Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers broke bread together, united in faith and enduring tradition.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is [for us all to] come together, share our food and sit around the table. Show off this beautiful, peaceful event,\u201d Sarah Unal, a Muslim New Yorker, said.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side held its Shabbat service Friday night, followed by its annual Interfaith Iftar
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Guests learned about the observance of Ramadan and the traditions surrounding the meal
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The gathering comes amid ongoing violence in the Middle East and one day after a man drove into a Michigan synagogue<\/p>\n
She broke her fast at the Interfaith Iftar at Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side on Friday night.<\/p>\n
After Shabbat services, the synagogue held its annual Interfaith Iftar \u2014 the daily meal Muslims have at sunset to break their fast during Ramadan.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause of all the unrest in the world and all the tension, particularly in New York City, I think these interfaith events would be very helpful in rectifying this. People should really get together and understand each other\u2019s culture,\u201d Dave Rosenberg, a Jewish New Yorker who attended the event, said.<\/p>\n
Dozens participated in prayer before sitting side-by-side at the dinner table.<\/p>\n
Guests learned about the observance of Ramadan and the traditions surrounding the meal.<\/p>\n
Temple Emanu-El said the goal of this event is to bring Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities together.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvents like these signal a message of unity and the message that we don\u2019t need to import the conflicts that are taking place elsewhere in the world into our lives and relationships,\u201d Rabbi Joshua Davidson said.<\/p>\n
The gathering comes one day after federal officials say an armed man rammed his vehicle into one of the country\u2019s largest Reform synagogues near Detroit, Michigan.<\/p>\n
This, as the United States and Israeli governments ramp up their attacks in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
New Yorkers told NY1 that this ongoing violence weighs heavily on their hearts and minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to several wars, and [war is] not the answer. I believe this is the answer,\u201d Samuel Wanderer, a member of Temple Emanu-El, said.<\/p>\n
At a time when there is so much divisiveness, these New Yorkers pray events like these will create a ripple effect and forge deeper understanding and compassion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis small event seems small, but if you can do this event successfully with one another, it means it can be copied for other people too,\u201d Amar Unal, a Muslim New Yorker who attended the Iftar, said. \u201cSo, we always promote events like this and we always tell our friends to do stuff like this. It\u2019s possible. So we\u2019re proving that it\u2019s possible. With Jewish people, with Christian people, with Muslims together, it\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Temple Emanu-El plans to host the event again next year to honor the enduring relationship between the Muslim and Jewish faiths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jewish and Muslim New Yorkers broke bread together, united in faith and enduring tradition. \u201cThe most important thing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[25,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,332,7675,27],"class_list":["post-163039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-top-stories","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-rebecca-greenberg","tag-religion","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}