Controversy over the mosque being built by the Islamic Society of Boston has done serious damage to relations between Muslims and Jews in Boston

Yvonne Abraham:

The Islamic Society and Jewish community leaders have suspended meetings to discuss their differences, and their stalemate has now been blazoned across the pages of the Jewish Advocate, the newspaper of the local Jewish community.

A full-page advertisement to be published in that paper today calls a defamation suit filed by the Islamic Society an attempt "to stifle public discussion and dissuade others from asking legitimate and important questions."

The ad was a response to an earlier one paid for by the Islamic Society, which called on Jewish leaders to stand with them against intolerance.

"It is, at the very least, a very tense moment in the lives of both our communities," said Larry Lowenthal, executive director of the Boston chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

Today's ad, paid for by Combined Jewish Philanthropies and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater New England, blames the Islamic society for escalating those tensions.

At the heart of the impasse are assertions that former and current officials of the Islamic Society of Boston had connections to terrorist groups and made anti-Jewish statements.

The Islamic Society has denied any connection to terrorism, and officials say they have repeatedly distanced themselves from anti-Jewish remarks by some of the society's leaders. The society has sued media outlets and several organizations, including a pro-Israel group, the David Project, for what the society calls a conspiracy to spread fear about Muslims and to halt construction of a mosque in Roxbury. Lawyers for the David Project and other defendants have repeatedly denied any conspiracy.

Critics of the Islamic Society of Boston and some Jewish groups say that the society has not put enough distance between itself and radical Islam, and that it is trying to stop legitimate public discussion by litigation.

For months after the complaints were first made, Islamic Society officials met with Jewish leaders to try to allay their concerns over statements by current and former officials of the society. But in recent months, there have been no such discussions, though the society's officials requested them.

Jewish community groups say the litigation has made the discussions impossible. "The dialogue has pretty much come to a screeching halt," said Nancy Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. "As long as there is a lawsuit brewing, we don't want to take sides."

And so, on Dec. 23, the Islamic Society of Boston placed an open letter in the Jewish Advocate.

"Like you, we are not perfect," read the full-page ad. "We have among us those who would act in a divisive manner. We understand our obligation not to tolerate this in our community. But when we are the ones who are wronged by intolerance, we need to be able to look to our friends and neighbors to stand up with us and condemn those who are attacking us. . . . We ask you not to buy into the poisoned rhetoric and attacks against our community undertaken by the few extremists who would divide us."

In today's response, the Jewish community groups side with those who have asserted there are troubling connections between the Islamic Society and Islamic extremism.

The groups are "deeply disappointed by the Islamic Society of Boston lawsuit," it reads. "We stand in solidarity with the David Project and those in our community who have raised these valid concerns and issues and with all those who believe, as we do, that they need to be acknowledged and answered."

Salma Kazmi, assistant director of the Islamic Society, said officials have answered the concerns of the Jewish community and others. She said that, after the allegations of radicalism were first published in the Boston Herald in late 2003, mosque officials met with Jewish community leaders "and a lot of grilling happened."

After that meeting, she said, "there was a very heartfelt apology by one of our directors for any harm that may have been done by anti-Jewish statements. There were handshakes, and at the end, the perception we had was that we were going to move forward from that point."

But Jewish community leaders say they did not get full answers to questions about the society's links to radical Islam; for example, whether Dr. Yusef al-Qaradawi, a former Islamic Society trustee now based in Qatar, in 2002 praised Hamas and Hezbollah, which the US State Department lists as terrorist organizations.

"I know they feel they have been forthcoming and fully comprehensive in their answers," Lowenthal said. "I can simply tell you that is not the perception on the part of those Jewish leaders who met with them."

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