(bright music) - Welcome to "At Issue."

I'm H. Wayne Wilson.

Thank you, as always, for joining us.

Last week on "At Issue," we talked about the LGBTQ+ community and some of the issues facing that group.

We're going to have a similar conversation this time, except it's going to be on a religious basis.

We're going to be talking about crimes against Jewish and Islamic faiths.

And to have that conversation, I've invited Dr. Bashir Ali Imam.

Dr. Bashir Ali, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- [Wayne] Also with us Imam Osama Alrefai.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you.

- [Wayne] And Rabbi, thank you for being with us.

Rabbi Bryna Milkow from Congregation Anshai Emeth.

- Good to be here, thank you.

- We appreciate all three of you being here for the conversation.

Let me start by just suggesting to you that in looking at the hate crimes and things of that nature that the two faiths that are most commonly at the top of the list are the Jewish faith and the Islamic faith.

And is this a case, do you believe, and this isn't new, but are people not understanding the faith, Bashir?

Is that the case and that's why they spew hatred?

- Well, hate crimes aren't new in America.

We've had a history of hate crimes in the entire time of our American experience.

Most recently, we've had to focus on the Jewish community, obviously, and the Muslim community because of some current events.

However, that progression, we hope and pray, that as we talk more about it, as we discuss things, as we get to know our neighbors, get to know each other as human beings and see our natural human connections, that those things will decrease and diminish over time.

- To Bashir's point, since 9/11, the hate crimes against Islamic faith has grown fivefold since 9/11.

That is not surprising to you?

- No, honestly speaking, it's not really surprising.

Although at some point, I would be a little bit shocked about it, because of the diversity that we have here in the United States.

You would hope and expect that that rise in these Islamophobic incidents would not go that high.

However, I think there's still more to it that needs to be addressed, more understanding of the neighbors, of the friends, of the coworkers that we still lag behind.

- I wanna reflect back, and this is several years ago, but in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tree of Life, 11 dead, six injured, I believe in a shooting.

And that's not the exception, really.

We've seen that too often.

Is there a message that you can deliver to encourage people to say that there's a misunderstanding, and we need to talk more, we need to be more united rather than have someone go off on their own?

- Well, the Pittsburgh is obviously so tragic.

I had just left Pittsburgh a few months before that.

And one of the things that we were doing at that time is the community hired a security director, and he had gone to all of the congregations and really working on security.

And I think that it's a dual attack.

We have to work at making sure our communities are safe.

And once we feel safe, then I think it's reaching out.

And, (sighs) I wish I could say that people that hate, it's just that they don't understand, because that makes it, there's a rational way of approaching this.

If it's just about understanding, then it's a rational issue, and education is gonna be, and conversation will be the remedy for it.

But honestly, I think that hatred goes beyond a rational feeling, and I think that there is so many causes in our society today, but it's not new to our society.

This country was founded because of religious hatred.

And this was supposed to be a safe haven from religious hatred.

And, of course, that never happened.

So rather than saying people don't understand our religions, of course, I want them to respect our religions.

They don't even have to understand as long as they respect our religions and our right to have a different religion than they do, I'm okay, (laughs) I'm okay with that.

But I think the roots of hatred go beyond a misunderstanding.

They go to people who feel disempowered, who feel that the only way that they can...

I'm not an expert on hatred, but the people that hate feel that it is the only way that the world can work, and that's where I think we also need to address that.

And I think dealing with issues of poverty, of healthcare, all of these other things perhaps will also help people realize that there is enough in this land.

When people feel that they don't have enough, they wanna keep everything they have, but when you go about having a mindset of abundance, then there's enough for everyone.

And if there's enough for everyone, then I think there's also enough understanding to go around as well.

And that might go one or two steps toward having more peaceful relations.

- Bashir, I'd like you to follow up on that from your perspective in terms of misunderstanding and with social media, et cetera, is there a hope that we can start to find common ground?

- Well, America was founded on an ideal, multiple concepts, equality under God and equality under law.

It recognized and enshrined freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

And one of the phrases, obviously in the Constitution, is "toward a more perfect union."

Unfortunately, the reality that we've been experiencing in our history is that there are people that believe in the ideal and have worked toward that ideal.

And they know it's an ideal, it's an aspiration, and they put their mind in that mode.

Others firmly believe in marginalizing or dehumanizing others in order for them to survive, or for them to prosper, or for them to be in power, and those are two different mindsets.

And unfortunately, it's hard to reconcile those mindsets sometimes, but you have to promote the other one.

You have to promote the ideal, the aspiration, the goodness, the connections, and people have to actively promote that and stand on it and do what they can to diminish or not give legitimacy to the marginalization and dehumanization.

- [Bryna] I agree, yeah, thank you.

- I would even go further.

I'm a very optimistic person.

I don't look at the glass half empty.

I always look at the glass half full.

And I feel that without hope, we will not be able to survive.

So definitely, there is hope that people will change.

It would take time.

It would be painful.

Looking at the experience of the African American community with all of the struggles that they have gone through, looking at the struggles that the Jewish community had here in the United States, yes, we will prevail at the end.

The understanding, the common understanding, the respect will prevail.

It will be painful, but I do believe that we will prevail.

- I agree with you.

We have to have hope.

And, as religious leaders, we have to help other people find that hope as well.

All is not lost.

And, the way that we behave toward our congregants, toward others, the exemplars that we are demonstrate that hope.

- And faith traditions are based upon aspiration.

And our challenge is to model that aspiration.

We should be the models of that aspiration, the models of that hope.

- And part of that is in our faith we have Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is a day in which we look at our shortcomings, all the places where we've missed the mark, and starting to adjust our aim, so that we're closer in truer alignment to what our goals are.

And I think that that's important for our individual life, for my Jewish community, but also, for the work and the relationship we have with the broader community.

Where are we missing the mark, and how do we have a better path toward that hopeful goal that we all share of being able to be together like we are right now in a room and as humans, as religious professionals, without worrying about the politics and without worrying about the way that it will be perceived by others.

And this is a start.

- Let me ask, as religious leaders, and you've made reference to this, have you taken a firm enough stance in trying to combat hatred, especially against Jewish and Islamic faith?

Or, is there a fine line between being a religious leader and speaking out against hatred?

Or, how difficult do you find that?

Have you spoken out enough, Bashir?

- I was one of the original members- - [Wayne] Aside from this program.

- Yeah, no, it's a part of your life, it's who you are.

It can't be something added on.

You have to believe it.

You have to live it.

I've been active, I've actually helped part of the original interfaith group here in Peoria and helped develop that movement that reached out across the faith traditions and tried to support each other and affirm each other and to validate each other, been part of many interfaith programs.

But it's more than that.

You have to live it.

You have to exemplify it in your life.

- It cannot be just statements.

It has to go beyond just statements.

It needs to be an action.

I think actions speak louder than words.

I had one of my coworkers, who his son was telling him, "Dad, I can't hear you, "'cause your actions are louder than your words."

So it is very important for us to live it, not just speak about it.

Statements are not gonna be sufficient.

What it is, it has to be the actions.

They will speak much louder.

And that's never ending.

I believe that we will always fall short, 'cause it's a moving target.

We have to keep improving ourselves.

If I just set a goal for myself, this is my goal and that's it.

- And I also feel that yes, we have to live as exemplars of what it is that our religion teaches us.

However, I don't want to base my pastoral care, my rabbinate, on combating hate, because if I make hate as a major topic of how I work, then again, I don't have room for understanding and love, and I'd much rather work on creating connections within my community as well as outside of it.

I'd rather, as you talk about being helpful, my personal philosophy is I'm going to talk about all the ways in which humans can come together.

I'm going to talk about the hope.

I'm gonna talk about the connections we have, rather than looking at how other people define us and the other groups that have hate.

Now, having said that, I work very hard to make sure that my community is safe.

We take a lot of measures to make sure that our building is safe, the people that come into our building are safe, because if we don't have that basic level of safety, nothing else is gonna happen, and it's the same thing with individuals.

If individuals don't feel like they have a safe place, then as individuals, they're gonna be looking for that at the expense of others at times, not always.

- And even fear might feed into hatred, directly or indirectly, it is going to feed, so if the places of worship are not secure enough, then the worshipers themselves will not feel comfortable to practice their faith.

They don't feel comfortable to practice their faith.

They gotta distance themselves away, but the hatred is not gonna get any better, it's just gonna get worse.

- Well, I don't know if you have this, sorry, did I interrupt you?

- Oh no, I'm not interrupting anybody.

I like the conversation.

- I find that I am being sometimes overly cautious and more afraid than I would like to be.

So when someone comes to my door at the temple and says, "Gee, I'd like to," someone uninvited and unexpected comes, I'm naturally wary.

If someone comes in who, maybe, this isn't about hatred, but this is about how I'm reacting to different people, which is also at that level.

So if I'm reacting to someone who is neurodivergent, who has poor social skills, that puts me on my guard whether I like it or not, whether I wanna be accepting and affirming of all of humanity and all of the different ways in which people live their lives, but as happened recently, when someone comes to my door with poor social skills who starts asking me a lot of personal questions, I have to first look at is this person a threat to safety?

And I feel uncomfortable doing that, because I would much rather be able to just accept that person as they are.

- [Osama] It is the unfortunate situation.

- It is.

- It is very unfortunate where you have to be very cautious.

- The National Institute of Justice has an app that helps houses of worship safeguard themselves.

Have any of you used the National Institute of Justice app at all?

- No, I haven't used it, honestly speaking.

- The Jewish community has a national organization, Secure Communities Network, and we work with them with Homeland Security and the FBI.

And so, yes, we've had consultants out looking at our property.

We haven't used that, I'm not aware of that app, but the level which we've gone is probably beyond.

We've had individualized assessment and had people out, and it is a now a permanent feature of our congregation - Our nationwide network has worked with the Department of Homeland Security because of that reality.

- And does the Council on American Islamic Relations play a role in that?

- Big time.

- They've been very active, yes.

- And one of the things that I have to acknowledge about CAIR, Council on American-Islamic Relations, is it's not just really for Islamic faith.

It's for all the denominations face and even minority groups.

It does not look at it only by faith.

It looks at it for any minority group that is being targeted.

So, we have a very close relationship with them, and they have provided a lot of training for us.

And I need to acknowledge also the city of Peoria, the police department, the city of Peoria.

- Absolutely.

- Extremely helpful.

They have been very vigilant too.

They have provided us with training, quite a few intensive training.

We have a school on site at one of our centers, and they have come and provided training, lockdown drills, all kind of safety measures that need to be taken.

- Our goal is to have, my goal, is to have active shooting shooter drills and situational awareness, STOP THE BLEED, those safety things twice a year.

The police department came in before the holidays, and then we had someone from Secure Community Network come in, in December, but I think it's something we need to encourage every one of our members to attend, and therefore, I wanna be offering it twice a year.

- And just the fact we're talking about this is a problem.

- Yep, exactly.

- The fact that houses of worship can be assaulted, people can be killed, worshipers can be harmed, that's a problem.

- To that point, Bashir, in 2017, the United States Government directed to seven nations, a ban.

People from those nations could not come into the United States of America.

All seven of them happened to be predominantly of the Islamic faith.

- That is correct.

- And there was a sudden increase in arsons against houses of worship in the Islamic community.

So, actions that were meant to be helpful, at least at the outset, turn into a problem.

- Well, and once again, we have this latent reality in our society in which sometimes when situations occur, people can feed into them, blow them out of proportion, and create an atmosphere in which hate can feel free to roam.

We had bombings, I'm African American, we had bombings in churches in the 1950s and 60s, churches, so this isn't new, it just takes different forms of different times under different circumstances.

- And, on a personal level, your name is Osama.

- Yes.

- We had a past president with the middle name of Hussein.

Does that present a problem?

Have you come up against people who say, "Osama?"

- Yes, it has happened.

In fact, it happened right after 9/11, and it's really engraved in my mind.

I can't forget it.

I was leaving one of the stores, I'm not gonna mention the name of the store here, but as I was leaving the building, he looked at my face without even looking at the name, and he said, "Osama," and I know what he was- - [Wayne] Not knowing your name?

- Not knowing my name.

I'm not from that neighborhood at all.

It was in one of the Chicago suburbs, and I've never been to that store.

So it was my first time ever to be at that store, and as I was leaving, he said, "Osama," and I knew what he was saying, so I had to throw a joke at him.

I said, "How did you know my name?"

And I left it as such.

Quite a few incidents happened because of the way that my wife or my daughters dress up, lots of looks.

You can tell that someone was about to say something or wants to say something, but they just sometimes keep it, but sometimes they reveal it.

- But you can't combat that by arguing with them.

- No, you cannot combat it.

I like to use the example of the prophet and what the Quran says is, "Exchange the evil with good," and once you exchange the evil with good, that's when, and I do believe that there is good in people, you extract the good from people's hearts.

That doesn't mean you need to be afraid, or you need to be subdued to these hatred remarks.

- I'd like to finish with some positive thoughts in 20 or 30 seconds each, starting with Bashir, if you could share a hopeful sign - Here's a story, and I'll be as brief as I can.

Our Islamic center is located in an integrated neighborhood in Peoria, and we have African American and Caucasian neighbors.

Recently, we had a little microaggression at our center.

The whole neighborhood showed support.

They called us.

They came out.

We have a food pantry where we serve about 500 families a year.

We have a education giveaway where we serve about 1400 people.

The whole community rallied to our support.

That's a beautiful sign.

- [Wayne] Bryna?

- I'm going to just say this conversation gives me a lot of hope and the other conversations that I've had with Islamic leaders in Peoria before and with other clergy, just the fact that we are here together, able to discuss what affects us all, and hatred affects all of us, regardless of whether or not we are a religious minority.

- [Wayne] And very briefly, Osama.

- Sure, when you wanna talk to me, let's close our eyes and open our minds, and let us reach a point where, let us agree to disagree.

There's nothing wrong with us to agree to disagree over there.

We have a lot of events that we do for the community, and we are here to stay.

One of them is the free clinic that we have for the disadvantaged people or without health insurance.

- And with that, we'll continue the conversation when the cameras are off, and we hope you continue the conversation at home.

Let me say thank you to Imam Dr. Bashir Ali, and to Rabbi Bryna Milkow, and also to Imam Osama Alrefai.

Thank you, all three.

- [Guests] Thank you.

- And we'll be back next time with another edition of "At Issue," talking to the mayor of the city of Peoria, Rita Ali, and to the city manager, Patrick Urich, issues facing the city of Peoria on the next "At Issue."

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