Both Feeling Threatened, American Muslims and Jews Join Hands
By Laurie Goodstein / The New York Times
December 5, 2016
“If Muslims have to register, we’re all going to register . . . Jews know what it means to be identified and tagged, to be registered and pulled aside. It evokes very deep emotions in the Jewish community. . . . All of us have heard the story of the Danish king who said if his country’s Jews had to wear a gold star, all of Denmark would, too.”
Jolted into action by a wave of hate crimes that followed the election victory of Donald J. Trump, American Muslims and Jews are banding together in a surprising new alliance.
They are putting aside for now their divisions over Israel to join forces to resist whatever may come next. New groups are forming, and interfaith coalitions that already existed say interest is increasing.
Vaseem Firdaus, a Muslim who has lived in the United States for 42 years, spent Friday night at a Shabbat dinner for members of a women’s group called the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, in a home here filled with Jewish art and ritual objects.
Until Mr. Trump was elected president, Ms. Firdaus, who is 56 and a manufacturing manager at Exxon Mobil, felt secure living as a Muslim in America. She has a daughter who is a doctor and a son who is an engineer, and she recently traveled to Tampa with her husband looking to buy a vacation home. But Mr. Trump’s victory has shaken her sense of comfort and security.
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