Ayman Bajnaid, a native of Saudi Arabia and a student at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, had never seen the inside of a synagogue before Monday.
But he went to Congregation Shalom that night to attend the second in a series of four interfaith forums about different Milwaukee religious communities’ views of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
“I heard about this meeting at Friday prayers. I was interested to see what was going on,” he said.
He said such meetings “have big importance because interfaith tolerance is a good thing.” Bajnaid said he planned to submit an article about the forum to the Saudi Arabian newspaper, Okaz.
This may be one sign that a purpose of the series — sponsored by the Milwaukee Association for Interfaith Relations, a program of the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee — is being achieved.
The series is titled “Interfaith Conversations: Community in a Time of Crisis.” Judy Longdin, chair of MAIR, inaugurated the first of the four forums on Oct. 11 at the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.
“Rarely has [the need for] religious pluralism been as profound as at this moment in time,” she said.
According to the Interfaith Conference’s invitational flyer for the series, members of religious communities “desire peace and indeed are committed to peace . People of faith do not necessarily agree about the causes of and responses to these horrific acts. We do, however, have the rich resources of our respective faith traditions from which to draw and contribute to the common good.”
Speakers at the first forum included Jody Hirsh, director of Judaic education at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center; Othman Atta, Islamic Society of Milwaukee vice president; Rev. Tonen O’Connor, Milwaukee Zen Center resident priest; and Father Bryan Massingale, professor of moral theology at St. Francis Seminary (Catholic).
Panelists answered the following prepared questions:
• “What does your tradition say about violence and the taking of innocent lives?”
• “Within your tradition what is the range of acceptable responses to such violence? That is, what does your tradition teach about responding to violence?”
• “How do our histories and our faith traditions inform our responses to the present situation?”
• “What do our traditions say to us about working together for the common good?”
After each panelist spoke, the audience of about 200 posed written questions that were collected and presented to the panel. Many of the questions were directed to Atta, in keeping with what Kathy Heilbronner, assistant director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations said is a general “heightened interest in Islam, a desire to learn about Islam.”
Atta emphasized that Islam views life as “sacred” and that taking human life is “a grave sin” according to Islam. Based on Atta’s interpretation of Islam and his quotations from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, the attacks on Sept. 11 would appear to be un-Islamic.
However, Atta did state that Muslims may wage war if “there are people being oppressed” or if they are “under occupation.”
None of the panelists touched on alleged causes of the attack, and the forum skirted political topics.
The second forum was held Monday at Shalom. Panelists included Rabbi Ronald Shapiro, spiritual leader of Shalom; Mary Ann Neevel, a minister in the United Church of Christ; Atta; and Harpreet Singh, public relations coordinator for the Sikh Religious Society of Wisconsin.
The same questions were posed and the audience of about 90 people again asked questions. Grassroots interfaith dialogues followed both forums when members of various faiths met over coffee and sweets.
The third forum was held at Bahai’i Faith-Milwaukee on Thursday. The last will be held at St. John Vianney Parish in Brookfield on Sunday, 7 p.m.
The forums are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, 276-9050.
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