17 May

Jew Man, Muslim Man. Happy Ramadan, My Brother

by Jon Katz
Jew Man, Muslim Man

Tonight is the first night of Ramadan, an important Muslim holiday, and it seemed to me to be a good time to write about the Jew Man, and the Muslim Man, working together day after day in love and harmony and purpose. Their news sells hatred and conflict for money.

Ali and I were standing together outside of an Albany refugee center a week ago and a man, recently arrived from Afghanistan, looked at us and smiled, “oh, it’s Jew Man and Muslim Man!,” he exclaimed, “look how they work together, they are always together.” He was  beaming.

I was startled by the comment needless to say, I tensed for a moment, and then the man came up to us, smiling and laughing, and in broken English he explained to me that there was much talk among the refugees about the “Jew Man and Muslim Man” coming down  from the skies to help the refugees. God sent you, he said.

It didn’t really matter that I left Judaism years ago and became a Quaker, the refugees who look at me identify me as Jewish, and they never imagined a Jew Man and a Muslim man working together so closely. They are just amazed. They always offer me sweets and food, and even when I explain that I am a diabetic, they insist.

A couple of weeks ago, Ali and I were sitting in our “office” in a convenience store named Stewart’s in a small country town, where we meet every week – it is halfway between Albany and my farm – and we sit in a plastic booth, and the farmers and truck drivers and hunters getting their coffee and sandwiches gave us some long and deep looks. It was a different world than the one the refugees live in, it might as well have been another planet.

I joked to Ali that I wasn’t sure if they were concluding we were all right, or deciding we were not, or just gaping at this older bookish man and this young and tall very black man speaking in accented English, waving his arms up and down, shouting and laughing and yelling. They don’t  see many of either in that Stewart’s.

Ali comes from a culture that is expressive and open and emotional, I come from a culture that is quiet and withdrawn, especially in public. I am always calming him down, he is always cranking me up.

After a few visits, the big men in trucks accepted Ali – people usually do – and then me, and started joking with us, getting him to smile when I was taking his photo, joking he was too ugly to smile in order to make him smile for a photo. That kind of banter is the language of acceptance where I live.

For all the turmoil going on in our country right now, I feel Americans are inherently open and gracious, I trust them mostly,  hate is not their natural state, despite what you see on cable news.

One man in the next booth joked that he had never seen a man like Ali in the convenience store. For that matter, he said to me, I don’t see many like you either. I thanked him for not calling the authorities.

I don’t quite know how to describe my friendship with Ali.

He is sometimes a friend, sometimes a brother, sometimes a son, sometimes a father.  He lives to help people and kids.

We play all of these roles for one another, calming  each other down when we  get excited, cheering each up when we are down, trading ideas, offering praise and comfort, plotting and scheming,  intervening when the other is getting into trouble , each making sure the other is reasonable and cautious in the work we are doing.

I love Ali, and I think he loves me,  we are always overjoyed to see one another, and he has picked up on my tendency to answer my cellphone with a “yo!” We shout “yo, yo, yo!” at one another several times a day. Sometimes we call each other up and say, “okay what good are we doing today?”

If the answer is “none,” then we get to work the next day.

It was at Stewart’s that It hit me, and I sat to Ali, “isn’t it strange the two of us sitting with one, a Muslim and Jew, working together so closely and so well, doing a lot of good and committed to it.”

Wow, he said, he never thought of it that way. Ali does not have a hateful bone in his body, he is always surprised to realize that all people are not like him.

We grasped the irony of it.

All this hatred in the news about Muslims and Jews for thousands of years and there have never been a second’s difficulty between us. So yes, it is possible. It is important.

I appreciated this, I know there was some suspicion and  hostility to me at the refugee and immigrant center where I went to meet Ali and begin my work with the refugees. Not everyone is like Ali, and this suspicions of me  seemed somehow familiar to me in my bones, and I brushed it off. Like Ali, I am not easily deterred.

Still, it was there, I have rarely felt it in my life, but I know it when I see it, and it did sting sometimes. Ali talked me through it. It is not a simple thing to break into that world. I needed to, I wanted to help.

I never had that prickly feeling with Ali. He embraced me with open arms, so a  chance to help his soccer kids and the refugees and immigrants. Ali has a heart of sunshine, he says what is happening now in America, is not the real America, and the real America will come back. That is what he tells the soccer kids.

Ali is not a bureaucrat or big wig, he is van driver at RISSE, the refugee and immigrant center in Albany. He drives kids and adults to and from classes and their homes all day. In the evening, and at night, and on weekends, we gather to do our work. He makes very little money, he is always available to everyone.

Ali and are in a great rhythm now, he hears of refugees in trouble or meets them, and calls me, and we meet them together, figure out how we can help him. He’s the inside man, I’m the outside man. He checks them out, I raise the money and negotiate on his and the  refugees behalf. I am deadly on the phone, most reporters learn that, and I love negotiating. Ali is too nice for that.

We come together at the end. I need to meet the people we are helping and get to know them, take their pictures, write about them.

Helping refugees is not simple, there is always paperwork, many details, much confusion in language, customs and culture to navigate. Many have been badly traumatized, there is so much pain and sadness in their eyes.

The easy part is helping them, the hard and unseen part is what goes  before that. Ali and I work with an almost mechanical precision. We have the same drive to do some good and get it done right and quickly. He is more patient than I am, has a longer view of things, is more prone to relaxing, smoking an occasional cigarette, talking to friends on his cellphone, worrying about his beloved soccer team, the center of his life.

He works on the other, harder end, arranging for apartments, lawyers, medical help, clothing, food,  cellphones, jobs. He calls on me in emergencies, I send out SOS’s to the Army Of Good. We have built a machine of love and good, he says, we are doing great work together. It is important for me to get to know these families and their children, and that is beginning to happen.

Tonight, we are not on the phone to one another as usual. it is a special day.

It is Ramadan, Ali is celebrating. He is an observant Muslim.

Ali is a wonderful friend, a gift to me and many others. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Muslim calendar, a celebration of the revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad. It is the name of a month, and its most prominent feature is the fasting practiced by all observant  Muslims, adult and children that defines the month. Most of the soccer team fasts and honors the holiday.

I remember Ali on Ramadan last year, he is quieter during the fasting days, more tired and reflective.

On this day, as the sun set on Ramadan, and the fasting ended for today,  I sat in silence to give thanks for Ali and the work he is doing with me, and the work he has led me to, and the work we do together. Just think of the work we all could do together.

I also celebrate the hope and the promise – the revelation to both of us – that Jews and Muslims have no need to hate one another, we are full of love and hope for tomorrow.

Happy Ramadan, my brother, thanks for helping me keep love alive-

The Jew Man.

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