Calgary Jewish and Muslim communities team up for joint Shabbat-Iftar dinner at synagogue

A joint Shabbat-Iftar dinner was held Friday night at Temple B'nai Tikvah in southwest Calgary connecting the local Jewish and Muslim communities.

A unique gathering brought together Calgary’s Jewish and Muslim communities Friday night.

A southwest temple hosted its second annual shabbat Iftar program.

Shabbat is Hebrew for the sabbath -- which takes place Friday night to Saturday night. Iftar is a festive meal that concludes each day of fasting for Muslims during Ramadan.

So, the Jewish and Muslim communities gathered for prayer, followed by a festive meal.

Last year’s event was a hit for both communities.

“A little more than a year ago, I got a call from my friend Fatih Sazjin from the Intercultural Dialogue Institute, and he reminded me that during the holy month of Ramadan in Islam, every day’s fast concludes with an Iftar dinner, a festive meal,” said Temple B’nai Tikvah Rabbi Mark Glickman.

“So he called me a little more than a year ago, he said, ‘This year we want to do an interfaith Iftar, and we’d love to do it at Temple B’nai Tikvah.

“And I said, ‘Great, let’s do it on a Friday night. Your community will come here and join us for our Friday night worship service, and then we’ll join you for the Iftar festive meal.

“We had the program last year. It was a huge success, and we’re so excited to do it again as we welcome our friends from the Intercultural Dialogue Institute back, as well as so many other people from the community.

“We had people from different religious communities gather together to worship together, to dine together with some delicious food, and to get to know one another and learn from and about one another,” Glickman added.

“When the guests left the hall, they just reminded us something and they said, please keep going because this is what we need,” said Sazjin.

Organizers said the event was a special gathering to help build bridges rather than build walls of separation.

“What we need is to break that walls and just try to find new channels for communication, and these, you know, channels are not built through social media or other, let’s say tools,” said Sazjim. “The only thing is that if you sit together with people from different faith groups, then you start to understand each other.

“So it’s really important for the Calgarians, because the message coming from this event is that okay, we are able to sit together, we are able to listen to each other, we are able to understand each other -- and building bridges is easier than creating new conflicts.”

Glickman praised the Muslim love of language.

“I’ve always been in awe of the Islamic passion for words, about how Muslims study words and dissect words and try to turn to the words of their sacred tradition and learn all kinds of truths from them,” he said. “We Jews learned that from our Muslim friends, and it has led to to me being able to plumb the depths of my own religious tradition for all kinds of different truths.

“And I’m grateful to Islam for having that gift -- the gift of a love for words -- to Judaism.”

Sazjin said attending Shabbat reminded him of the Jewish passion for family.

“Mainly when I think of the Jewish faith, the importance of family and the unity of family is the thing that I really admire,” he said. “And again, when we sit together, we learn lots of things from each other.”

Sazjin also emphasized that events such as Friday’s intercultural gathering are more necessary than ever.

“As an Intercultural Dialogue Institute, we believe that interfaith dialogue is not luxury, it is a must,” he said. “It is what we really need.

“Because, you know, closing doors and then behind the closed doors, cursing each other is the easiest way, but it brings nothing to the community, to the society, to the world in general,” he added.

“And nowadays, you know, we are living in a polarized world, so what we need is to be open to the other.”