DULUTH, Minn. — On Oct. 7, the day of the recent Hamas attack on Israel, the Islamic Center of Twin Ports reached out to Temple Israel in Duluth.
The center wanted the Jewish community to know the Muslim community was there for them. In the days following, the two groups proved just that.
"We had each other's back in terms of our very small Muslim and Jewish communities in Duluth," said John Dahl, the board president for the Islamic Center.
In the past, the two have come together during both hard times and celebrations.
"We certainly talk about the commonalities in our traditions, even while acknowledging respectfully that we have our differences," said David Steinberg, rabbi of Temple Israel.
Both leaders said their communities deal with a lot of similarities, which is why Dahl thought of the Jewish community when he saw graffiti on the mosque.
"It was the day after the Hamas attack in Israel," said Dahl. "I actually thought of the Jewish synagogue in town, wondering if they were experiencing anything like this."
Upon further examination of the graffiti, Dahl assumed it may have been teenagers who vandalized the mosque instead of a targeted hate crime.
He decided to check in with the synagogue anyway.
"Given the situation in the world, how would they feel about coming over?" Dahl asked himself. "And we would just spend about 30 minutes together collectively trying to build some solidarity to paint over this."
On Oct. 15, they did just that.
"We wanted to emphasize that regardless of the ongoing strife in the Middle East, that Jews per se, are not enemies of Muslims, per se, and vice versa," said Steinberg.
While they painted over the harm, they shared similar feelings of anxiety, a want for peace, and a connection.
"There's some bridge building that can come force from this which was actually a wonderful blessing," said Dahl.
Steinberg invited the Islamic Center to a Shabbat service in December.
Meanwhile, there is a police report filed to look into the graffiti.
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