Imagine, Jews and a Christians hunting down Muslims after 9/11!?

From July 9th to the 12th, I was honored to be invited to speak at the Notre Dame University’s Religious Liberty Summit. The summit, organized by Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative is an annual event, going on its fourth year, whose prime purpose is to gather the world’s leading defenders of religious freedom to engage in conversations about the future of religious liberty in the United States and around the world. Last year, it was held at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana.

The University of Notre Dame offers a platform from which religious celebrity advocates conduct a global fight for Religious Freedom. The theme for this year was “Depolarizing Religious Liberty.” The summit promised to address the key issues on which individuals are polarized politically and culturally. Embracing this notion, the summit sought to demonstrate that religious liberty is a fundamental human right that cuts across ideological divides.

Magnificently organized, and caringly laid out by Dean G. Marcus Cole – Founder of the Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative, (also known as The Lindsay and Matt Morin Religious Liberty Clinic) – and faculty director Stephanie Barclay, the summit was an oasis of exploration and learning for religious liberty activists, students, and all.

Key subsects of the summit were ‘learning how to disagree’, ‘how to live together respectfully’, ‘how to be enriched by difference’, ‘how to combat the malignant effects of polarization and prejudice’, ‘decreasing religious polarization through international diplomacy’, ‘women and religious liberty’, ‘the rise of Antisemitism and Islamophobia in France’, ‘the Black church and religious freedom’, and ‘The state of religious freedom in Ukraine, then and now.’

The summit offered numerous panels on these topics; I sat and spoke at one titled ‘Muslim and Jewish Voices Finding Common Ground After October 7th’. As a Muslim woman, I spoke alongside three other religious freedom defenders who voiced their concerns for the deteriorating safety levels and the strained relationship between the Jewish and Muslim communities in the wake of the Israel – Hamas conflict.

I addressed the lethal hostilities between the two communities after October 7th, the failure of the American Muslim leadership and organizations to condemn the violence and attacks of October 7th, and the delegitimization of Israel and dehumanization of the Jewish people in the pro-Palestinian protests in the United States.

The geopolitical and social landscape of 2024 has polarized the Jewish and Muslim communities as religious liberties for the Jewish people reach an all time low. From colleges to orchestrated protests, from synagogues to streets, the levels of civility are dangerously low.

When Paul Kessler a Jewish man from Thousand Oaks was killed for carrying the Israeli flag and when the Pro Palestinian mobs established Jew exclusion zones at UCLA, it has become noteworthy that within a framework of interfaith dialogue and the principles of mutual respect, there has been a conspicuous absence of condemnation from prominent Muslim leaders regarding these exclusionary practices. This silence is troubling, as it violates our communal contracts with the Los Angeles Jews and further suggests a grave complicity and indifference to the fundamental values of inclusivity that many religious traditions, including Islam, espouse.

By failing to publicly denounce such practices and atrocities, Muslim leaders have signaled that sectarian divisions are permissible, thus fostering an environment where intolerance can proliferate.

Wearing the Star of David or displaying the Menorah in Jewish homes have now become acts of courage for some Jewish communities.

With no clear condemnation of these violations, the selective silence has violated the religious freedom of Jewish Americans. We have failed in our ability to take a firm stand on religious freedom and let geopolitical issues dictate our firm commitments to religious liberties in this country.

The conference, while speaking on the issue of religious community relations, did not address the specific religious freedom violations in the United States for Jewish communities.

We must remember the dehumanization of Jewish people through the 176 gravestones that were vandalized at two respective cemeteries in Cincinnati, Ohio a few months ago.

Another example was the removal of ‘KIDNAPPED’ posters of the people taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th. The posters, created by Israeli street artists became a form of activism, keeping the hostages in full unignorable view of the public. And their removal by critics of ‘wartime propaganda’ is being seen by Jewish communities as ‘both antisemitism and a lack of basic humanity’, says Katherine Rosman from the New York Times.

In my home state, Los Angeles, violence broke out in front of the Adas Torah synagogue in the 9000 block of Pico Boulevard on Sunday as anti-Israel agitators clashed with supporters of Israel during a protest.

The horrific moment where a pro-Israel woman is pinned to the ground and put in a chokehold, leaving her bloodied after being savagely assaulted by a pro-Palestine protester in the Jewish neighborhood of Pico-Robertson, LA. must be a wakeup call.

It’s time for us to cut through this and call it what it is. Imagine Jewish people hunting down Muslims  after 9/11?

Vandalism of property, bullying of kids in schools and workplaces, and recently even two cases of doctors refusing to treat patients of Israeli origin are rooted to religious, ideological, and political hostility.

There is no synagogue in the United States today, where there is not a heightened security presence, roadblocks to prevent crime, and enhanced searches being carried out, to merely attend services.

There must be a rallying call for enhanced penalties for the Antisemitic crimes committed in the specific geographical zones around synagogues.

Elder Dushku, a General Authority Seventy and general counsel for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints words must guide us in addressing these religious liberty violations against our very own communities within the US. He said, “If religious freedom is to be the means of human flourishing… then it must be conducive to a just and livable peace among contending factions so that all may flourish.”

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Soraya M. Deen is a lawyer and Co-chair of the Women’s working group of the International Religious Freedom Roundtable in DC and Sri Lanka. She is a fierce advocate of religious responsibilities with gender equity at its intersection. Soraya highlights the impact of received theologies and religion based dominance, oppression, and violence that debilitate communities and jeopardize religious freedom or belief.

CONTACT Soraya M. Deen to speak at your next event.

E-mail: soraya@muslimwomenspeakers.com

Phone: (818) 395-2032