other, Rehman and Ruby actually pose tough queries, effectively admitting their own vulnerability to misconception.
“Is the Qur’an anti-Semitic?” goes one question. “Is the Torah genocidal?” goes another. Thankfully, Rehman and Ruby excavate these unfortunately misinformed theories, shoveling off dirt and rising with hard-earned keys of knowledge: the Qur’an is not anti-Semitic, the Torah is not genocidal and there is love in both faiths.
Ultimately, “We Refuse to Be Enemies: How Muslims and Jews Can Make Peace, One Friendship at a Time” may very well move readers to forge the interfaith relationships as its title urges while flying above those less willing to do so. Yet, as a written document, the book opens a vital dialogue between two titanic ways of life and for that, for wrestling with themselves and their own values, Rehman and Ruby return to society in wisdom and eager to share.