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....May 11, 5:00 PM |
| Interfaith Education: Jewish Brother Michael Teaches Muslims
By DIKLA KADOSH When Michael Berman told his relatives that he had been hired to teach at the Razi School, they were shocked. One of them asked if his students were all terrorists.
“Yeah,” he replied sarcastically. “They learn bomb-making in period three.” The Razi School, located at 55-11 Queens Blvd. in Woodside, is a private Islamic day school. Michael Berman is a Jew. On the surface, the soft-spoken 40-year-old writer whose business card says, “When you get to the fork in the road, make sure it’s washed before you eat with it,” doesn’t seem to fit in a school where the students pray to Allah after lunch every day and wear conservative gray and white uniforms. But appearances can be deceiving. Fitting In “Actually,” said Berman in a slight New York accent, “I’ve told my students that I feel more comfortable with them than I do with some of my more fanatical Jewish relatives.” While not an observant Jew, he still relates strongly to the culture. He wears a silver ring with a Jewish Star of David on his right ring finger. Brother Michael, as the students respectfully call him, teaches social studies at the Razi School, where there are 439 students from kindergarten to 12th grade. In addition to the subjects required by the New York school board, Razi students also have two hours of Arabic or Persian, two hours of religion and one hour of Quran each week. Berman is not the only non-Muslim who works at the school – there are six other teachers and administrators of different faiths. According to school principal Dr. Ghassan Elcheikhali, Razi is the only Muslim school out of some 16 in New York City to employ non-Muslims teachers. For Elcheikhali, who used to teach sociology and political philosophy at the college level, the only thing he looks at when interviewing teachers is their professional qualification. “At Razi, our curriculum is Islamic, the environment is Islamic, our teachers – they don’t have to be Islamic,” said the Lebanese immigrant, who explained that the non-Muslim teachers are teaching subjects that do not require them to be practicing Muslims. So far, Elcheikhali has not received any complaints from students or their parents about their unusual hiring practices, a fact he attributes to the school’s good reputation and high student scores on state Regents exams. Nonetheless, it has peaked people’s interest. “My parents were curious at first,” said Fateha Ahmed, a senior at Razi from Bangladesh. Her bright face was framed by the white scarf covering her head. “My mom told me not to say anything bad about the government because he might report me,” she said as other students around her laughed at the absurdity of her mother’s fears. Working at Razi does require the non-Muslim employees to be aware of Muslim practices such as the requirement for all women to wear a hijab, or head covering like the one Fateha wears. The librarian, a Catholic from Puerto Rico, has been working at Razi for seven years. It took her some time to get used to wearing the headscarf, but now she doesn’t mind it. Open Discussions For Berman, teaching social studies to Muslims from 32 different countries means he has to be familiar with various cultures, Muslim practices, and fundamental Islamic law in order to help students understand the material. During a class discussion about the United States Constitution, one student asked him if gay marriage was constitutional. His answer was yes, he thinks it is. The student countered that homosexuality violates sharia, or Islamic law. Berman responded carefully. “You’re living in a secular society and Islamic law or Jewish law or Christian law is not the law of the land,” he said. |
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