Across the nation, from the Deep South to Appalachia and relatively rural communities in the Midwest, protests in support of the plight of Palestinians are springing up, showcasing the continued spread of the U.S. Muslim population into the country’s heartland. Children of refugees from Muslim nations organized many of the demonstrations, evidence ofa political awakening among a new generation of young Americans who are helping to shape U.S. public opinion in support of a cease-fire in the Middle East.

A 2017 analysis from Pew Research Center estimated that3.45 million Americans are Muslim, three-quarters of whom are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Overall, the nation’s Muslim population is far younger than the overall U.S. population, with Pew finding 35 percent of Muslims were 18 to 29 that year, compared to 21 percent of the overall population.

Using data on religious institutions gathered by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, a Washington Post analysis found that 234 U.S. counties have seen an increase in the number of Muslim congregations since 2000, representing around 7 percent of counties nationwide. In 217 counties, mosque membership doubled between 2000 and 2020.And across the nation, the number of mosques has more than doubled since 2000, according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a research firm that studies Muslim communities.

Some of the most noticeable growth has taken place in smaller areas that are now seeing more young Muslims speak up about the plight of Palestinians. Huntsville, for example, now has four Muslim congregations with 3,935 members, compared to two congregations with 1,218 members in 2000.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/12/25/palestinian-protests-muslim-american-activists/

posted by f.sheikh

Some excerpts; The Greek gods of myth who lived on Mt. Olympus were defined by many things, but compassion was not high among them.

“For much of antiquity feeling the pain of others was regarded as a weakness,” John Dickson, a professor of biblical studies and public Christianity at Wheaton College, told me. This comes to full flowering in the Stoics, he said, “on the grounds that this involved allowing an external factor — the emotions or plight of another — to control your own inner life.”

Jesus’ touch was not necessary for him to heal the man of leprosy, but the touch may have been necessary to heal the man of feelings of shame and isolation, of rejection and detestation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/opinion/christmas-jesus-wept-compassion.html

posted by f.sheikh

I grew up in Japan, and as a kid, more than anything, I longed to be like everyone around me. Yet as the child of a Japanese mother and a British father, I was considered hafu, a term used to describe people who are ethnically half Japanese.

I spent much of my young life proving how Japanese I was. I would grow angry when people praised my impeccable Japanese. Too often I felt I didn’t belong in my own society. It was all too much. Always standing out felt so suffocating that at 19 years old, I moved to New York.

Japan was closed off from the Western world until the late 1800s. For much of the country’s history, mixed-race children were uncommon, particularly outside Tokyo. In the post-World War II era, derogatory words like “ainoko” and “konketsuji” were used to describe children born of a Japanese and foreign parent. It wasn’t until the 1980s that interracial marriages became more common.

But as Japan becomes more diverse, necessary changes in its society may come not through a reckoning with how biracial people are viewed but through an evolution of what it means to be Japanese. As much as we wish for a change in how society views us — and yes, Japan is evolving, slowly but surely — we should focus instead on how to navigate being seen as not quite Japanese, so that we don’t allow people’s views to override our identities.

Sarina Yasumoto, who is Australian and Japanese, is grateful that she gets to experience the best of both worlds. As I grew older, I started feeling the same way.

Full article

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The war in Gaza has prompted the city, traditionally seen as the birthplace of Jesus, to tone down its Christmas celebrations.

In perhaps the most overt display of how Israel’s war in Gaza has dampened Christmas celebrations in the city seen as the birthplace of Jesus, a Lutheran church put up its crèche, but with a sad and symbolic twist. The baby Jesus — wrapped in a keffiyeh, the black-and-white checkered scarf that has become a badge of Palestinian identity — is lying not in a makeshift cradle of hay and wood. Instead, he lies among the rubble of broken bricks, stones and tiles that represent so much of Gaza’s destruction.

“We’ve been glued to our screens, seeing children pulled from under the rubble day after day. We’re broken by these images,” said the Rev. Munther Isaac, the pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church who created the crèche. “God is under the rubble in Gaza, this is where we find God right now.”

Full Article

posted by f. Sheikh