“It’s Changed Everything”: Interfaith Dialogue in the Wake of October 7, 2023

I sat down for tacos with a colleague in Culver City, California, one early summer’s eve. The conversation was light.   

That is, until it wasn’t.   

Involved with interreligious dialogue at the local, state, national, and intergovernmental level, my acquaintance was concerned about the impact of Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed nearly 1,200 individuals and the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) brutal reprisal against Gaza and its people in the months that followed had done irreparable harm to cause of peacemaking in the U.S.   

The intense, seemingly endless violence and the chilling prospect of a ceasefire without lasting peace, my acquaintance feels, is having a profound emotional, psychological, and practical impact on people who care about connecting across religious, cultural, and political differences.   

“It’s set us back at least 20 years,” they said. Communities that used to connect, colleagues that used to be in conversation, groups that used to meet, and initiatives that used to be shared have all been impacted. “It’s changed everything.”   

As Thomas Banchoff wrote for Commonweal, “the Israel-Hamas war illustrates the fragility of interfaith diplomacy” and dialogue.   

While many said numerous theological, social, and political gains had been made through interreligious engagement in the U.S. and abroad in recent years, the damaging impact of savage violence, polarizing discourse, divisive protests, and tiptoeing around political landmines is a stark reminder of interfaith dialogue’s delicacy and potential limitations.   

Since October 7 last year, the strain between the Jewish and Muslim communities — and beyond — has challenged the ability of interfaith spaces to function as facilitators for positive dialogue, let alone spaces for solidarity.   

While various initiatives can claim decades of leadership in interreligious dialogue and relationships built between leaders and laity from numerous traditions, many have struggled to gather communities during the conflict. 

In various private exchanges, leaders and community members express their frustrations with their community’s lack of speaking out but are unwilling to call out a lack of mutual accountability for what happened and continues to happen.   

This, say practitioners nationwide, has eroded and stifled opportunities for sustainable peace. 

Is Tampa the new Dearborn?

While the city’s Islamic infrastructure is dynamic, the community’s mix of progressive values and social conservatism makes it an outlier in a polarized ideological landscape.

Ashraf “Ash” Ayyash, owner and operator of The Fryer House foodtruck in Temple Terrace, Fla. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

“You’ve got to try The Fryer House,” Aaysha Kapila told me via the Tampa Halal Food Facebook group. “It’s new on the scene, but it’s amazing.” The “scene” in question? Tampa’s market for halal food. And The Fryer House, a food truck that opened in December 2023, is one of the newest on it, offering a fusion of Arab, Asian and American Southern fried chicken — from hot chicken sandwiches to fiery golden tenders to chicken and waffles.

Blending Palestinian spices with Japanese styles and Latin American peppers, the food truck’s owner, Ashraf “Ash” Ayyash, says his brand of “halal hot chicken” has proved a hit. While his customers come from a cross-section of Tampa society, many are Arabs and South Asian Muslims looking for a spicy, sumptuous, halal option for lunch or dinner. During Ramadan, Ayyash said, he cooked thousands of pounds of chicken. At a series of major local events during the month of fasting — Ramadan Suhoor Nights — he averaged 300 pounds per night.

Sitting underneath Ayyash’s menu with its hot, very hot and “pepper x” levels of spiciness, a slim, 30-something Palestinian American named Zyad is snacking on some of Ayyash’s specially seasoned french fries. This, he says, is one of his favorite options in Temple Terrace, a city on the northeast side of Tampa Bay and epicenter of its robust halal food scene. “There’s a Yemeni place down the road, several shawarma options, an Arab grocery store, a Turkish grocery store, bakeries, clothing stores, restaurants, food trucks. The list goes on,” he told New Lines.

“Tampa,” Zyad said, “is like the new Dearborn,” referring to Dearborn, Michigan, the first Arab-majority city in the U.S. and home to the largest mosque in North America.

Though there are no official statistics, estimates of Tampa’s Muslim community range between 5,000 or 6,000 in the Temple Terrace-New Tampa area alone, to upward of 36,000 or as high as 100,000 in the greater Tampa Bay area, which includes St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

Community statistics show an estimated 500,000 Muslims in Florida and over 150 mosques and Islamic centers across the state, from the Keys in the south to Pensacola on the panhandle. And they cut the cross section of Muslim-American society: Almost one-third were born in the U.S., with the remaining 69% coming from places like Pakistan and India, Egypt and Palestine, Guyana and Puerto Rico. The Tampa Bay area is home to tens of thousands of Muslims from over 80 different countries.

Especially around Busch Boulevard and 56th Street, not far from the Busch Gardens amusement park and the main campus of the University of South Florida (USF), Tampa’s Islamic infrastructure is dense, a testament to its rarely recognized, but consistently growing, Muslim community. Not only are numerous mosques and several of the nation’s premier Islamic schools in and around Temple Terrace, but there are also law offices with signs in Arabic and Urdu, numerous halal restaurants, Middle Eastern barber shops, Ramadan decor hanging in shop windows and a large halal slaughterhouse named Musa’s.

Abdullah Jaber at CAIR’s offices in Temple Terrace, Fla. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

“I would estimate around 70% of the businesses in the Temple Terrace area are Muslim-owned,” said Imam Abdullah Jaber, executive director of CAIR Florida, the Sunshine State’s chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil liberties organization whose offices are also in Temple Terrace. “There are Muslims heading the Chamber of Commerce, professors at local universities, dentists, physicians, you name it.”

They are also shaping local, state and national elections with the growing political power that comes with such a presence. But that influence is far from monolithic: The Muslim community’s shifting political crosscurrents and fault lines mean it doesn’t align neatly with either camp in the country’s increasingly polarized landscape. “I think you can be socially conservative and yet be an advocate for social and racial justice,” Jaber told New Lines.

“Maybe that’s impossible with America’s current politics, but I think Tampa is leading the way here. It’s a model for American Muslim life.”

What Al-Aqsa means to Palestinians amidst continued conflict

As a scholar of global Islam, I teach an introduction to Islam course and include a discussion about Al-Aqsa as part of the syllabus. That’s because Al-Aqsa has deep religious significance for Muslims around the world.

But it is also important to highlight its remarkable political relevance for Palestinians.

At the same time, many Israelis believe it to be the holiest site in Judaism. In 2005, the chief rabbinate of Israel said it is forbidden for Jews to walk on the site to avoid accidentally entering the Holy of Holies – the inner sanctum of the Temple, believed to be God’s dwelling place on earth. Nonetheless, certain ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups controversially advocate for greater access and control of the site, seeking to reclaim the historic Temple Mount, in order to rebuild the Temple.

These two facts often make it a focal point for conflict.

Amidst all else happening in the region right now, this “explainer” helps remind readers how Al-Aqsa remains part of the equation, even if it is not currently the center of attention.

Waiting for Justice: for over four years, World Vision employee has remained imprisoned without fair trial

Every day, at least once and sometimes more, Khalil el-Halabi logs on to Twitter and posts pictures, videos, and appeals on behalf of his son Mohammad.

Tagging people he believes might come to his aid—human rights lawyers, politicians, and journalists—he calls for justice and mercy. On January 4, he posted, “To our Israeli neighbours. My son will be brought to court for the 154th time Tuesday facing a charge he has not committed without any credible evidence.”

He closed the tweet with a quote from Amos 5:24: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

Khalil’s son Mohammad el-Halabi is the former Gaza director for World Vision International. He was arrested by Israeli authorities in 2016 on allegations of aiding terrorists by diverting millions of dollars from the evangelical humanitarian aid group to arm militants in Gaza—charges Mohammad el-Halabi, still employed at World Vision as a zonal manager, adamantly denies.

After more than four years, Halabi is still awaiting justice. He hasn’t had the chance to defend himself or even see much of the evidence against him. Human rights experts with the United Nations say Halabi has also been denied access to his lawyer and tortured. His case is causing consternation among politicians and legal experts and has cast a cloud over evangelical organizations doing charitable work in Gaza and the West Bank.