"I don't understand," said the old man at the next table in the restaurant, "why they persist in building . . . where no one wants them to build? Why stir up all that trouble?"
Well, here is why:
A week before my bar mitzvah, the City of Ogdensburg tore up the street in front of the synagogue. "Don't make waves," counseled the older (ex-European) members of the congregation. "Don't complain, keep your head down." My father snorted, "Ghetto mentality!" and called in a couple of favors.
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Mom and Dad, let it be said, had paid their dues politically in the village and county. Every election they had a list of names and phone numbers, calling to remind people to go vote. They showed up, and they helped put up signs and distributed flyers. Dad had connections in the county seat and all the way to Albany, and so when he asked for the street repair to be expedited, someone took care of it. By the Saturday of my bar mitzvah, the newly paved street gleamed in the summer sun and was a pleasure on which to drive and park.
As Dad said, and demonstrated, we were citizens, entitled to full rights as well as obligations of citizenship. We weren't second-class emigrants, or merely tolerated by those in the majority. "Don't make waves," indeed! We didn't have to beg for favors. "Excuse me, Mr. Christian, may we have a nice paved street for my boy's ceremony? All the relatives are coming from out of town. Well, how about next month? Next year? Ever?"
The same with the Muslim building near Ground Zero in NYC. Citizens have a right to build, to use a building in whatever legal way they want, to meet, to worship. They don't need "permission" from the majority culture or religion to do so. "May we put up a mosque? No? How about a meeting room? No? How about a spot in the park for three of us to discuss issues?"
As George Washington wrote to the congregation of Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI, in 1790, "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts." (bold-face mine)
To the Muslims of NYC I say, do not back down! Do not let anyone buy you off! Do not cower and slink from the majority! You have every right to this building, and I hope on my next trip to the Big Apple I will be able to visit there, and shake your hands as free citizens.