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Tales of transformation emerge at Muslim-Jewish storytelling slam

The lights dimmed at the Pico Union Project, an interfaith space just across the 110 Freeway from downtown, and Aziza Hasan climbed onstage.
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November 22, 2016

The lights dimmed at the Pico Union Project, an interfaith space just across the 110 Freeway from downtown, and Aziza Hasan climbed onstage. The pews in the historic former church and onetime home of Sinai Temple were packed with nearly 300 people. It was standing room only.

The organization that Hasan leads, NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, is built around members of both religions sharing their experiences to foster mutual understanding. So the evening’s event cut to the heart of her mission.

One by one, Muslim and Jewish storytellers climbed onto the empty stage, lit by a multicolored spotlight, to speak from the heart about transformative experiences in their lives.

“If you really want to soften people’s hearts, you can’t call them bullies, you can’t call them names,” Hasan said. “You actually have to listen.”

“Awww,” came a sarcastic cry of protest from the crowd, as in, “Awww, do we have to?” A wave of chuckles rose from the audience. Hasan smiled and pressed on.

But listen they did, to stories of mental illness, family strife and inner turmoil. The program was planned long before this month’s presidential election, but in the wake of Donald Trump’s upset victory — alluded to frequently but never mentioned directly — the evening’s message seemed to strike close to home.

 “We have to do the really hard work of figuring out how we’re going to make it through this moment together,” Hasan said. “And so tonight I hope that every single one of us can rise to the occasion.”

The evening’s theme was “Transformations,” and the audience was treated to a range of transformative experiences: external, internal, personal, communal and otherwise. Below are three of those stories. 

Umar A. Hakim: ‘My Appointment’

In his nine years working as a cable technician in Los Angeles, Umar A. Hakim normally got New Year’s Eve off. But on Dec. 31, 1997, his supervisors (or, depending on how you look at it, fate) intervened. So he headed out early for his first appointment, to the home of woman named Rebecca Smith.

 “To my surprise, Rebecca Smith answered the door in a full hijab, covered,” he said.

He quickly fixed the problem (“put the TV on [channel] 3”) and was preparing to leave when, by chance, he caught sight of it: a framed picture of the so-called “prophetic family,” the holy men recognized by Islam as God’s messengers, from Adam to Moses to Muhammad.

 “I asked the sister to explain the picture to me. She said, ‘We are all family under one God,’ ” he recalled.

Hakim had been raised in the Episcopal Church as an acolyte and altar boy, but his curiosity was piqued. The woman handed him a copy of the Quran. It would be the first book he had read since sixth grade.

After that, Hakim visited “Sister Rebecca” frequently to ask her about the precepts of Islam and to discuss his beliefs. Soon, she asked him if he was ready to take the shahada.

 “I was like, ‘sha-who?” he said to laughs from the audience.

She explained it was the declaration of faith that constitutes conversion of Islam. He said he was ready — but first, he had to get something out of his system.

 “I gathered my then-family, which was my oldest son and my mom, and I told them, ‘I’m going to embrace Islam,’ ” he said. “But the thing I had to get out of my system was the pepperoni and sausage pizza we had for dinner. There’s been no pork since then.”

Eliana Kaya: ‘That of Which We Do Not Speak’

“Most people don’t even know I have a father,” Eliana Kaya began. “They don’t ask, we don’t tell. Ever since I was small, the way he raged, the way he lay in bed for hours, for days, thinking.”

In both the Israeli and observant Jewish communities, mental illness was not a topic that was easily broached.

“Still, he suffers,” she said. “Still, he struggles. And we don’t talk about it.”

During one visit to her father’s apartment, he told her he’d been reprimanded by his rabbi for doing the one thing that brought him peace: praying loudly during dawn prayers, with great joy and enthusiasm. 

Enraged and needing somebody to talk with, Kaya’s instinct was to call two Muslim friends. An interfaith organizer, she was used to talking about difficult subjects with them.

 “I didn’t have words,” Kaya said. “I could barely breathe. I was trembling with rage. My friends listened. They wept with me.”

Since then, she’s become more open about her father’s illness. Of late, she’s taken to spending more time with him.

One day, after seeing him a number of times in a couple of weeks, she asked him, “Aren’t you sick of me yet?”

He looked up from the shakshuka they were preparing together and answered, “I haven’t even begun to enjoy you.”

Henry Wudl: ‘My Rules’

Henry Wudl’s decision to begin keeping kosher put him in an awkward position. He had always liked participating when his mother cooked, but since his decision, that dynamic had changed.

 “You see, I’m Jewish and my mother is not,” he said. “That means I can’t eat her food. Those are the rules. Food a non-Jew cooks is not kosher, unless a Jew supervises.”

So, at 17, he was no longer participating — he was supervising. He knew this was uncomfortable for his mother, but those rules were important.

 “Without those rules, my stories don’t matter,” he said. “Without those rules, I’m not a real Jew. Without those rules, I’m just an average American teenager. Blah!”

The situation soon became untenable. One day, he came home to Los Angeles on vacation from college to find his mom had been using his kosher pots and pans to cook non-kosher food. A confrontation ensued. His parents issued an ultimatum: This has to stop, or you can no longer stay with us.

Back at college, he immersed himself in studying religious philosophy as he pondered his dilemma. He came across a line from Maimonides that struck him: “We don’t pay attention to the damage done to a person on account of the Torah’s decrees.”

 “Damage. He says following the Torah can do damage,” Wudl said. “I won’t be welcome in my parents’ home because of following the Torah — my parents who I love and who love me. This is not for my own good.”

The day came when Wudl was to return home from college for good. He slipped into his home a day early, hoping to surprise his parents. His found his mother in the kitchen with a freshly broiled chicken — an non-kosher chicken. He took a strip from the chicken’s thigh and ate it.

 “It was good,” he said. “It was really good.

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