Muslim women speak out
Three pro-Israel social activists to talk about antisemitism and how to fight it
Particularly in these bleak times, it is easy for us as Jews to assume that the whole world is either actively against us or at best studiedly neutral.
That is not true; evidence of that is all around us.
On September 22, three Muslim women — Anila Ali, Soraya Deen, and Zeba Zubair — will open the season’s Visionary Voices: The Scott Pazer Memorial Speaker Series for the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey. They will speak passionately about their rejection of hatred in general and of Hamas in particular, and about their support for Israel.
Ms. Ali, Ms. Deen, and Ms. Zubair will talk about antisemitism in America and Muslim/Jewish relations since October 7, Ms. Deen said. “The bottom line is that we can’t draw boxes. We have to build bridges. That means holding our own communities accountable.
Ms. Deen, a lawyer, is the founder and head of the Muslim Women’s Speakers Bureau, an organization whose representatives advocate for interfaith alliances, human rights, civil rights, and gender equality, and fight against hatred, as well as facile assumptions about what other people are likely to believe.
Ms. Ali is an educator and the president of the American Muslim and Multifaith Empowerment Council; both Ms. Deen and Ms. Zubair are on the group’s executive board.
“My colleague and I have been working on antisemitism on the ground for many years,” she said. “We feel that it has become poisonous, and it is eating up our democracy. We have to be vocal about it, because it completely ruins our values.
“We started the Muslim Women Speakers Bureau in 2009, and formalized it in 2011,” Ms. Deen said. “We’ve become global. We’re very committed to our goal. We know that politics outside the United States are affecting us — we see that very clearly — and we talk about women’s rights and about religious freedom. We want to make sure that we have it here, and we have it in the countries we come from.
Ms. Zubair is a journalist who has written a history of Pakistan. “I was a California farmer, and then I became a peacemaker,” she said.
All three women are practicing Muslims.
They are speaking out about antisemitism now because “since October 7, antisemitism has been very high,” Ms. Deen said. “I talk to people, and I tell them, hate is ugly. Whether it’s hating Jews, hating Chinese, hating Black people, hating anyone is a very uncultured, not smart thing to do. You want to look good. You wear designer clothing. But hate is ugly.”
Sometimes that hatred is aimed at her and her group. “Some people came after me, because we supported families of the October 7 victims. We went to a kibbutz after October 7 — we were the first Muslim women’s group to do that. We went to stand against the sexual violence that happened then.”
The Western media has not reported the sexual violence that was part of that terrible day. “And what happened to the feminist groups?” Ms. Deen asked. “This should be a big deal for women. I worked on the #MeToo movement in Orange County” — California, where she lives — “on a grassroots level.
“We live in the United States. It’s a modern country, a democracy, and we have so much freedom, but why isn’t anyone picking up on the violence against women on October 7?”
All three women are South Asian, and that’s an important part of their worldview, they all said. The Muslim world is far from monolithic, and that’s true not only on a global level but even in the United States.
Many if not most Americans assume that Muslim is somehow synonymous with Arab, but it is not, they said.
“We want to interrupt the narrative of the Arabs, because it’s very divisive,” Ms. Deen said. “It’s focused on Palestine only. We are focused on our country and our communities.
“The Jewish people have stood by us, and they have taught us what it is to be philanthropic. They have taught us to be a community, and how to be civic-minded.
“We are Muslim women who have worked to challenge the status quo.”
“We have watched the rise of antisemitism in our mosques and other institutions, and we’re calling it out now as Muslim women,” Ms. Ali said. “We are standing up to the patriarchy, which is also very Arab-dominated. They use women as token representatives, and those women have to toe the line.
“And their narratives are antisemitic and anti-Israel.” They’re also often funded by Arab money, funneled through Egypt and Kuwait, she added.
“When we started speaking up, the Arab patriarchy came after us, and so we decided that we cannot work with the largest Muslim civil rights organizations. They are male-dominated, and the men have their own fixed agenda.
“We have come to America to live as good, pious Muslims.”
Neither hatred in general nor antisemitism in particular “is on the agenda of South Asians,” Ms. Ali continued. “We are largely moderate. We come from countries where women have been leaders. It’s very important for us to speak out, because they” — their ideological opponents from other parts of the American Muslim world — “have taken our kids’ generation, South Asian kids who have never been to Palestine or Gaza, who don’t even known about the conflicts between India, Pakistan, and Kashmir.
“But they are learning to hate the Jews and go against Israel. We want to claim our children back from those antisemites, those people we call the Islamists.”
To be clear, there is a big difference between Islam and Islamism, and between Muslims and Islamists. Islam is a religion, like Judaism and Christianity; Islamism is a political ideology.
“We want to take our mosques back,” Ms. Ali continued. “We want our imams to stand up against Jewish hate. We want them to stand with us as women leaders. But we can’t find an imam today who will say that.
“If you are a real Muslim, you cannot hate the Jews,” Ms. Deen said. “You cannot hate the Christians. Heck, you can’t hate anybody if you are real Muslim. But no man coming from a mosque is able to say that without being ostracized.
“If we support Israel, then we’re told that we’re not real Muslim,” Ms. Ali said. “But as mothers, we have to speak up.
She’s from Bangladesh, Ms. Deen said; her maternal great-grandfather was a prominent imam there, under British rule, and so was her grandfather. Her roots there go back at least 350 years. But it’s not a legacy of hate.
If it were, she said, she wouldn’t be friends with Ms. Ali, whose family is from Pakistan. But they are.
As practicing Muslims, they know not to hate, and particularly not to hate practitioners of the other Abrahamic faiths, Judaism and Christianity, Ms. Zubair said.
“I feel this is a leadership moment, not only for the Jewish people, but for Muslims, for Christians, for everybody,” she continued. “We can all do something. We have to do something.
“We went to Poland for the March of the Living, and when we came back, we did some webinars on Holocaust education.
“I feel we have to all do something toward a vision that we hold that is a better world for all of us, our children, our grandchildren. This is a leadership moment for everyone. We all have to do something. Not just anything, but strategic action.”
We talked, on Zoom, before Hamas murdered the six Israeli hostages. Ms. Deen and Ms. Ali posted their reactions online
“Let the murder of these innocent lives be remembered with tears,” Ms. Deen tweeted on X, along with a list of each of their names. “Let the Muslim world wake up in shame, as they defend Hamas, at the cost of selling the soul of #Islam.”
Ms. Ali posted a longer message. This is part of it:
“I mourn for Hersh.
“And for all those innocent lives taken on October 7 and beyond by Hamas.
“If America really wanted to bring them all home, America could’ve been harder on Hamas, those supporting the terrorists like @UNRWA @antonioguterres @UNHumanRights @unwomenchief who refused to acknowledge the attacks and rape. The audacity of this organization and its heads to do this to us as American citizens while living on a lush lifestyle from our taxpayer money is pathetic.
“These people need to be defunded and asked to resign. They are breeding ground and a recruiting ground for operatives in the United States.
“America needs to show the world what it does when its citizens and allies are butchered.
“I want that kind of a leader.”
Who: Anila Ali, Soraya Deen, and Zeba Zubair
What: Will speak in Visionary Voices: The Scott Pazer Memorial Speaker Series
When: On Sunday, September 22, at 7pm
Where: Information to be provided after registration
For more information and to register: Email Laura Freeman at LauraF@jfnnj.org
How much: It’s free
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