2023-11-12 14:00:00
November 12, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EST
Noam Sokolow, owner of Noah’s Ark Restaurant and Deli in Teaneck, N.J., has placed flyers of missing Israelis held hostage by Hamas in his windows. (Aristide Economopoulos for The Washington Post)Comment on this storyCommentAdd to your saved storiesSave
TEANECK, N.J. — Thousands of miles from the Israel-Gaza war, the angst and strain of conflict have arrived in this New York City suburb that once saw itself as a model for national unity.
Those tensions, which have made this community of 41,000 residents coarser and angrier, have been playing out for weeks in front of Emran Awdeh’s restaurant here in Teaneck’s main commercial center. On a street known for restaurants promoting both Jewish and Muslim dietary restrictions, more people are staying in and trying to avoid one another, he said.
“You notice the stress,” said Awdeh, 32, a native of Jordan who owns Platter House, a Mediterranean restaurant. “I can see it in everyone — everyone has something in their eyes.”
A half block away, Noam Sokolow, who owns the Noah’s Ark deli, said he has seen a 35 percent drop in business recently, evidence that the war has changed Teaneck, a city 5,600 miles away from the front lines.
“Oct. 7 was a shattering of the symbiotic relationship that existed between the Jewish community and the greater community here in Teaneck and around the world,” said Sokolow, 56, who is Jewish and has placed dozens of photographs in the deli’s windows memorializing those missing in the Hamas attack that escalated the conflict. “I have been here for 35 years, and I have never seen this type of tension.”
Teaneck is now the unlikely avatar of the bubbling unease and, in some places, outright hostility breaking out between Jewish and Muslim Americans as the war rages into its second month.
In dueling demonstrations and one-on-one conversations, the conflict has spilled out in the streets of major U.S. cities, college campuses, and even within workplaces as Americans — who have grown more accustomed to division over domestic politics — choose sides in conflict that is rooted in decades of mistrust and ethnic dissent.
The impact is especially pronounced in communities such as Teaneck, where Jews and Muslims live in proximity to each other, often on the same street. The township is about 40 percent Jewish and prides itself on its diversity and unity, including having a Muslim mayor during eight of the past 13 years.
Within hours of Hamas’ attack, which killed at least 1,200, residents felt it personally. According to local Jewish leaders, nearly every Jewish resident knew someone who was either killed or injured in the attack or had family or friends connected to it. Two township commissioners were in Israel that day. Muslim residents, meanwhile, also saw themselves in the civilian casualties that have grown in Gaza with the Israeli response.
Teaneck’s comity was publicly ripped apart last month after contentious municipal meetings exposed broad disagreements over how township leaders should talk about and memorialize what is happening in the Middle East. In scenes that one town leader described as “almost WrestleMania,” skirmishes erupted outside the meetings. Indoors, the political debate grew so intense that seven members of the 11-person township commission devoted to inclusion resigned in protest, leaving an all-White board.
Amid allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and disputes over stolen lawn signs that support one side or another, the town is now trying to figure out how it heals and returns to civility and neighborly goodwill.
“But the damage is done,” said Deputy Mayor Danielle Gee, who is biracial and a Christian. “I have never seen so much hurt.”
Despite the division, there is still hope that Teaneck can offer the nation a broader lesson on how to rebound. Two high school students — one Jewish and the other Muslim — have emerged as leaders in trying to repair community relations.
Still, the split is so contentious here many are now questioning whether the prior sense of unity was a mirage, as events underlay how cultural clashes can flourish even in towns otherwise politically homogenous. (About 3 out of 4 residents voted for President Biden in 2020.) Past small town tensions, over issues such as housing and development decisions, are now increasingly seen as undercurrents of division along religious and ethnic lines.
“This was not created by Oct. 7,” said Keith Kaplan, a Jewish township activist and former commissioner. “The bottle may have been uncorked, but the pressure was there.”
Located near the western side of the George Washington Bridge connecting New Jersey to Manhattan, the township of Teaneck was incorporated in 1895.
Initially, most residents were Dutch or Huguenot Christians, but by the early 1900s some Jewish residents began to move in, according to the book “History of the Jews of Teaneck.” As Teaneck’s population surged after the bridge opened in 1931, the population continued to diversify, especially after the conclusion of World War II. Out of 10,000 applicant cities, Teaneck was showcased by the U.S. Army as a “model for democracy” in a 1949 ad campaign to show off how peaceful and livable some American towns were.
In 1964, Teaneck once again gained national prominence when it became the first public school system in the country to voluntarily integrate its schools through busing.
By the 1990s, more Muslim families also began settling in Teaneck, especially those from Southeast Asia. The numbers of Muslim arrivals, some from Africa and the Middle East, grew throughout the 2000s. At the same time, the Jewish community continued to expand.
Today, the town has two large mosques and more than a dozen synagogues.
Residents felt Hamas’ attack personally. According to local Jewish leaders, nearly every Jewish resident knew someone who was either killed or injured in the attack or had family or friends connected to it. Two township commissioners were in Israel that day.
On Oct. 17, as word spread that the township commission was considering a resolution on the matter, supporters of both Israel and the Palestinian cause crowded around the municipal building. The two sides jockeyed to get inside, at times pushing in front of each other. When the building reached capacity, opposing groups tried to shout each other down in the parking lot, waving Israeli and Palestinian flags. Later, some residents would call 911 to report feeling harassed or unable to walk to their cars safely.
The scene shocked longtime residents.
“They were like: ‘Oh my god. What happened to us’?” recalls Curt Collier, the leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, a group that advocates for harmony.
Inside, commissioners struggled to even conduct business because the crowds outside were so loud, Gee said.
Commissioner Hillary Goldberg, who is Jewish, introduced a resolution condemning Hamas while stating “Teaneck stands with Israel” and that the country had “a right to defend herself.”
“This was about putting a grieving community first,” said Goldberg, whose partner is Israeli.
Although the resolution was unanimously approved by the seven-member board, supporters of the Palestinians were outraged it did not include language recognizing the death and hurt occurring in Gaza. Gee, one of three non-Jewish members of the body, sought to rectify that by introducing a supplemental resolution calling for “unity” while also recognizing the plight of Palestinians.
“I knew the Muslim community would feel like, ‘Oh my goodness, you are saying our lives don’t matter as much as Jewish lives,” Gee said.
Gee struggled, however, to get a majority of her colleagues. Goldberg and other critics of the timing of the unity resolution compared it to debates during the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. “They would have never done an ‘all lives matter’ resolution on the same day you are doing a ‘Black lives matter’ resolution because that would have been inappropriate,” Goldberg said. The commission eventually passed the unity resolution two weeks later.
Yassine Elkaryani, then chairman of the Teaneck Advisory Board on Community Relations, was outraged by the council response. After the pro-Israel resolution was approved, Elkaryani said, he and six other members of the 11-member board resigned.
“This sets a precedent of regression for any efforts we have made to bring people together,” Elkaryani, who is originally from Morocco, said in an interview. “This pretty much sets a precedent that Teaneck groups will have conflict in the open.”
The night after the first council vote, division erupted at the Teaneck Board of Education meeting after Jewish residents became incensed over a letter written by the superintendent of schools. The letter, sent to families of students in mid-October, opened by referring to the conflict as part of a “cycle of violence in the Middle East” instead of directly stating Hamas carried out the attack against Israel.
Kaplan showed up to the meeting wearing a yarmulke with the inscription, “Nothing says ‘never again’ like an armed Jew.” Kaplan said he wore it because he felt “more alone in this community than at any time.” Other meeting participants took that as a threat, contributing to a broader sense of fear in the community, said Paula Rogovin, the co-founder of Teaneck Peace and Justice Vigil, an antiwar group.
“There are young Muslim teenagers who feel very frightened, very threatened and very worried,” Rogovin said. “The war is bad enough … We don’t need our town to take sides in this.”
At Teaneck High School, 17-year-old Rawda Elbatrawish and 15-year-old Liora Pelavin decided by late October they’d had enough. The tension threatened to creep into their school, where 85 percent of students are non-White.
Initially, Elbatrawish, who is Muslim and moved to the United States from Egypt with her parents 15 years ago, thought about holding a protest during school hours. Instead, she decided to partner with Pelavin, who is Jewish, to gather township residents under the age of 25.
The pair invited a local college professor, a trauma therapist and school safety officers to the event, which was held at the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County. They set aside a room where people could decompress if they were upset by the discussion. And they ordered two dozen pizzas.
“We are making a safe space for people to talk, and it’s O.K. for them to mess up,” Pelavin said. “And it’s O.K. for them to have a peaceful argument.”
The media was prohibited from attending. But before he entered, Isaac Fogel, a 19-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish American, said he decided to attend to get a better understanding of the Muslim “point of view.”
“You really need a logical solution, and they have no logical solution because [Hamas] needs to be erased,” Fogel said. For three hours, Fogel listened to his peers in the Teaneck’s youth community.
When he left the meeting, Fogel said he felt “more educated about their struggle, and their views of the world in general, and about Islamophobia. And I think they now understand where I am coming from, and that I am only the third generation past the Holocaust.”
The event was so successful that Elbatrawish and Pelavin are preparing new discussions. This time, older adults will be welcome — if they are willing to abide by the ground rules. Those include “No shouting,” she said.
“Adults are so ready to fight the other person when talking in an argument,” Elbatrawish said. “They don’t realize an argument is listening to both sides.”
Indeed, the adult leaders of Teaneck are uncertain about what it will take to soothe the shattered town. But they think rebuilding the city’s unity could take years.
“I don’t think it’s very easy at this time to bridge the gap,” said Deputy Mayor Elie Y. Katz, who is Jewish and was in Israel at the time of the attack. “The emotions on both sides are still very raw, and very fluid … It’s very difficult to communicate with people who are grieving.” Neither former mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin, who is Muslim, nor current Mayor Michael Pagan, the city’s first Latino mayor, would discuss the tensions.
Some in Teaneck compare the emotions now to divisions that erupted here in 1990 after a White city police officer shot a Black teenager, Phillip Pannell. The shooting sparked months of bitter division — so stark residents still recite stories how White and Black teenagers used separate doors during dismissal time at the high school.
Jewish leaders say there is a widespread feeling of betrayal that they are not being supported by other groups in their time of grief. They note the local Jewish community was an integral part of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, when thousands from all faiths marched through Teaneck.
Goldberg, the township commissioners who sponsored the resolution supportive of Israel, believes that “implicit bias” is driving some of the opposition to her actions.
“This really showed there was this underlying, and I don’t know any other word for it, antisemitism going on,” said Goldberg.
Ray Hassan, a Palestinian American, also believes the divide extends beyond the latest war.
Since 2018, Hassan has been trying to open a 30,000-square-foot Islamic community center in Teaneck. Hassan estimates his family foundation already invested $12 million in the property, which includes his and hers gyms, multipurpose and game rooms, a kitchen and a centralized prayer room.
But on four occasions, Hassan said, the city’s zoning board has denied his applications to build a handicap accessible ramp and other updates to the property that would allow it to open to the public. Town officials declined to discuss their position, citing ongoing litigation. To Hassan, the commission resolution is just another example of Muslims in town not receiving a fair shake.
“They put out their signs that say, ‘stigma free’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ but it’s totally the opposite,” Hassan said.
But as his employees knelt for their afternoon prayers, Awdeh, the restaurant owner, said one way or another his neighbors will have to find a way to get along. A synagogue, an Islamic school and a Korean Christian church are all located within a block of his restaurant.
“I am Arab and I never had any problem,” Awdeh said, “But now there is just sadness all over.”
Sokolow, the deli owner, agreed: “The pain is immense.”
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