SHARING FAITHS - An Interfaith Project in Metro Detroit

SHARING FAITHS: Program brings sacred Jewish texts to mosques
June 29, 2007
BY DAVID CRUMM
FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER
A national pilot program to link Jews and Muslims with sacred books kicked off in Detroit on Thursday with the delivery of 17 Jewish books to one of the city's leading mosques.
"I hope this idea extends from Detroit across the U.S. and even throughout the world," Dawud Walid, Michigan director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said as a Jewish delegation from Oakland County delivered the first collection of Jewish books to a local mosque.
The books included translations and commentaries on the Torah, which Christians regard as the first five books of their Bible. Many of the early figures in the Jewish Bible, including Abraham, are considered sacred figures in Islam.
The idea of combating bigotry by sharing sacred texts isn't new. In 2002, Walid's Washington, D.C.-based group kicked off a three-year campaign to place Muslim books in nearly 8,000 public libraries across the country.
The effort launched Thursday is designed to bring Jewish books directly into Muslim centers across Michigan and eventually other parts of the United States.
Imam Abdullah El-Amin, head of the Muslim Center of Detroit, said he already had his eye on several books he plans to read as the first borrower in the new Jewish-books section of his mosque's library.
A half-dozen Jewish leaders delivered the books to El-Amin's center, then the delegation drove to the Islamic Organization of North America mosque in Warren to deliver a second collection.
"Dialogue is the only hope for humanity," Suzy Farbman of Franklin said at the Detroit stop. Her family, which owns commercial real estate in Detroit, donated money for the first three collections of books to the American Jewish Committee, which is coordinating the pilot project. A third set of books will be delivered to the American Muslim Center in Dearborn in August.
Farbman said her family agreed to underwrite the first three collections because they realized that their own congregation, Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township, already has collected many books on Islam in its extensive library. However, many mosques don't have such extensive religious libraries for their members.
El-Amin said, "This is opening up new doors and windows for our communities."
Contact DAVID CRUMM at 313-223-4526 or dcrumm@freepress.com