Making Her Faith Heard
By Lindsay Downey

Just like long-lost relatives, members of the University of Florida’s religious community are coming together for a campus-wide family reunion. Through the student group Gators for Humanity, faith family members are re-opening the doors for communication and peace, uniting from all different religions.

Gators for Humanity co-founder Yasmine Taeb says university faith groups had been estranged for too long. “Jews and Muslims were considered to be cousins,” she says. “But we didn’t have that human connection as seeing each other as human beings. We didn’t have any sort of bond.”

Taeb says she was inspired to create a faith-based leadership group while participating in the UF Jewish Student Union’s Sukkot Survivor competition, which aims to educate students about the Sukkot-the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles during which Jews traditionally live in small dwellings to celebrate the fall harvest and wandering during the Exodus. Taeb, a Muslim, invited fellow Islamic students to participate and learn more about the Jewish faith, as well as several other religions. After living eight days in the Sukkah, Taeb emerged the competition’s winner, earning a trip to London for her dedication in promoting spiritual awareness.

Although she’s been active in both high school and college, taking on leadership positions such as high school class treasurer, Taeb says she never dreamt she’d be spearheading a religious leadership group. She admits she didn’t have an in-depth knowledge of Islam as a high school student. “I knew the basic tenets about my faith, but I was growing up in a mainly Jewish area, where there weren’t any Muslim people,” she says. “When I went to UF, I wasn’t even thinking about getting involved in a Muslim group, but I took a class to learn about my faith, and I saw a lot of racism.”

At the same time that Taeb was learning about Judaism in the Sukkot Survivor program, an uprising called the Intifada had just begun in the Middle East. As she became more aware of religious racism and Middle Eastern events, participating in the Survivor competition convinced Taeb that the time had come for campus faiths to congregate. Inspired and determined, she began organizing Gators for Humanity on the UF campus.

“I wanted people to learn about my faith, Islam, and I wanted to start an interfaith dialogue,” she says. “If I have a vision, I try to do something with it. I try to do what I can.” Taeb focused the faith-based group on principles of world peace and tolerance, while working to promote education among religions. “We wanted to form a group that was aimed at preventing atrocities happening across the globe,” she says. “Our concern was basically humanity and the violation of human rights and what’s going on in the Middle East.”

To get her humanitarian endeavor underway, Taeb helped write an article for UF’s student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, outlining her goals and hopes for Gators for Humanity and urging student participation in the organization’s events. Humanity members contacted student organizations, Greek houses, and residence halls, and sent out mass e-mails, spreading the word about the religious reunion. “In the beginning, we had an information table set up in the student union, and we passed out a white ribbon, which signifies humanity and peace, with a flyer attached that described what Gators for Humanity was for,” Taeb says. Through organized interfaith dialogues, students learned religious tolerance and answered questions about their spirituality. The faith-filled students worked on a canned food drive, which marked the organization’s first official charity project. As it got its feet off the ground, Gators for Humanity continued to donate time and effort to philanthropic endeavors, including more food and clothing drives and volunteer work for groups like Women in Distress.

And they weren’t doing it alone. Humanity members turned to various religious groups-their sister organizations-for help. “We considered it kind of like an umbrella group, so we had several groups beneath us, working with us,” Taeb says, adding that Bahais, Jews, Muslims, and Christians all worked to support the cause. “We would come together and we would basically go through the main causes of our faiths, what we believe, and students would ask questions,” Taeb says. Gators for Humanity was successful in educating people to understand alternate religious views and in breaking stereotypes that existed among different faiths. “People saw us as a neutral group,” Taeb says. “We stood out and expressed our concern about what was happening to alleviate people’s concerns and to try to make the campus climate pleasant for everyone.”

Religions under Gators for Humanity met one special night to demonstrate their unity to the public. Together, they painted the word “Coexist” on Gainesville’s 34th Street Wall of free speech. The “c” represented the crescent symbolic of Islam, the “x” was for the Jewish Star of David, and the “t” stood for the cross of Christianity. Painting the wall as a collective display showed how far the group had come in uniting different religions during its first year. “You could tell there was a significant difference, just by the climate on campus,” Taeb says. “When a Muslim did something with a Jewish student, for example, that opened the doors for us to work together. We saw each other as people of faith and respected each other in the end.”

As the organization began its second year, tragic events changed the world, and Gators for Humanity doubled up its efforts. “When the events of Sept. 11 happened, we wanted to do something to bring the campus together because the Muslim students felt they were being harassed and persecuted for the event,” Taeb says. “One of my personal friends was wearing a head covering, and she said that a couple of times on the day after 9/11, people called her derogatory terms and harassed her.” In fact, Taeb recalls several Islamic students experiencing racism after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including one Muslim student who was labeled a “murderer” while dining at a neighborhood restaurant. “Even our local mosque got bomb threats that first week,” Taeb says, adding that her own car, which was adorned with an American flag and an “I love Allah” bumper sticker, was vandalized. Islamic student organizations sent out e-mails advising Muslims to pair up for trips to the grocery store and telling them not to venture out alone.

The day after 9/11, Taeb wrote an article condemning the attack in the university’s newspaper. Gators for Humanity also organized a peace rally. Hundreds of students from a plethora of religious backgrounds walked from the Islamic Center to St. Augustine’s Church and then to the Jewish Center. “It was really touching how everyone came together,” Taeb says. “There was only a three-day notice for the rally and it wasn’t just students-everyone came out-faculty and parents as well.” Eventually, with the help of the peace rally and other Humanity-sponsored events, the post-9/11 racism on campus began to diminish. “A lot of it had to do with the fact that we were very outspoken about it. We always had information tables set up with Islam on Campus, where students could ask questions about faith and terrorism,” Taeb says. “It did get better as far as the whole Sept. 11 thing went, but I think there’s still a lot of racism out in the world.”

Taeb is still working to combat that racism. Now attending law school at Georgetown University, a recent trip to Iran inspired her to implement plans for another faith-based leadership group. “Upon returning from my trip to Iran, and after speaking to dozens of professors and students at the University of Tehran, I realized how vital it is to establish a cultural and interfaith dialogue between the students in Iran and the United States, particularly because of the lack of diplomatic relations between the two nations,” she says.

After a successful dialogue between the two universities, Taeb’s working on future plans to unite faiths and cultures. “It will eventually expand to include interested students from across the U.S. and Iran,” she says, adding that scholars, religious figures, and professors from the UT, Georgetown, and Catholic University will serve as the project’s advisors. “A web site will be created, students will be matched together, and bi-monthly reports will be published on-line detailing the students’ correspondences.”

Taeb plans to start working in the human rights division of the U.S. State Department’s International Organization Affairs Bureau. In addition, she’s been awarded the Pickering Fellowship by the State Department for her work in interfaith and cultural dialogues, through which she’ll serve as a U.S. diplomat after completing her master’s degree in International Affairs with a concentration in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies.

Contact Taeb at ypt@georgetown.edu.

Connecting Kibbutz to Campus
By Jenna Tighe

When lost or far from home, homing pigeons are capable of finding their way back from hundreds of miles away. Much like a homing pigeon, Rachel Elias found her way back to her spiritual home in Israel from nearly across the globe. Even when she returned to the United States, she kept Israel close to her heart.

Elias’ grandfather used to live in a region of Palestine which is part of present-day Israel, in the building that his grandfather, Elias’ great-great-grandfather built. The building at 60 Allenby St. is now one of the main corners of a large market. “It’s a place that we still go back to and visit. I have a lot of family roots in Israel,” Elias says.

Since the members of the family were all American citizens, after World War II began, the men, including Elias’ grandfather, left for America to enlist in the war while the women of the family stayed back in Palestine. “In Israel, I have a whole branch of my family-basically, all of the women married and stayed there with their families,” Elias says. “So, it’s always been ingrained in me to help and learn more about Israel.”

At the age of 9, Elias’ mother signed her up for a new sleep-away camp that was affiliated with the Young Judea youth group. She stayed involved with the group and spent her entire first year of college in Israel participating in its freshman study abroad program.

“The goal of the program is to get to see all the ways you can be a part of Israel and see the different kinds of lifestyles there are there. That’s why we spent time in a kibbutz and a development town and in a regular city like Jerusalem. It was to really get a sense of what everyday life is like there. We’ve learned so much back home, and we now had time to really get to see it first hand,” she says.

During her time in Israel, Elias studied all aspects of Israeli life including its history, culture, geography, and politics and volunteered countless hours to local causes. A middle school hired Elias as a volunteer teacher where she assisted in furthering the students’ reading and writing skills in English. She also worked on a kibbutz, an Israeli communal settlement that exposes its volunteers to all aspects of Israeli culture and day-to-day life. During her time on the kibbutz, Elias donated her time harvesting sunflower seeds in the desert, and she also stayed with a family and pitched in by milking cows.

“The exciting part is that I lived in Jerusalem for a time, I lived in the desert, I lived up in the north, and in all of these places, I was getting exposure to Israeli culture and Israeli way of life,” Elias says.

When Elias entered the University of Florida as a sophomore in 1998, she wanted to get involved on campus and hold onto her culture. At first, she was discouraged by the general indifference of UF’s student body. She found that nobody wanted to actually plan things themselves, but they’d happily attend events when someone else organized them. Her friend Stacey Gross suggested the pair create a club that would allow people to participate in Israeli cultural activities.

“I think I kind of missed some of things that I enjoyed doing when I was in Israel,” Elias says. “And in talking to other people, it kind of seemed that they missed some of those things too.”

In order to receive Student Government funding, Elias and Gross went to the student union and officially registered their club, which they named Gators for Israel. The harder part came when they began to organize the direction the club would take.

“It was a lot of brainstorming with other people that had been to Israel before or were in a situation similar to ours--that they were interested in doing these things but felt like there wasn’t a base for it,” Elias says. “We advertised on the Jewish Student Union web site and in The Independent Florida Alligator newspaper. Soon enough, we had a core group of people who then brought their friends, and it built up from there.”

Elias’ goal was to develop the organization to be more cultural than politically minded clubs the JSU had typically enveloped before. “My goal for the club was for people who wanted to do something to have a place to do it. For people who wanted to talk to other people about Israel or get involved or learn more about Israel, there’d be an outlet for them,” Elias says.

The group planned cultural events like Israel’s Independence Day celebrations and Memorial Day events, holidays that often don’t share much connection in the U.S. “In Israel, Memorial Day is the day before Independence Day,” Elias says. “It’s very important to remember the fallen soldiers and commemorate their achievements, and then celebrate their accomplishments the next day.” GFI annually sponsors a celebration at Gainesville’s Swamp Restaurant to observe the holidays. Everyone’s welcome to join in on the party, and GFI even encourages non-members to attend the festivities.

“These holidays are a beautiful way of remembering those people who gave their lives so others can have independence,” Elias says. “It’s a great way of celebrating death and rebirth.”

They also organize coffee houses to bring bits of Israeli culture to the students. During a recent social, GFI set up a tent on the UF Reitz Union’s lawn where the participants can eat traditional Israeli foods, read Israeli poems, play music, and sing Israeli songs.

“It’s about bringing people together which really creates a cross-section of people,” Elias says.

The second year Elias was at UF, she volunteered to organize the annual Sukkot project among the JSU, the school of architecture, university administration, and a private architect who provided the necessary funding. Sukkots are the booths built during the Jewish holiday of the same name to commemorate the final harvest of the year.

“The Jewish Student Union is made up of the smaller organizations under the umbrella of the JSU as well as the large-scale programming like Jewish Awareness Month or Sukkot or the Hanukkah party,” Elias says. “I had already done something with one of the smaller groups, and something on the large-scale programming aspect, and that was when I ran for president of JSU.”

During her JSU presidency, violence between Israelis and Arabs erupted in Israel. UF chose Elias to be its student representative to visit Israel for one week and show the Unites States’ continued support. Along with other student representatives, she met with Israeli officials and the prime minister during their stay to discuss the steps for peace.

“There was an immediate sense of urgency that we should get people to go to show the American solidarity with Israel,” Elias says. “It was really a public support for Israel during a time of violence, especially in Jerusalem.“

Back home, during her JSU presidency in 2000-2001, the next step for Elias was creating an interfaith panel to build bonds between the JSU and other cultural and religious groups. During the panel presentation, three Jews, three Christians, and three Muslims, all from different sects or denominations within their religions, took the stage to speak about their traditions and customs and field questions from the audience. JSU has since put on the interfaith panel every semester since Elias created it.

“The people in the audience are always amazed at how similar a lot of their faiths are. The panel means that JSU programmers are dealing with other organizations well, and they’re making bonds,” Elias says. “Unfortunately, we had to test those bonds after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We held a number of different memorial services and did things together to show the strength of the religious community as a whole in this area, not just the Jewish community.”

After her first year of presidency, Elias branched out and joined other organizations like the Florida Cicerones and the Florida Blue Key.

“Recently, I heard the administration talk about people’s involvement in general and where it tends to lead. I found that it really mirrored what I did. Usually, when people come to school, they spend the first year or two doing what they know and like. At first, people want to be surrounded by people that are like them and people they know and feel comfortable with,” Elias says. “Then, the next couple years, they try to branch out and they do other things. They say, ‘Well, I know my people, but what about all these other people out there?’ I think that’s what really happened to me. I found there were so many other things available that I wanted to be involved with.”

The most important lesson she had to learn as a successful president was communication. Elias had to effectively convey to her members when she needed them to assist her.

“I find that personally, the more things I have to do, the better I do in all of them. If during the course of when I was an undergrad, I found that my workload was too heavy, then I cut back or delegated more during the presidency,” Elias says. “You need to be able to know when to take things on yourself and when to delegate them to others. I think it’s about time management and knowing what’s important to you.”

Elias has taken on an advisory role to the clubs that meant the most to her as an undergrad. Since she’s currently pursuing masters degrees in architecture and real estate from UF, she’s limited her participation to JSU, Florida Cicerones, and Florida Blue Key.

“I’m getting two masters degrees, so it keeps me here longer than other people,” Elias says. “So, because I’m still here, I’ve found that the current JSU president or the president last year ask me to advise them of what I would do in their situations in an advisory capacity.”

Elias’s advice to future campus leaders is to not limit their activities. She hopes they get involved in everything they possibly can, because she’s found that there’s always something else out there to experience.

Contact Elias at rachelelias@aol.com.