Jews and Muslims, learning to live together

Mehrba Kahn is dependent on his hands. As a barber, he makes his living with them.

But they're also his tools to help explain why his Brooklyn neighborhood – a bustling 10 square blocks where more Orthodox Jews and Muslims live closely together than in almost any other place in the country – works so well as a community. That, despite the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and heightened tensions in the Middle East.

"See these hands?" asks Mr. Kahn at his shop on Coney Island Avenue. "The Jews, the Christians, the Muslims here, they're like these fingers: They work together because they have to. We're all connected."

Called Midwood, this is a place where Jewish and Muslim women shop side by side, wearing slightly different head coverings but often pushing the same brand of strollers. Admittedly, the community is sometimes tense. But through work, dedication, and a tacit agreement to disagree, it has, on the whole, remained productive and peaceful.

Indeed, many people here hope that their success can provide a model for a workable peace in the Middle East. "This could really be a good example for coexistence between the Palestinians and Jews back home," says Ghassan Daoud, a Palestinian with family in Nablus on the West Bank. "I'm not suggesting they have to live in one state – there can be two states. But we need peace. We need to talk to each other. We need to learn about each other and really understand each other's needs and respect them."

The cooperation that sowed the seeds of respect among the neighborhood's well-tended rows of single-family homes started in earnest two years ago, when the current unrest in the Middle East first kicked up. Several attacks, clearly related to the other side of the world, sent a chill through both Jewish and Muslim leaders in the community. They decided they needed to keep the violence in the Middle East from spilling into their own neighborhood. So they held a meeting, which spurred several more, and eventually the process grew into a series of ongoing joint projects – from educational outreach to healthcare initiatives.

"It's by these modalities that the long-term trust and relationships are clearly defined and maintained," says Rabbi Bob Kaplan, the director of intergroup relations and community concerns at the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. "We talk to each other on a constant basis, so it doesn't fall into complacency. It has real substance to it."

Elana Grossman, an Orthodox Jew standing in line with her young daughter at the post office, believes that civility and simple courtesy also play an important role in making Midwood work.

"I see people all of the time giving information, opening the door for someone. That really helps a lot," she says. "Of course, we don't have the warlike conditions that are over in the Middle East, which makes it easier. And we're financially better off, and that contributes to less tension as well."

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