Call to prayer . . . and tolerance

October 3, 2006 - 8:10 PM by

mosque
I have no clever way to introduce the following posts/ideas, except that it seems to me that lately there has been a higher-than-usual amount of discussion among Jewish bloggers and friends of mine about the Muslim call to prayer. One of the daily realities of living in a country that allows freedom of religion and has a large Muslim population is that Jews hear the Muslim call to prayer at all hours of the day or night. And it is loud. I wrote about how beautiful and moving it is here . . .

Here is what the Kotel is like at 4:30 am: The sky is dark, but the Wall plaza is lit up by stadium lighting. Approximately 20 women are already there, whispering prayers from their siddurim. The mosque on the Temple Mount is blasting a solemn call for prayer, music that sounds at least 600 years old, and while I know how much many Jews resent the presence of the mosque, I find that the music sets a very appropriate atmosphere for concentration and prayer. Two men in staff t-shirts are on the women’s side, sweeping the floor. When they are done, they bring a hose and jet-spray the plaza clean. A few prayer-filled notes which have fluttered down from the wall trail away in the water and are swept up with a few empty water bottles and a soda can. The women shift their chairs in order to avoid getting wet.

but . . . well, it’s LOUD. I can tell you that when I am up at 4 am (which happens often; insomnia), I can hear the call to prayer from the mosque on the Temple Mount — which is about 3 miles away from me.

Just a couple weeks ago, Israeli police arrested a Jewish man who blew a shofar on Rosh Hashanah at “the small Kotel,” a patch of the Western Wall in the Old City’s Muslim Quarter:

The worshipers said that the police had apparently been called by an Arab woman who said the sound of the ram’s horn disturbed her children.

A Jewish resident of the Old City told Arutz-7, “How ironic. The loud Arab weddings and nightly prayers by the muazzin [over a powerful loudspeaker] at 4:30 AM disturb our sleep every night.” Similar complaints are heard from Jews living near Arab villages in Judea and Samaria.

Meanwhile, I was taking a bi-weekly class at a women’s religious studies institution, in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood with a mixed Jewish-Muslim population. It happens that the lecture began just a few minutes before a morning call to prayer from a local mosque. The rabbi teaching the class, a highly respected and well-known Jewish religious leader, stopped each time, cocked his head, and would proceed each time to wax on the theme of prayer, how important it is, how important it is to pray with meaning and fervor . . . and once, he said that we Jews have much to learn from our Muslim neighbors about praying with passion.

Meanwhile, blogger Sarah Smile recently finished building a new home on the outskirts of a Jewish settlement on the pre- and post- 1967 borders, and has encountered a new problem:

But I can’t sleep!

Call me whatever you want, but I’m really starting to lose my patience with my Arab neighbors!

They feel the need to call for prayer at 3, 4 and 5 AM AS LOUD AS THEIR SPEAKERS CAN GO!!!

I have now turned to sleeping with earplugs, but even they don’t work!

It’s too nice to have the air conditioning running, but with the windows open to catch the nice breeze…

I don’t sleep!

WHY?? Why do they have to call SO LOUD?!?

And, WestBankMama observes, without commentary, the juxtaposition of the call to prayer from a local mosques with the sounds of fervent prayers from a synagogue on Yom Kippur:

My fast went pretty well this year. I usually start to get lightheaded about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and spend the last few hours of Yom Kippur in bed. This year I was able to sit on the couch and read a bit, and the last hour of the fast I sat outside in my front yard and enjoyed watching the sun go down (I can’t concentrate enough to pray, but I do reflect). My settlement, like most in the Shomron (Samaria) is on a hilltop. Sound carries pretty well, so at the exact minute that the sun set I heard the Muslim muezzin in not one, but two nearby Arab villages, call out his call to Muslims to pray. I would guess that this prayer marks the end of the daily Ramadan fast this month. The prayer call lasted about ten or fifteen minutes, and as it ended, I was able to hear the prayers from our nearby synagogue. The last Avinu Malkenu (Our Father, Our King) is usually belted out loud enough to shake the rafters, and I was able to hear it clearly from my front yard. I thought this set of events was pretty cool – another reason why I love living where I do.

I can’t help but notice that a common thread through all these experiences and blog posts is that Jews, no matter how religious they are, no matter how right wing they are, and no matter how inconvencienced they are, do not seem inclined to demand that Muslims stop their public calls to prayer. There is an understanding that no matter how absolutely annoying and frustrating the noise may be, it is part of a people’s religious service and therefore must be tolerated — or even learned from.

Which is why the incident on Rosh Hashanah – in which Jews were prevented from making a little noise during their own prayer services, ostensibly because certain neighbors could not tolerate it, and because our own police force seems more sensitive to protecting others’ freedom of religion than to protecting their own, just burns me up.

Tags: • Category: General, Holidays, Life, Politics 

Comments

5 Comments on Call to prayer . . . and tolerance

  1. David on Wed, Oct 4th 2006 1:41 AM

    2. The discrimination against the Jews is part of the intellectual morass that has swept the world.

    Multiculturalism, sacrifice of Western values, materialism considered to be a primary value and of course the application of the Just War Theory which is the most abominable.

    JWT ethics were protested recently by rabbis after the Lebanon incursion – it still riles me when I remember the 13 Israeli soldiers sacrificed in Jenin and the families ought to sue the government.

    The solution? Apply the law equitably. How can this discrimination be allowed in a country that supposedly respects the right to free expression? How? Pressure your government representatives – otherwise vote them out!

  2. Lena on Wed, Oct 4th 2006 6:25 PM

    3. I have had the call to prayer awaken me many times at 5 AM in Jerusalem – once from the roof of a hostel in the Old City that I was sleeping on – and honestly, I can say that I love it. I took some classes in Middle Eastern music in college, and have some experience playing traditional Arabic songs and modes, and for me, to hear the call to prayer in the Middle East and not on a video or audiotape is really something.

  3. yuyu on Wed, Oct 4th 2006 7:16 PM

    4. As my home in Jaffa is located somewhere in between several mosques (Nouzha, Hasan Arafe, Mahmudiye, the “Sea Mosque” and the Al Ajami mosque) i hear the call for prayer, 5 times a day in true “surround” sound and i love it.
    When i’ve been away for a few days it is one of those things that symbolize “home” in a subtle and pleasing way. Wheen i’m away from home i miss it.

  4. Balabusta in Blue Jeans on Sat, Oct 7th 2006 10:51 PM

    5. David, while I think it’s darn disturbing that someone can be arrested for blowing a shofar on Rosh Hashanah, I take exception to the notion that multiculturalism and materialism are causing the problem. Was Jewish religious practice given any respect before multiculturalism and materialism, either in the east or west?

  5. Mooeckonelly Justice Sitabi on Sun, Jul 27th 2008 8:50 PM

    6. advantages of weekly prayer

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