Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

This Canadian Synagogue Invited Muslims To Pray After Their Mosque Was Fire-Bombed

Finally, some heartwarming news.

A Canadian congregation in Ontario to use its synagogue as a place to worship after their mosque was fire-bombed in a suspected hate crime following the Paris attacks.

The attack, which caused an estimated $80,000 worth of damage, rendered Masjid al-Salaam mosque — the only one in Peterborough, Ontario — unusable.

That’s when Larry Gilman, president of the Beth Israel synagogue in Peterborough, stepped in. Gilman quickly called a meeting of the shul’s board of directors, asking them if the Jewish community could share their house of worship with their Muslim neighbors. The vote was unanimous.

“It’s not about religion, it’s not about race,” he told CBS’s Metro Morning. “As Canadians we have to stick together.”

For Kenzu Abdella, president of the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association, that gesture of goodwill meant the world — though he admits it was weird at first. “In the beginning, it was a shock,” he told CBS. “Within 24 hours, that changed. They walked to the mosque and told us that whatever we need, they will support us.”

“We have more similarities than differences,” he added. “We have so much common — the details of worship and the ceremonies. Even the stories we hear are similar. At the end of the day, it’s a house of God.”

The communities gathered for two prayer sessions and a potluck dinner last week, under a banner that read: “Welcome Friends.” According to The Independentt, a fundraiser to restore the mosque raised $100,000, nearly $30,000 more than the organizers first expected.

Though the mosque is expected to be up and running within the next couple of weeks, both Abdella and Gilman have said that this is “the beginning of a long friendship.” In fact, Beth Israel has now joined an interfaith group helping to sponsor Syrian refugees.

Other Canadian synagogues have reached out in a similar way to help refugees. Vancouver’s Temple Sholom raised $40,000 within a few days after putting out a call to fund a Syrian family. In Montreal, Congregation Dorshei Emet raised $90,000 for two families.

In the video below, you can see what happens when two communities set aside preconceived notions and fears and sit down for a nosh. Maybe Donald Trump and his ilk should take a hint.

Depuis que la mosquée de Peterborough (Canada) a été incendiée après les attentats de Paris, c’est la synagogue qui accueille les prières musulmanes : “ce n’est pas une question de religion ni de couleur, c’est une question de bon voisinage”. Un beau message d’unité !Plus (en français) : http://bit.ly/1NCcwS1

Posted by CRIF on Sunday, November 29, 2015

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.