Symposium on Jewish-Muslim Entanglements

With emerging societal divisions and reshaped university policies on academic freedom, inclusivity, and dialogue, Jewish and Muslim students, faculty, and staff are facing increasing polarization, hostility, and institutional challenges. This symposium seeks to reframe these tensions by exploring the deep, intertwined histories of Jewish and Muslim communities—histories marked by both collaboration and conflict. By drawing on these shared pasts, we aim to develop strategies that foster inclusivity, combat racism, and reduce ethnic and religious intolerance in academic spaces. 


The symposium will consist of four sessions that focus on Judeo-Muslim Entanglements in the Middle Ages; Jewish-Muslim Life in the Present; Interrogating Islamophobia, Anti-Semitism, and Anti-Blackness; and Zionism and the Christian Right. The papers presented in the symposium will be developed into short book chapters that will be published as an edited volume (anticipated as a contribution to the "Darom: Global Self-Perspectives in Jewish Studies" series at Wayne State University Press). The editors will be Mostafa Hussein, Bryan K. Roby, Adi Saleem, and Rebecca Wollenberg.



A Religious Embrace: Daʿwa & Kiruv in Difficult Times

Available Seats 11
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Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery
Shaykh Abdullah Al-Mahmudi and Rabbi Alana Alpert

Daʿwa, a gentle invitation to understand Islam, is a parallel term to kiruv, which means to bring Jews closer to the Divine. While the two terms invite members of a religious community to come closer as a community in an embrace of God, the political atmosphere threatens to create further divisiveness, exploiting rifts within and between Jewish and Muslim communities. October events and the war on Gaza have deeply affected Jews and Muslims living in the US. For decades, members of both communities have felt impacted by the conflict in Palestine-Israel and, in some cases, turn to their religious spaces in search of guidance and comfort. These developments have placed a burden on Muslim and Jewish communal leaders who find themselves swarmed by questions, pressures, and demands from their constituencies to aid them in this perilous time. Religious leaders have navigated competing demands in complex ways, relating their communities’ differing religious and political outlooks, while also facing the particular difficulty of engaging with members of communities other than their own. In their interactions with the wider society, they have sought to build bridges of allyship and solidarity, often realizing their objectives only through compromises and exchanges that secured support from other communities rallying for their cause. Yet in a divisive atmosphere where no one is immune from criticism and surveillance, they have also faced significant censure for exercising free speech and for serving not only their own communities, but American society at large.


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