Interfaith trio forges strong friendship
Editor's Note: This story is part of the USA TODAY Network's Hidden Common Ground project, a key component of USA TODAY's unique local-to-national coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
The three friends were something of an oddity during their visit to the Holy Land.
Many who met the trio saw their obvious camaraderie as unusual as they walked the streets of Israel and the Palestinian Territories together.
However, the friendship between the Muslim imam and the two Jewish rabbis had long become common knowledge in the Oklahoma City interfaith community.
For Rabbi Vered Harris, Rabbi Abby Jacobson and Imam Imad Enchassi, their 2017 overseas trip with
other Oklahoma Jews, Muslims and Christians was simply one of many positive
outcomes of their interfaith
collaborations. Many metro interfaith projects and activities have flourished in the state's mostly conservative Christian landscape partly due to the amiable efforts of these leaders of minority faith groups.
The spiritual leaders said their friendship stretches across the boundaries of their faiths. It works, they said, for lots of reasons.
“I think it's because we live what our religious traditions teach and at the end of the day, our religious traditions teach compassion, they teach sacred listening, they teach all people are created in God's image,” Harris said. “And so I think at the end of the day it works because we respect one another — one another's traditions, one another's outlooks — and we see the good that we each are doing in our own way for similar goals. Different paths, but the same goals.”
Enchassi agreed.
“It's their willingness to talk the talk and walk the walk,” he said. “We came together to trust one another because not only would they talk the talk but they were there with us in many instances where Islamaphobia was at an all-time high. So is anti-Semitism, so we stood together.”
Jacobson, president of the Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma, said aside from her colleagues' views about why they became friends, there are other reasons for their friendship.
“One of them is that we are in the same profession and the clergy profession is a lonely one, where we're friends with all of our congregants, we're friends with all of our parishioners, we're friends with everyone we meet and yet we can't be colleagues in the same way. As clergy, we all have the same experiences,” she said.
“For me, we're all American and we don't have to squabble over who gets to live on
this piece of land because the answer is as Americans, we all have the same right to live in certain places and not in others. I think that sense of unity helps us overcome territory issues in the Holy Land. And I think some of the peace groups that work the best are the ones that find a different way of uniting around the concept of `us.'”
Friendship and respect
For years, the two rabbis have been part of creating an interfaith “corridor of support” for Oklahoma Muslims, helping to escort them past anti- Muslim protesters as they enter the state Capitol building for an annual Muslim advocacy event. Jacobson, who gamely showed up one year in freezing cold weather, pregnant with her third child, said she didn't ever think it was something she shouldn't be doing.
“Of course I was going to be there because they deserve to have a day at the Capitol. We ought to be encouraging every group, especially the really marginalized ones, to
come together to learn about government and be involved and make their voices heard. It was really the least I could do,” Jacobson said.
When Harris decided to have her head shaved for a 2015 charity event, Enchassi led the metro Muslim community to raise $3,600 — the rabbi's original goal. The benefit was held at a 2015 Union of Reform Judaism gathering and Harris ended up raising almost $ 10,000 for St. Baldricks charity, which provides grants for research to find cures for childhood cancers.
“I was just so deeply touched,” Harris said at the time. “I think that people have so many wrong stereotypes and misconceptions about Jewish-Muslim relations.”
Enchassi said he didn't hesitate to gather donations for the cause being promoted by his friend.
“We had never heard of St. Baldricks, but it's simply the fact that we trust the rabbi. She herself has stood with with us against bigotry and xenophobia,” he said at the time.
And then there's that trip to the Holy Land.
Harris, a member of the
Oklahoma Conference of Churches Religions United Committee, came up with the idea for the overseas trip. In partnership with the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, a group of seven Christians, seven Jews and seven Muslims from the Oklahoma City and Tulsa areas were soon on their way to take a dual-narrative tour of Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Harris said she proposed the interfaith trip as a way to help clarify issues surrounding the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. As part of the tour offered by Mejdi Tours, the Oklahomans were led throughout Israel and the Palestinian Territories by an Israeli guide and a Palestinian guide who helped the group explore the different cultural, religious, ethnic and political narratives in the Holy Land.
Enchassi, born in Beirut to a Syrian mother and Palestinian father, spent his teens living in the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camp.
The interfaith visit added another layer to the friendship, respect and trust that he and the rabbis share, he said.
“It was like the children of
Abraham finally did a reunion, so to speak. We walked in places that were holy to both of us. We wept together and we laughed together,” he said. “There were times in the Jewish areas where the Jewish members protected us and there were times in the Muslim areas that we protected the Jewish participants.”
Enchassi said the trio and the entire interfaith group also were bound by their common nationality.
“For the most part, it was refreshing because not only did we go there as Jews and Muslims, we also went there looking from a totally different lens and that was as Americans,” he said.
Harris said her Israeli grandmother, who has since died, was delighted when she heard about the interfaith trip and asked for details and pictures every step of the way.
Faith editor Carla Hinton attended the 2017 Religions United Interfaith Trip to the Holy Land with the group of Oklahomans from Oklahoma City and Tulsa. She wrote about the trip in a series entitled “Peace, Love and Falafal.”