Reflections on JCUA Rabbinical Student Fellow Placement at IMAN
Summer, 2006
Adam Stein
This summer, Adam Stein was the first Rabbinical Student Intern at IMAN. His Tuesday/Thursday placement at IMAN was a part of the Rabbinical Student Summer Fellowship at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs, a 40-year-old Chicago organization that works to combat poverty and racism in the inner city. IMAN and JCUA have found that they have similar missions and goals around working for social justice and have increasingly collaborated; this fellowship placement is the latest development in a growing relationship. Below are some of Adam’s reflections on his experience:
“I have had a summer full of growth and learning at IMAN, the Inner City Muslim Action Network. I felt some tension and anxiety before the summer, as a kippah/yarmulke-wearing Jew, coming from a year of study in Jerusalem, to being the rabbinical student intern at a Muslim organization in the Southwest side of Chicago. I thought, “what if they don’t like me or accept me? What if they don’t like that I spent time in Israel this past year? I calmed myself by realizing that if this organization works with JCUA and asked to have a rabbinical student intern, of course they’ll be happy to have me and will welcome me.
I was correct. From my first day here, I have been welcomed with open arms. On that first day, I heard all about IMAN from my new friends Reza and Aaliyah, saw the current building, the new site, the mosque/food pantry, and had open, engaging conversations about Judaism, Islam, and our many, many similarities. I cannot count the times this summer in which I have heard Reza, Aaliyah, or Rami say something about a custom or law in the Islamic tradition, and immediately shouted out the direct parallel in Judaism. Words like tzedakah/sadaqa that are so similar in Hebrew and Arabic and have meanings that are almost completely the same. I pray three times a day, they pray five times a day. We both are forbidden from eating pig, and have to eat cow and chicken that is slaughtered ritually, driving us to eat vegetarian in restaurants when dining out. Rami once explained that there is a dynamic relationship between Allah’s attributes of Justice and Mercy, and I told him we have the exact same concept in Judaism.
It has been heartening and inspiring to learn so much about Islam, and how much brings us together as Muslims and Jews, throughout my summer here. In particular, I have learned that there is a community of Muslims who have a drive to do social justice that is strikingly similar to the forces behind the work of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. “
