CAIR-Philadelphia president Osama Al-Qasem, an advisory board member, and staff members Timothy Welbeck and Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu traveled to Harrisburg to meet with community leaders and mosque representatives from the Harrisburg and Mechanicsburg area communities. The meeting was kindly hosted by Islamic Society of Greater Harrisburg (ISGH) and brought together more than 15 community leaders.
It is easy to get depressed these days, and become weary at the thought of four more years under this Administration, as we struggle to defend all the social justice progress of the past century.
Yet I remain an optimist. I am filled with hope at the presence of our courageous Mayor and other elected officials here among us; I am filled with hope at the sight of thousands of our fellow Americans streaming into airports across the country to defy the bigoted Executive Order of the President; and I am filled hope because of the warm welcome that I, a Jew, have received from all quarters of the Philadelphia Muslim community since coming to work for CAIR three years ago.
[Download PDF Format] A Letter from Osama Al-Qasem President, CAIR-Philadelphia Dear Friends and Supporters: As-salamu alaykum! As 2015 draws to a close, I would like to review some recent events with you, especially as this has been a difficult year…
November 20, 2015 by Rick Dandes, The Daily Item SUNBURY — The Islamic community in Pennsylvania is living in fear of recrimination and retaliation a week after the massacre in Paris by ISIS jihadists and subsequent terroristic threats against Washington,…
Dear Friends, As-Salaam-Alaikum, Nearly two years ago, the leadership of CAIR-Philadelphia made a historic decision: to hire a non-Muslim as the executive director of this chapter of America’s pre-eminent Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. This decision, in the context…
On Saturday, July 11, 2015, Ryan Houldin, CAIR-Philadelphia Staff Attorney, presented a “Know Your Rights” (KYR) workshop at the Islamic Society of Schuylkill County; over 50 persons attended the workshop. Ryan addressed several common forms of discrimination that Muslims are…
The Sacred Month of Ramadan is one of the greatest gifts from God the Creator to humankind, for it commemorates the month when the Glorious Quran, God’s final Revelation to humankind, began to be revealed. This is why the Holy…
As most of you know by now, I am not a Muslim. I spend my days, and many evenings, however, working for the nation’s preeminent Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. And so, since starting as CAIR-Philadelphia’s Executive Director in October 2013, I have been asked, and sometimes confronted, with the question: “Why would a Jew work for a Muslim group, especially one that has been accused of being connected to terrorism?”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is the “most pre-eminent and largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the country,” according to the Philadelphia chapter’s executive director, Jacob Bender. It began 20 years ago and now has 30 chapters across the country, about half of which have attorneys on staff. The Philadelphia chapter started in 1994. The council has a two-pronged mission, as Bender described it: One, legal protection of civil rights; and two, advocating for and educating the public about the Muslim community.
