Dialogue International

By Katjusa Cisar Correspondent for The Capital Times

The first step to world peace is sharing some couscous pilaf and cracking a joke or two about soccer teams.

That’s the main thrust behind Dialogue International, the organization that sponsored an interfaith dinner and discussion Tuesday night at Hillel, the Jewish center on the UW campus. A group of Turkish Muslim graduate students started Dialogue International shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, with a goal of fostering cultural understanding and debunking religious stereotypes through social events.

It’s a chance for Jews and Muslims to throw off the political hat and simply be social together. “It’s not a conversation about conflict or about the Middle East,” said Joel Bennett, director of engagement at Hillel.

The evening started with presentations about the monthlong Muslim observance of Ramadan and the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot, which both follow the lunar calendar and happen to coincide this year.

About 40 people huddled under an overhang in front of the Langdon Street center to hear Hillel’s Rabbi Andrea Steinberger explain Sukkot. Rain pelted down and seeped through the flimsy roof of Hillel’s “sukkah” - a temporary structure that harks back to the kind of dwellings ancient Israelites built hastily during their exodus from Egypt.

“There’s nothing more powerful on Sukkot than rain. It reminds us of our smallness in the universe. We have to be very aware of the fragility of life,” said Steinberger. She passed around a bundle of branches (palm, myrtle and willow) and a pair of etrog, a gnarly and bumpy fruit, cousin to the lemon. Like the Thanksgiving meal, these plants together represent a full harvest.

Back inside, Fikrullah Kisa of Dialogue International gave a Powerpoint presentation on Ramadan. For a month every year, Muslims fast during daylight hours to develop self-restraint and deepen faith.

“It will help us to realize that we cannot only have bodies,” he said.

The two holidays share many themes. Like Sukkot, Ramadan is a reminder of the people in the world who are hungry or don’t have what they need to live.

“We both have the same intentions, we just give them different names,” said Shlomi Nahumson, Hillel’s Israel program coordinator.

After watching a YouTube video of the Muslim call to prayer paired with images of mosques, everyone tucked in to a homemade potluck provided by the members of Dialogue International.

It was Mustafa Kilinc’s first meal of the day, since he ate before sunrise. The industrial engineering Ph.D. student gets up at 4 a.m. every day during Ramadan and makes himself a meal. A native of Turkey, he’s been in Madison 21 days, 20 of which have been Ramadan fasting days.

Sitting next to Kilinc was an agnostic Israeli named Alex Hazanov, a graduate student in Russian history who says he’s been here 50 days. He asked Kilinc about fasting, then about his hometown in Turkey and the soccer team there.

Not all attendees were Jewish or Muslim. A couple blond heads stood out, including Aaron Kocha, a 25-year-old freshman and Catholic from Green Bay. He’s been fascinated with Middle Eastern culture since grade school. Seeing “Lawrence of Arabia” in middle school sealed the deal, he said. He’s also been learning Urdu as a member of Army Reserve and anticipates he’ll be sent to Afghanistan because of his language skills.

Dialogue International is planning more interfaith dinners and events in the upcoming weeks, and on Oct. 10, the Lutheran Campus Center, 325 N. Mills St., will host a dinner at 5:30 p.m. To find out more, e-mail info@dialogue-international.org.

Reference:

• JEWS, MUSLIMS SHARE FOOD HOLIDAYS AT UW’S HILLEL FOSTERING PEACE THROUGH POTLUCKS By Katjusa Cisar [The Capital Times]