In the News

Variety includes the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and its leadership in its Entertainment Philanthropy Report 2015

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier October 20, 2015 On October 15, even as an ominous wave of violence escalated between Palestinians and Israelis in Jerusalem, I had the honor to host a luncheon at a New York City kosher restaurant at which the Chief Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, met and conversed warmly with a distinguished delegation of imams and Muslim leaders from New York and New Jersey. When Rabbi Lau requested the meeting several months earlier in order to learn about the work that my...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier As a rabbi and an imam who have been working together for nearly a decade to nurture ties of communication and cooperation between Muslims and Jews worldwide, we find it moving that two of the most important holidays in our respective faiths, Yom Kippur and Eid al-Adha, will overlap this year on the same day, September 23, 2015. The holidays also overlapped at the same time last year, but normally these two holidays only coincide every 33 years. Such an infrequent...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier Whenever I have the opportunity to attend a Ramadan iftar—the festive meal held every evening at sunset to break the daily fast that Muslims observe for the entire Holy Month of month—I find myself awed by the self-sacrifice and inner discipline of untold millions of individual Muslims who go without food or even a sip of water from dusk to dawn every day for an entire month. I am also spiritually uplifted by the festive energy at the iftar dinners—typically...

HuffPost By Rabbi Marc Schneier I am a strong supporter of the right to free speech guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a principle which is at the very heart of the liberties we enjoy in America. Nevertheless, I applaud the April 28 decision by the Board of the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to ban all political advertising on its buses and subways, rather than accede to a U.S. District judge’s irresponsible ruling that the MTA must allow an inflammatory...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier I am a strong supporter of the right to free speech guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a principle which is at the very heart of the liberties we enjoy in America. Nevertheless, I applaud the April 28 decision by the Board of the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) to ban all political advertising on its buses and subways, rather than accede to a U.S. District judge’s irresponsible ruling that the MTA must allow an inflammatory...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier April 6, 2015 On a February evening in Oslo, Norway more than 1,000 Muslims formed a ‘Ring of Peace’ around the Oslo Synagogue, thereby offering symbolic protection to the Norwegian Jewish community and making clear their utter rejection of the terrorist attack the previous weekend by an Islamist extremist on the main synagogue in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. As the Muslims guarding the synagogue chanted “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” and linked...

The Jerusalem Post By Sam Sokol Jewish organizations say that anti-Semitism is distinct from other types of discrimination, should not be conflated with other issues. Jewish organizations worldwide expressed shock and dismay over the weekend following the announcement that the European Commission is planning on holding a conference that implies an equivalence between anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The first annual colloquium on fundamental rights in the EU, held by the commission and titled “Tolerance...

Huffington Post By Rabbi Marc Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali As Christians all over the world mark one of the holiest days of their religious calendar, the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (FFEU) and the Nusantara Foundation applaud efforts toward communication, reconciliation and cooperation among all faiths. We are deeply concerned about the wholesale violation of the rights of Christians in many parts of the world. Killings of Christians in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Nigeria and acts of vandalism...

 The Times of Israel By Rabbi Marc Schneier On a February evening in Oslo, Norway more than 1,000 Muslims formed a ‘Ring of Peace’ around the Oslo Synagogue, thereby offering symbolic protection to the Norwegian Jewish community and making clear their utter rejection of the terrorist attack the previous weekend by an Islamist extremist on the main synagogue in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. As the Muslims guarding the synagogue chanted “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” and linked arms...