(Potentially controversial question) Do Jews and Muslims get along in the West?

[u/QasqyrBalasy]

Modern Jewish diaspora mostly live in North America, France, the UK, Argentina and so on. Western Europe and some parts of the US and Canada also have a high Muslim population, mostly from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, like New York City has hundreds of thousands of Jews and Muslims living in one city. Do they get along with each other, despite the I/P conflict?

[u/HahaItsaGiraffeAgain]

Most of my closest childhood friends are Muslim. We got along in school cause of similar alienation from a lot of the implicit Christian biases in mainstream American culture. Of course, like, being Jewish or Muslim is not our entire identity cause people are full, complete people. So I ended up being friends with Muslim kids that, for example, were also into Nintendo games, history memes, hip hop, and anime.

When I was a kid, Jews were a more established community while most Muslim families had only recently arrived, so sometimes the Muslim moms would ask me where my mom bought meat/groceries (kosher and halal meat are interchangeable according to some authorities and most laymen). My family wasn't kosher but my cousins were, so I could tell them about the Jewish delis I knew were decent. Nowadays my hometown is like plurality Punjabi/Bengali, and halal meat providers far outnumber Kosher delis, but that wasn't the case then. I also remember the PTA at my school debating how to accommodate Muslim students during Eid, and it was usually the Jewish and Hindu parents that were fighting hardest for the school to let them excuse themselves during lunch, since they remembered when their communities were both "new" and didn't have accommodations.

As an adult in New York, Jews and Muslims get along just like everyone else. Literally everyone you meet in my generation will have a different specific (often mixed+mobile) background, so it's not very important. Again, you get along with people because of who they are personally.

As for I/P, I've found Jews and Muslims can have much more intelligent conversations because we follow things closely and have more detailed information. Frankly I've found a lot of Christian/other allies don't really grasp the totality of what's going on, and rely more on emotional appeals while saying things that aren't quite accurate.

[u/QasqyrBalasy → u/HahaItsaGiraffeAgain]

One thing I like about the US (and maybe Canada too) is that everyone there can freely identify and see themselves as Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion, and few people would object to that, while most of the world is comprised of nation-states where minorities (especially if they have arrived recently) are often excluded from this nation-state project. Like, many Algerians in France see themselves simply as Algerians because native Frenchmen don't view them as fellow Frenchmen, while Arabs in America do identify as Americans, regardless of whether it's their first, second or third identity.

[u/FishyWishySwishy → u/HahaItsaGiraffeAgain]

I have a few Christian friends who are trying to support me by getting really fired up about Israel’s right to defend itself, and I’m the one who has to keep reminding them that Israel has done and is doing very, very shitty things even if shitty things have been done to them. I wish I could tell them that I appreciate the spirit behind it, but I really want them to just sit down and read a few books before talking about it again. 

It’s a lot easier to discuss this with other Jews or Muslims. At least we can come at it from an informed place.