Water and Milk: Sarah Kahn Speaks on Confronting Islamophobia

By: Sam Levy

We tend to only focus on what separates people, whether it be religion, race, or political belief. We tend to forget that those things do not represent the whole person.

This past Friday we were honored to listen to Sarah Kahn’s story. Sarah Kahn is an Indian born Muslim who has experienced religious turmoil her whole life. She spoke about her journey as a public speaker and her mentors that inspired her, whilst focusing on the idea of religious pluralism, the belief that all religions can coexist within one functioning society. Both Sarah’s mentors were practicing Jews, and even though at first it seemed like they would never get along, Sarah found that there were more similarities between her and her mentors than there were differences.

Sarah Kahn spoke about Islamophobia and the discussion surrounding it in the current media. She said that similar to how we only report when planes crash, not when they take off and land safely, the media only focuses on the negative aspects of the Muslim community. If someone was to get their information solely from the news, their view of Muslims would be one of terror and evil. Comparable to how a tumor is just a small group of malignant cells within a whole body of functioning cells, extremists are a small portion of evil within a large mass of good.

We must be like water and milk, that blend easily. We cannot be like water and oil.

We can not separate ourselves from a group just because we do not understand them. It is crucial that we learn to communicate with those who we see as “the other.”  Without communication all signs of humanity are lost, and we will only see more hatred and more war.

As Jewish students, it is important for us to be educated about other religions and to stand up for those who have been marginalized due to stereotypes. Judaism is a religion that has been hated and criticized for hundreds of years, and we are aware of the horrors that can come from typecasts and hatred. It is vital that we do not make the same mistakes.

You can hate someone who is Muslim, but you cannot hate someone BECAUSE they are Muslim.