|
|
January 18, 2002/5 Shevat 5762, Vol. 54, No.18
Begin at the beginning
FLORENCE ECKSTEIN
Publisher
Residents of Scottsdale protest locating a worship and cultural center in their neighborhood. Sound familiar?
It seems like only yesterday we were caught up in public and neighborhood meetings over the site of the Ina Levine Jewish Community Campus now under construction on Scottsdale Road at Sweetwater Avenue. City approval of the project came after months of painstaking negotiations with homeowners fearful the campus would jeopardize the integrity of their neighborhood, disrupt their lifestyle, and erode their property values.
Proponents and opponents negotiated, often heatedly, about design, traffic, parking, outdoor lighting and landscaping.
Several observers of the Jewish campus skirmish were among citizens attending a Scottsdale Development Review Board meeting last week to consider approval of an analogous facility in a similar location. The petitioner was the Islamic Center of the Northeast Valley, which is seeking an OK to build the city's first mosque on Via Linda, a neighborhood thorougfare.
Islamic center supporters first presented their plans at an early November meeting of the Scottsdale review board. Neighborhood representatives were there too, to voice their concerns about design, traffic, parking, outdoor lighting and landscaping. At a follow-up hearing last week, mosque supporters, led by M. Zuhdi Jasser, presented revised plans addressing most issues raised.
But there's more. Some are so opposed to the Islamic center they are offering to pay the difference in cost for an alternative site - to move the mosque clear out of their neighborhood, a case of "not-in-my-backyard" syndrome taken to a higher level.
Decades ago, my aunt and uncle lived next to a Mormon church in a quiet central Phoenix neighborhood. Stroll down the street on Manhattan's Upper West Side and encounter shteibels - tiny synagogues - in tidy brownstones side-by-side with family residences. Drive around our Valley and pass scores of churches and synagogues. Houses of worship are time-honored neighborhood gathering places, offering daycare centers, after-school activities, classes and recreation.
So why, now, is building a mosque in a neighborhood so contentious? The unlucky timing of the Islamic center's petition, immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks against our nation by Islamic terrorists, undoubtedly struck a raw nerve with neighbors anxious about personal safety.
And why, now, are some Valley Jews - who know too well the price Israel is paying at the hands of Islamic terrorists - reaching out in support of an Islamic center? Rabbi B. Charles Herring of Temple Kol Ami of Scottsdale, says it's about being good neighbors.
Indeed it is. "Can American Jews and Muslims Get Along?," an article by A. James Rudin, an interreligious relations expert, in the winter issue of Reform Judaism magazine, cites key issues lying behind the distrust between Jews and Muslims: arguments over the legitimacy of Israel, differences in theology, and "lack of authentic knowledge" of each group about the other. He proposes we begin to bridge by building relationships - learning about each other and seeking common ground.
Herring and Jasser got to know each other through an Islamic-Jewish dialogue group. Now Herring now is supporting Jasser's effort to build a house of prayer. His instincts are sound, his actions right.
|
