Director’s Desk, March 25, 2014
On March 16th, the day after the Annual Banquet, Staff Attorney Ryan Tack-Hooper and I traveled to Washington DC to participate in CAIR’s Annual National Council Meeting. Over 80 staff and board members from CAIR’s 30 chapters attended. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet in person with people from around the country I have been emailing with for the past six months. During the meeting we shared ideas and strategies with each other on issues such as fundraising, grant applications, legal tactics, lobbying government officials, chapter growth, and building interfaith coalitions. Ryan and I were warmly received and made to feel part of the CAIR extended family.
The essence of xenophobia is to extend to an entire group the actions of the few. Prof. Ira Sharkansky of Hebrew University, in his article “Muslims, Jews, See the World Differently” (San Diego Jewish World, Feb. 24) follows this simplistic and bigoted line of discourse to conclude that valuing “human life” and opposing “bloodshed as a means of settling disputes” are just not “Muslim ways or perspectives.” 
The Olympics and Sochi. As we all gather around the TV each evening to be thrilled by ice dancing and another exciting match of curling, we should remember the repressive conditions that Sochi’s 20,000 Muslims live under. Muslim leaders have been pushing for permission to build a new mosque since 1996. “I'm so tired of writing letters—whole files—it just drags on and on,” a Muslim organizer told the Norwegian news organization Forum 18 in 2006.