It has been one year since the election of President Donald Trump , and minorities in America are facing an onslaught. Anti-Semitic attacks have sharply risen this past year according to the Anti-Defamation League, with a 92 percent increase in New York City alone. Meanwhile, a recent US Department of Education investigation confirmed very disturbing reports of anti-Semitic harassment in one Colorado school, while a Muslim student in Tennessee recently had her hijab ripped off in her classroom. Her teacher allegedly posted the video of the incident on social media.

It is in this context that on October 20, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a longtime champion of Jewish-Muslim dialogue, delivered a Shabbat dinner lecture at Temple Beth Ami, a Reform synagogue in Rockville, Md. Ahmed spoke at the invitation of Rabbi Baht Weiss, a former student of Ahmeds in his online course, Bridging the Great Divide: the Jewish-Muslim Encounter , taught in conjunction with Dr. Edward Kessler, Director of the Woolf Institute at Cambridge.

After Weiss warmly introduced her former teacher, Ahmed delved directly into the heart of the evening: the importance of dialogue and friendship in strengthening the Jewish-Muslim relationship. He began by sharing the story of his friendship with Dr. Judea Pearl, the father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl who was kidnapped and killed in the spirit of hate while reporting in Karachi, and how their legendary dialogue series, branded as "two grandfathers on a stage," made a huge impact wherever they traveled.