Remembering Religious Diversity

Rabbi Moses ben Maimon a/k/a Maimonides

The New York Times features an op-ed piece from Andrew Baker this morning that should serve as a stirring reminder of the importance of shared religious heritage and diversity. It regards the difficulty of restoring the yeshiva and synagogue of Maimonides in Cairo, Egypt.

This is not, however, simply a story of how difficult it is to secure government funding for historical or architectural restoration. At least, it is not only that kind of a story. The story of restoring Maimonides’ yeshiva carries important messages about history and religious diversity. All in one building, we can see a microcosm of conflict between what we’ve dubbed a shining star of the modern Islamic state (that is, Egypt) and its troubled relationship with its own Jewish heritage.

Baker’s article aptly lays out the history of Maimonides and of the Jewish population of Cairo, so I will not belabor that history in this short article. I do want to point up the narrative nature of history here. We must endeavor to preserve the fact of humanity’s religious diversity in history from the narrative aims of a dominant state apparatus. This is not only true for the Islamic-Jewish tension in Egypt: it is equally true for the United States. We must continue to write humanity’s religious diversity back into the dominant narrative of history at every opportunity or we risk really and truly losing that rich expression of human longing for connection with the transcendent.