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Local News
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12/1/2002 10:18:48 AM
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Holidays connect faiths
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Jews, Muslims plan a joint celebration
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Tom Giffey
Leader-Telegram Staff
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If You Go
What: Celebration of Ramadan and Hanukkah.
When: Wednesday, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Where: Menomonee Room, Davies Center, UW-Eau Claire.
Who: Sponsored by the Jewish Student Association, the Islamic Center
and Mosque, Temple Sholom, UW-Eau Claire’s Student Activities and
Programs, and the Center for International Education.
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A coincidence of the calendar will bring adherents of two major
faiths together next week in Eau Claire to celebrate very different holidays.
Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month, and Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, have little obvious connection. Ramadan is a time
of fasting, prayer and charity; Hanukkah is an eight-day commemoration of the rededication of Jerusalem’s temple more than
2,000 years ago.
But this year they overlap, giving local Jewish and Muslim leaders a golden opportunity to share their traditions with each other
and the community.
The joint celebration will begin at 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Menomonee Room of the Davies Center at UW-Eau Claire.
“It will be educational, (but) it’s a celebration, not a lecture,” explained Helaine Minkus, president of Temple Sholom, an Eau Claire
synagogue. Minkus is planning the event in cooperation with members of the Islamic Center and Mosque in Altoona.
The celebration also is intended for those who aren’t Jewish or Muslim, Minkus said, since these religions often are overlooked
amid political rhetoric that the United States is a “Christian nation.”
“I want them to be aware that our society is diverse,” she said.
The evening will begin with traditional food because Muslims will be breaking their sunup-to-sundown fast, said Mahmoud
Taman of Chippewa Falls, an elder at the mosque.
“We will explain what Ramadan is and what we do. … There will be some music and songs for Ramadan,” Taman said.
The event also will include dancing and lanterns, which Taman said Muslim children in some parts of the world carry from house
to house during Ramadan looking for treats.
Muslims believe Allah began revealing their holy book, the Quran, to the prophet Mohammed during Ramadan. Because it is a
lunar month, Ramadan moves in relation to the solar-based calendar used in the United States. This year it began on Nov. 6 and
will end Friday.
Hanukkah also moves around the calendar: It began at sundown Friday and ends next Saturday. Minkus estimates it will be
another 30 years before the holidays overlap again.
Minkus and Taman both know bloodshed between Jews and Muslims in the Middle East taints U.S. views of the religions’
relationship. However, they insist, the conflict isn’t one of faith.
“This is political; it has nothing to do with the religions,” Taman said of the violence in Palestine.
Islam and Judaism have much in common, he said, including a belief in patriarchs like Abraham and Moses.
With their emphasis on community and faith as a way of life, Islam and Judaism probably have more in common with each other
than either does with Christianity, added Minkus, who is also an associate professor of anthropology at UW-Eau Claire.
But Minkus has no delusions that Wednesday’s celebration will ease the tensions that cause violence in the Holy Land.
“We’re not trying to accomplish anything political,” she explained. “I think what we’re trying to show is that Muslims, Jews and
Christians can get along and appreciated each other’s religions.”
Hannah Stander, a UW-Eau Claire freshman and member of the Jewish Student Association, is looking forward to taking part in the
celebration.
“Otherwise I’d really be homesick. It’s really nice to be able to get together with people” for Hanukkah, said Stander, of
St. Paul.
Stander knows what it’s like to celebrate holidays that the nation’s Christian majority doesn’t recognize or know much about,
something she says she has in common with Muslims.
“That’s why I think it’s so nice that we’re celebrating together,” she said.
“Human beings are human beings,” Taman added, “and we need to respect each other’s religion and support each other.”
Giffey can be reached at 833-9205, (800) 236-7077 or tom.giffey@ecpc.com
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