Alumni and Their Work

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  • Educating Our Communities and the Public: Our alumni are invited to speak at universities where escalating rhetoric on Israel/Palestine has dominated Jewish-Muslim relations.  By modeling civil conversation for the students, alumni offer a different paradigm.  Alumni also bring these skills back to their own mosques and synagogues- creating opportunities for Muslims and Jews to understand the other through teachings and ongoing dialogue.  Alumni have also initiated an exchange program between Muslim and Jewish day schools to expose children to the important work of interfaith relations.
  • Fighting Discrimination: Our alumni take on discrimination in their own communities and in greater society.  They organized people to attend a support rally for the right of the mosque in Temecula, CA to be built, took on the demonization of Jews at a politicallly charged international conference, and Muslim alumni convened a townhall on racial discrimination within the Muslim community. 
  • Arts and Culture: Two alumni organized a Muslim-Jewish Film Festival with the help of the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement and the University of Southern California.  Featuring films that engage with core identity issues for both Muslims and Jews and how they understand the other, each movie in the series was followed by a dialogue in the audience. 
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  • Addressing Conflict: When events in the Middle East cause relationships in the United States to become tense, NewGround alumni remain committed to the relationships they have built.  With the outbreak of the Gaza War in 2008, our alumni broke out of the more common practice of protest and counter-protest to sit around the table with one another and discuss the difficult issues.  More recently, alumni have engaged on the topic of the rising rhetoric between Iran, the United States and Israel.  
  • Community Service: Alumni have built houses through Habitat for Humanity, served the needy through the Humanitarian Day program in downtown Los Angeles, participated in Big Sunday.

For Alumni

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To aid our alumni in their work to change the world, NewGround provides ongoing support:
  • an alumni council that coordinates programming and initiatives both for alumni themselves and for the greater public. 
  • resources and assistance in their interfaith efforts
  • dialogue facilitation training
If you are interested in getting more involved with the alumni council or taking advantage of the services named above, contact us at muslimjewishnewground@gmail.com.