- Tonight, how faith can be a catalyst for dialogue, empathy, and understanding.

With violence and hatred deeply affecting our Jewish American and Palestinian American communities, we open up the floor to two faith leaders, an imam and a rabbi, whose life work has been coalition building.

A special "MetroFocus" starts right now.

[rousing music] [rousing music continues] - [Announcer] This is "MetroFocus" with Raphael Pi Roman, Jack Ford, and Jenna Flanagan.

"MetroFocus" is made possible by: Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism, The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, and by: Jody and John Arnhold, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, Estate of Roland Karlen, Charlotte and David Ackert, Tiger Baron Foundation, Nancy and Morris W. Offit, Josh Weston.

- Good evening and welcome to "MetroFocus."

I'm Jack Ford.

The brutal conflict in Israel and Gaza has shaken us all.

Thousands of people have lost their lives with no end in sight.

The war has strained friendships, divided families, and riled communities and college campuses.

Emotions and fears are running high.

With so much polarization, it's become difficult for people to have an open discussion about what is happening in Israel and Gaza, as well as what's happening closer to home in our own communities.

We know there are many hard questions and no easy solutions, but we can start tonight with a conversation.

Joining me now then for that conversation as part of our exploring hate initiative on the roots and rise of antisemitism, racism and extremism are Imam Deen Shareef and Rabbi Matthew Gewirtz.

Gentlemen, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

Let me start our conversation with some notions of the idea of what the conversation should look like, should sound like, what the topic should be.

But perhaps the best way to start is to focus on the question of when these conversations should take place.

As I mentioned in the introduction, this is the destruction, the death is ongoing.

There are suggestions certainly that it not only will continue, but might even become more destructive.

So rabbi, I've heard you talk about this before, so I will start with you here.

When is the time and better question, I guess, is now the time to begin having these conversations?

- You know, we always learn in interfaith work that the worst thing you can do is to have a conversation about, of all things the Middle East, even before this war without having relationship.

So on one hand, one of the really wonderful things about the relationship that Imam Shareef and I happen to have is that we've been in connection in sacred work together, Deen, probably 15 years now, 17 years, a long, long time as I like to boast, because it means a lot to me.

My youngest is 14 and a half, and Deen co-officiated at her naming ceremony, gave her a prayer that comes from his tradition so we really have been connected and we've traveled to Israel and to the Palestinian Territories, Palestine, depending on how you look at it.

So we have a long relationship.

And I would say even with that, this has really been hard for us because it's incredibly personal, it's incredibly deep, and we're both in a lot of pain.

So I said this to him actually on television a few weeks ago.

I needed about four weeks, which is the traditional period of mourning for Jews.

It's called Shloshim.

So we're about at that and I feel raw, I don't feel particularly ready, but I don't know when ready ever is so I guess it is time.

- When you say you don't know when ready ever is, I'm reminded of the title of a book by the writer, Primo Levi, where the title is, "If Not Now, When?"

So imam, how about from your perspective, when is the time to start these conversations?

- I think it's past the time to have the conversation, actually, because part of the reason why we're in the situation that we're in today is because conversations like this perhaps did not take place.

And I think it's important for us to have the conversation now because of the critical situation that human lives happen to be in.

If we're not having the conversation, then who's gonna have the conversation?

And I think the reality is that Matthew and I both represent religions that are supposed to be promoting peace.

And in the middle of a situation where you have violence and you have war and you have death, someone needs to talk about how to establish a conversation that leads to peace.

Someone needs to talk about a conversation that reminds people about their humanity and what human life should look like.

The reality is that what we are seeing taking place in Israel and Palestine right now is not a reflection of what a human society should be.

And we need to remind people about what a human society to look like, even in the midst of controversy, even in the midst where there are political conflicts, there has to be at least some reminder that is given to people about the boundaries that must be kept in order for civilized life to be maintained.

- Talk a little bit about the conversation that the two of you have had then.

Give us some sort of framework.

As you're both faith leaders, what you do is engage in conversations with people around you.

It's not what everybody does in this world, sadly.

So explain a little bit, and rabbi, I'll ask you first, you talked about you needed time.

What is the conversation now between the two of you sound like?

- Well, you know, it's interesting that of all stations, PBS, the first time we ever appeared on television together with our brother and very dear friend, Bishop Mark Beckwith, an Episcopalian, now retired bishop.

And we had a conversation about redemption and revelation.

Religious leaders talk about a New Jersey transit train home.

And 45 minutes just talked with such sense of being eager to understand what the other had to say.

And two things I wanna say.

One is that what we realized then is that we didn't have to make believe, pretend that we were closer than we were, that our differences could actually bring us closer.

The second thing that I'll never forget, is a woman got off the train and apologized to us and said, "I've been eavesdropping for the last 45 minutes and I apologize, I've just never heard a Christian, a Jew and a Muslim talk so openly with each other."

So I'm skirting a little bit here because that's about redemption and revelation.

This conversation has to be had with real truths.

And the problem is is that we're such different narratives right now that it's really hard to reset the parameters.

What happened 30 days ago was so violent and there's a history of violence for sure, but that one day just was so traumatic for the Jewish people that day, October 7th, that it's been really hard to restart that conversation without the residual anger, trauma, fear, agitation, and sadness that comes along with it.

- I think the challenge for me is that I have been hearing the pain of the Palestinian people for perhaps most of the time I've been serving as imam, and I've been serving as imam close to 40 years.

So the conversation for me is that this particular occupation or oppression in the words that are being used to me, is something that has lasted for 75 years.

So when we see the emergence of the catastrophes that took place on October 7th, and now the catastrophes that are continuing to happen in the Gaza Strip, my view is that religious leaders, whether they be Jewish, Muslim, Christian, or even from any other faith, we have to sit down and we have to talk about what are the religious obligations that we have in order for us to address the situation and then give that guidance that is necessary in order for people who may not necessarily be connected to the religious advice that comes from scripture.

And they may have forgotten in many instances what that scripture is actually instructing them to do.

Because sometimes in the midst of desperation, people forget about what it is that they say they believe, and they're only acting on their emotional responses.

So we have to be the kind of leaders that ultimately remind people that yes, unfortunately in history there's going to be war and there's going to be conflict, but God has also set some parameters for how that conflict is supposed to be waged.

And God has set some boundaries as to what we as enemies should actually even be inflicting upon each other.

And one of those things should really be reminding people about the innocent lives of people should be something that we always bear in mind, is something that we should always hold as precious and we should always try and avoid those lives being lost.

- You mentioned an an interesting aspect here, and that is the faith leaders and the role of faith leaders over generations with regard to the this issue now.

I think most people agree, the political leaders have failed in getting each generation to understand and to work towards resolution.

Have we seen faith leaders also then fail in terms of each generation and teaching them, and imam, the things you have mentioned, the values of your particular religion, how they can intersect with others.

You know, the very tragic irony of humankind has been that religion, that great uniting force, has also been the great dividing and most destructive force in humankind history.

So has there been a falling down on the part of faith leaders here?

Rabbi you first, what do you think?

Rabbi?

- I'm sorry, I thought you were going to Deen first.

I'll speak for myself.

Not all faith leaders.

Well, I'll start by saying yes, I think that faith leaders have sometimes when they institute what I would call unhealthy religion, blind fundamentalism, blind faith, literalism, can really be very dangerous to people not understanding that life evolves and we evolve with it.

As a rabbi I would also say that I really thought that the, I'm just gonna talk about the Jewish people, that the hatred of Jewish people had really diminished greatly.

And the unbelievable uptick of antisemitism in this country has made my congregants, I have 5,000 individuals that I serve, and I would say 99.9% of them are full of dread and full of fear in ways that I've never experienced.

But what do you do about getting back into conversation when you actually wonder and worry about if people actually see you as a legitimate child of God, given what my religion is and how people seem to be treating us.

We got very, very little support after the initial attacks of October 7th.

And I think it made all of us stop and say, "Is there hatred even amongst our team?"

And so I'm really worried these days on that front.

- I agree with Matthew.

I think the faith leaders have not fulfilled the obligation that we have to remind people about what God says in the scripture that we say we follow.

And of course, the conversation has been dominated by the political voices and the voices of faith leaders have been kind of drowned out.

So I think it's important for us, Rabbi Gewirtz, myself, other pastors who are part of the Christian faith, it's important for us to have a conversation that reminds people about what does God say about how to treat your enemy?

I know there's a quote that is written that Muhammad the prophet, prayers and peace be upon him said, that you have to temper your love for one another because the person that you love may become the person that you hate.

And you have to temper your hatred for another person because the person that you hate may become the one that you love.

So these are the kind of words that I think are important for us to give to people so that they will always try and struggle to maintain a balance.

I understand that anger is prevalent today.

The reality is that when I hear the Palestinian people that are part of the community that I'm a part of, and they look at what is happening in Gaza and they see 10,000 people that have died and of those 10,000 people, roughly about 4,000 are children, and then they tell me that their families, they have 15, 20, 25 members of their family in Gaza who have died within the last several weeks, that to me is something that we have to find a way, not only to provide some sympathy for them, but also to give them a sense of understanding that these days are limited, war is going to end.

The question is when the war ends, where do you go from there?

- So rabbi, let's talk about what these conversations might sound like, what they might look like, most important perhaps, how they get started because we have been barraged, if you will, literally and figuratively, by the optics of this and by the optics of death and destruction.

So how do we then get past the optics of death and destruction to the words that you both have talked about, the words of our various religious communities that talk about love and moving past hatred, especially when you're looking at that.

And so rabbi, I'll say specifically to you, saw a report in the New York Times today about an interview with a leader of Hamas who has acknowledged that their purpose was extraordinary destruction and loss of life, civilian life, Israeli civilian life, and even Palestinian civilian life.

And the point, this what Hamas leader said, was to reestablish Hamas to get them back, if you will, on the radar screen and also to reestablish the notion of, Hamas as we know has been the governing body of Gaza, but to reestablish, this is according to them, his words, the notion of Hamas is there as a military force whose purpose is to destroy the state of Israel.

How then can you sit down, rabbi, with people in your community and get them to engage in a conversation when they're seeing these pictures and they're hearing these statements?

- I read the same chilling article this morning and the way you just laid it out, you really narrated that well.

And just know that every time those words are used, it chills my spirit.

So how do you lay it out?

I think what you have to do is, I would say this to my college students who are experiencing unprecedented antisemitism on campuses.

I'll even say I was in Israel last week and as I was talking to people who were literally in that fight down in the south a month ago, and they said, "By the way, we're as worried about you as you are about us."

And I said, "What are you talking about?"

And they said, "Don't you have a son at college?"

And I said, "I do."

He said, "The way we feel is he's on the front lines also."

So that's how kids feel these days.

But I think if I were to sit down, which I guess I am right now with Deen, I would say to him, "Do you believe in the legitimate right of the Jewish people to have a national homeland in Israel?"

And I know him well enough to say yes.

And then he would say to me, "Do you believe in the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to have a national homeland?"

And I do.

So Judaism believes in dichotomy.

Everything is about holding two different truths at once.

And why can't we sit down and say that each of our peoples are entitled to a national homeland and we also agree that terrorism and people who act in fundamentalist ways should not be able to be part of the political arena, that they wanna destroy what Deen and I are talking about, the possibility of peace.

And in the 1990s when Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat were very close, really close to a final deal, what was Hamas?

That's when they were developed, they'd come into Israel and they would blow buses up randomly.

And slowly but surely, they start to push people all into the fringes.

And the question is, can we leave the fringes to themselves and take the 70% in the middle and actually have conversations that do have different narratives, that do have different truths, but do respect and believe in the idea that each of us should have legitimate homelands?

And by the way, Deen, I've said this to you before, after all, we don't own the land, but God does.

So who do we think we are to be the ones who are making each other bleed over it?

But we have to, and this is harsh rhetoric.

We have to somehow eradicate any organization that wants to inflict that kind of terror to allow people in the middle to have conversations that you're suggesting, Jack.

- So imam, how do you do that?

And I'll let you get that in one second, but initially, the perception amongst many is that Hamas is Palestinians and Palestinians are Hamas.

We know that's not true intellectually, but how do you, if you are gonna sit down and talk to somebody from Matthew's community, how do you approach that to get people to understand that everybody in Gaza does not believe in the absolute destruction of the state of Israel?

- Well, I think first people need to know that Hamas is not Palestinian in terms of understanding that all Palestinians are not supportive of Hamas.

That's not just an intellectual statement, that's an actual statement that I know is coming from members of the Palestinian community, they're part of the Muslim community that I'm a part of.

They tell me that Hamas doesn't necessarily speak for all of the Palestinian people.

So we need to understand that just because a person is in power doesn't necessarily mean that the citizens that come under that authority are in support of the power in which they administer.

For example, I know that the Israeli government, in terms of the Zionist government that is there, all of the Israelis don't support what that government is doing.

And I know that for a fact.

So the reality is that when someone is in power, it doesn't necessarily reflect what the people are sensing and what the people want to take place.

So we have to begin to kind of filter out some of the psychological warfare, because believe me, there's more than a warfare of physical bombs and physical military, there's a psychological warfare that has taken place as well to affect the minds of people and in some instances paint a picture of inhumanity on one side so that inhumane things can be done to that people.

Now Jack, you need to know that also, I come from a background.

I'm not from the Middle East.

I'm an ancestor of African American people who were stolen from the shores of Africa and brought here in chains and dehumanized to the point where even in our documentation it was noted that we were three fifths of a human being.

So those statements are not statements that are just out there in the air.

When you hear people talking about the Palestinians being human animals, how does that affect the minds of people who ultimately have to view them as their neighbor?

- Right.

And this goes back to what we say oftentimes, words have have consequences.

What we say, the words we use.

I've got about three minutes left here.

And you know, I would be delighted to talk with you two gentlemen for days about this.

But I'd like to leave our viewers with a quick thought from each of you as to where we go next.

How do we engage, how do we get past the anger and the fear and the optics to actually have a conversation with people who are from the other communities?

So Matthew, you first, if I could.

Again, I hate to limit you guys to such a short time, but I just wanna leave with a thought from each of you.

- Jack, first of all, thank you because on TV, which this doesn't often happen, this is the first time in a month that I've heard someone say out loud that Hamas is not Palestine, Palestine is not Hamas.

It's a very important starting point from the Jewish people to hear that from someone who's leading a Muslim community.

So Deen, thank you.

It really is important to hear and I heard everything you said also.

The Jewish view of faith in Hebrew is very different than in English.

In English, faith is a noun, not a verb.

In Hebrew, it's a verb.

So if you break down its etymological roots, it means belief plus doubt equals faith.

So for me, faith is not about blind belief.

It's about that I believe with all my heart and all my spirit, that not just Deen, who I've known forever, but that there are Palestinian leaders who, if they can separate themselves from the terrorist organizations, are just like you and me and like Deen who wanna make peace with each other.

And yet, I doubt sometimes that it's true given what's happened over the last month.

And somehow we can come to each other in good faith as grownups and as people who are willing to hold two truths at once and in this case, belief and doubt.

And then I think in that rawness and that vulnerability, we can have conversations that are gonna be incredibly hard, but if we put our seat belts on and refuse to leave the tables, I believe that with God at the win at our backs, we can actually start to have conversations and it began right here.

This is the first one I've had in 30 days.

- Imam, your thoughts?

- I think the first thing we have to do is we have to cease the violence.

We have to cease the bombing and we have to bring people to the point where they now feel some sense of security with respect to where they are.

That is the first thing that I believe has to happen.

The bombing has to stop, the violence has to stop, and we have to bring humanitarian aid to those millions of people that are suffering as a result of the violence that has taken place.

Once you bring people to the table where they feel as though that their lives are not in the midst of chaos and confusion, then you can have a civilized conversation about where to go from here.

I agree that our faith should be the fundamental component that begins to bring light into the darkness that we're facing.

However, what's happening in the midst of what is taking place, people are not thinking about their faiths.

They're thinking about everything other than those things that are gonna be guiding them into the kind of path that they should be following.

So when you start thinking about people that are doing the wrong things, they're doing the wrong things because they are responding to their emotions and are not responding to their faith.

And we have to bring people back to the reminder of what their faith is saying so that they can be guided by that.

- I think as you both say, we need to find some light to pierce this darkness.

And I wanna thank both of you for sharing in this conversation and for underscoring how important having conversations will be moving forward.

You've both brought a thoughtful approach to this and a thought provoking approach to these difficult issues.

Thanks for tuning in to "MetroFocus."

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- [Announcer] Metro Focus is made possible by: Sylvia A. and Simon B. Poyta Programming Endowment to Fight Antisemitism, The Peter G. Peterson and Joan Ganz Cooney Fund, Filomen M. D'Agostino Foundation, Barbara Hope Zuckerberg, and by: Jody and John Arnhold, Bernard and Denise Schwartz, Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation, The Ambrose Monell Foundation, estate of Roland Karlen, Charlotte and David Ackert, Tiger Baron Foundation, Nancy and Morris W. Offit, Josh Weston.

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