Compare and contrast the religious experiences of Jews and Muslims in Canada. Canada is a big country that has a population of about 29 million people. There is no official religion in Canada and it advocates for pluralism of religions. Jewish and Islam are some of the religions that are found and bout 36 percent of the Canadian population are Jews. There is also a significant number of Muslims in Canada and researches have shown that Islam is the fastest growing religion in Canada.
In Canada today, the number of Muslims is greater than that of the Jews. My focus on this essay will be to compare the religious experience differences between Jews and Islam. In Canada the hate speech against Islam religion is prelevant and this is because the Canadian government promotes segregation of Muslims especially by using its systematic method of racial profiling. It has also passed some legislations such as bill c- 36 and use of ‘security certificates’ that enable suspects to be locked up even without being told the reason for their arrest.
Arresting the key Muslim leaders in Canada greatly undermines Islam. Most Canadian Muslims are people who are either born in Muslim families or immigrants but there are very few converts from other religions. Though there are a good number of Muslims in Canada, they are ignored when it comes to domestic and foreign policies in that they are not given any chance to take part in the formulation of policies that affect them. Unlike Muslims who are segregated, Jews are not.
Though Canadian Muslims are very diverse, they have some a common way of looking at things for example they share some views concerning freedom and the freedom rights. Muslim socio- theories such as clash of civilizations and anti Islam have greatly affected the Canadian way of dealing with things and have influenced the formulation of policies such that currently the Muslim community cannot pass any foreign policy concerning Palestine. Since the September eleven attack, Muslims in the world are severely harassed by the police officers.
Massive investigations have been launched in various charity organizations in Canada that were managed by Muslims. Because of this they stopped funding them, as they did not know which one would be targeted next. Canada’s policies over Islam are made through mutual respect and dialogue as opposed to sanctions and coercions. (Terrance M. Et al. , 1996) On the other hand, the Jews are also on the increase this is because Canada advocates for a heterogeneous community something that allows minor communities to survive and this explains why Canada has different cultures.
Most of the Jews in Canada are immigrants from various parts of the world; most of them come from Toronto, Hungary and Germany. Canada has been opening door to all Jews who face harsh treatment at home. The Jews on Canada have been very hardworking. They have established their own schools, universities, churches and hospitals. Basically, these people are prosperous but that does not apply to all as in 1991 in every six Jews one of them lived below poverty line. (Elazer D. J. ) Academic performance is higher than the rest of all Jewish population.
Religions have faced discrimination of women for example, about 30 percent of Muslim women have unfairly been treated and about 23 percent of the Jewish women have also faced the same. The Jewish women are allowed to vote and they turn out in large volumes while the Muslims are the least religion denomination in Canada that is least likely to vote. Jewish community is well organized and peaceful and has been very vibrant in a number of Jewish campaigns both at the national and international level.
The Jewish interests are well represented in the government and work hard to improve the relation with non-Jews. (Morton W. Et al. , 1981) In the past both the Muslim and Jewish community according to (Elmasary M. ) cooperated in various issues and even formed alliances. They both worked together by providing military assistance that was needed in the Kosovo intervention but coordinal relationship turned sour when the Muslim leaders talked in favor of the Palestinian dissidents, intifanda.
The death knell was sounded when an award of community service was awarded to the local newspaper that strongly supported Hezbolla and Hamas. Though they disagreed on this issue both communities are working closely and assume that nothing serious happened. In a bid to cement and improve the co operation between the Canadian Jews and the Muslims, the Canada Pakistan society has come up with a means of assisting journalist students in terms of giving scholarship in commemoration of Daniel Pearl who died after the Muslims radicals murdered him
Generally Muslims in Canada do not enjoy a warm relationship with the Jewish community especially because of the atrocities that have been done against the Jews Though they do not engage themselves in a open physical conflict, the strife continues to exist between them. After the September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center where many people were killed, many people accused the Arab nations that are comprised Muslims of bombing.
Reference: Terrance M. Et al. , 1996 . Eds. A Concise History of Christianity in Canada. Toronto Oxford University Press. Elazer D. J. The Canadian Jewish Experience http://www.jcpa.org/dje/books/canch.html