NEW YORK CITY, November 22—Following the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Muslim workers around the country were targets of racist violence. Thousands were rounded up, jailed, and tortured by the government. In response, a local church began a yearly tradition of holding a “Children of Abraham dinner” in which Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists, and others share dinner and vow to unite across religious lines. Every year, the dinner seems to get larger and we greet each other as old friends. As people entered the hall this year, they were welcomed, as they are every year, with delicious medjool dates, cheese and crackers and hummus on every table. The meal was halal in honor of our Muslim sisters and brothers.
Racist Violence in Yemen
One speaker was a member of the communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) who works for an immigrant rights organization. She described the racist situation in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and its allies have conducted daily bombing raids and imposed a blockade of ports that prevent food and medicine from reaching people who desperately need both. Tens of thousands of the working class have died, millions face famine, and over 900,000 suffer from cholera.
And none of this would be happening were it not for the billions of dollars of weapons sold by the U.S. government to Saudi Arabia. Both the Obama and Trump administrations are responsible for this anti-worker catastrophe. The speaker said her Yemeni friends had told her about the desperate conditions in their country. The room was silent. Then, money was collected to help relief efforts in Yemen and tentative plans made to have a rally at the Saudi consulate.
Working-Class Unity
The evening began with blessings, one from the sheikh of the local mosque and the other from a church minister. Dinner was served and working people from different faiths sat, ate, and talked together. After dinner a popular folk singer regaled us with two wonderful songs of unity and caring. Then a number of people spoke about different aspects of the struggle for unity in country whose political leadership pushes division and suspicion.
A speaker from a sister church in California talked about their efforts to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants. A leader of a local mosque spoke of how these dinners gave his community the courage to begin inviting people from other faith traditions to a yearly Iftar at the mosque. An Iftar is the evening meal to break the fast of the month of Ramadan. Many people from local synagogues and churches have attended this Iftar, including several of our church members. Another speaker talked of his joy at having his grandson at the dinner, and how he taught his grandson how important it is to give leadership and continuity to the struggle for multiracial unity.
The speeches were a mix of religious and political. Both emphasized the need for solidarity in a world where people often feel alone and helpless, dealing with the many problems that capitalism creates. And we’re not alone. In addition to the woman who talked about Yemen, another speaker told of how the entire Middle East is being turned upside down—with civil wars, aerial bombings, homelessness, hunger and disease—because the masters of wealth only care about controlling oil supplies, and couldn’t care less about the people there.
Our dinner demonstrated the opposite: solidarity among people and organizing for a better world. We distribute CHALLENGE to a number of the people who attended the dinner and helped organize church events opposing racism, mass incarceration and attacks on immigrants.