To bigotry, no sanction

The recent controversy over the Islamic cultural center in downtown Manhattan has shed harsh new light on stereotypes that many Americans have about Muslims and Islam. In recent months, these negative sentiments have given rise to frightening manifestations of intolerance and hatred that contradict our country’s core values of religious freedom and mutual respect. As members of the executive board of Columbia/Barnard Hillel, we are troubled by what appears to be a growing trend of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States and concerned about the implications of this trend for the free and democratic society our nation strives to maintain.

When the subtle prejudices that sometimes pervade public discourse are not directed at you and your family, it is easy to consider them irrelevant. But the threatened burning of Qur’ans in Florida and the obstruction of new mosque projects throughout the country are not just stories you read about online and in the paper. Incidents like these are the reality confronting our nation’s flourishing Muslim communities. More broadly, they are reflections on the state of civil rights and religious freedom in the United States, and they resonate with deep historical relevance, particularly in the Jewish community.

On Aug. 17, 1790, George Washington sent a letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., reiterating a core tenent of American jurisprudence: the principle of religious freedom. Washington firmly declared, “To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”

As citizens of this country, we have the right to live without fear of discrimination. It was only one generation ago that the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple, a synagogue in Atlanta, was bombed because of its congregants’ outspoken support of the civil rights movement. Synagogues, cemeteries, and even Columbia University public bathrooms continue to be defaced by symbols of hate to this day. The lessons of our history demand that we strive to advance the security and equality of other religious and cultural minorities. Regardless of your views on the location, funding, or other issues concerning Park51, invective speech, discrimination, and prejudicial acts are never acceptable.

As residents of New York City and as students at a university with diverse and active religious and cultural life, we are in a unique position to present a united front against Islamophobia in America. Our strong Muslim and Jewish communities have worked together in the past to foster understanding and kinship among their members. Now is the time to put those lessons into action. It is imperative that our campus oppose discrimination in all its forms and stand in solidarity with the Muslim community. Our task as a student body is manifold: to educate ourselves about current events affecting religious communities, to participate in interfaith dialogue, and perhaps most importantly, to actively and vocally combat prejudice wherever it may be found.

Two hundred and twenty years after President Washington’s statement, we must reclaim and revive his words and defy any expression of intolerance on our campus, across New York City, and in our home communities.

Aviva Buechler is a senior at Barnard College majoring in history and is the president of Hillel. Emily Winograd is a junior at Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary majoring in sociology and Bible and is the interfaith/intercultural coordinator of Hillel. The views expressed in this piece are representative of those of the Hillel Executive Board.