Breaking a Stereotype

Here's a story that's just in time for both Rosh Hashonah and ‘Id al-Fitr: "Virginia Synagogue Doubles as Mosque for Ramadan." The story is from Ha'aretz dated yesterday. Northern Virginia, where I live, is increasingly a mosaic of nationalities, but it seems that when the All-Dulles Area Muslim Society needed more room for Ramadan, the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation volunteered the space.

As the story notes:

On Friday afternoons, the people coming to pray at this building take off their shoes, unfurl rugs to kneel on and pray in Arabic. The ones that come Friday evenings put on yarmulkes, light candles and pray in Hebrew.

The building is a synagogue on a tree-lined street in suburban Virginia, but for the past few weeks - during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan - it has also been doubling daily as a mosque. Synagogue members suggested their building after hearing the Muslim congregation was looking to rent a place for overflow crowds.

"People look to the Jewish-Muslim relationship as conflict," said All Dulles Area Muslim Society Imam Mohamed Magid, saying it's usually disputes between the two groups in the Middle East that make news. "Here is a story that shatters the stereotype."

Encouraging news that two congregations can separate themselves from events in the Middle East to practice a bit of communal charity. It's a Reform Synagogue, of course, but the Muslim Imam is Sudanese.

And I can't help but wonder what John Foster Dulles and Alan Dulles would have thought of the name All-Dulles Area Muslim Society. (The area takes its name from the airport, which was named for John Foster Dulles.) (UPDATED: Perhaps I should clarify that the Dulles brothers came from an old-line Presbyterian, very Calvinist background. Their reputations may be long forgotten by the younger generations.)