Press Release: CAIR-Philadelphia Hires Jacob Bender as its New Executive Director
(Philadelphia, PA, 10/15/13) – The Philadelphia Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today announced the hiring of Jacob Bender, an interfaith activist and award-winning documentary film director, as their new Executive Director.
Mr. Bender brings to CAIR decades of activist history in some of the most important peace and justice movements of our time, and a long resume of professional accomplishments in communications for both nonprofit and corporate clients.
In a statement, Mr. Bender said:
"As an American Jew, I am both humbled and honored by the trust that CAIR has placed in me. My appointment is perfectly in keeping with CAIR's long-standing commitment to pluralism and promoting greater interfaith understanding. It is also, I believe, an expression of Islam's tradition of mutual respect."
CAIR-Philadelphia Chapter President Osama Al-Qasem stated:
"The Philadelphia Chapter welcomes Mr. Bender and looks forward to working with him and leveraging his extensive experience in the service of CAIR's clients, partners and supporters."
In the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001, Mr. Bender undertook a series of outreach initiatives to the Muslim community, both in the U.S. and abroad. He has spoken at dozens of mosques and Muslim venues across the country; made six trips to Qatar to speak at interfaith conferences; and addressed an international meeting of Muslim scholars at Al-Azhar University in Cairo in 2009.
"Out of Cordoba," Mr. Bender's award-winning documentary film about Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, has been broadcast on international television stations, and screened over 120 times at universities, churches, synagogues, mosques, conferences and film festivals around the world, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
With his unique background as a bridge builder between the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities, Mr. Bender looks forward to participating in CAIR's mission: enhancing understanding of Islam by non-Muslims; encouraging interfaith dialogue; protecting civil liberties; empowering American Muslims; and building coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
Mr. Bender is available for print, TV, and radio interviews.
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CONTACT: CAIR Philadelphia Executive Director Jacob Bender, 215.592.0509, [email protected].
http://pa.cair.com/pressrelease/cair-philadelphia-hires-jacob-bender-as-executive-director/
Dear Friends,
Asalaam Alaykum!
I am very pleased to introduce myself to all of you today as the new Executive Director of the Philadelphia Chapter of CAIR, the nation's preeminent Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.
I bring to CAIR a decades-long commitment to promoting peace and justice between Abraham's Children (Abna' Ibrahim) and a long resume of professional accomplishments in communications for nonprofit and corporate clients. I have published dozens of op-eds and letters-to-the-editor in newspapers and magazines around the world, many dealing with Muslim-West relations. (You can read a selection of these writings at http://outofcordoba.com/directors-publications/.)
Since 9/11, I have been intensely involved in outreach to the Muslim community, both in the U.S. and abroad. I have made over fifty speeches at mosques and Muslim centers and conferences around the world, including numerous times in Qatar, and had the honor of addressing an international conference of Muslim scholars at Al-Azhar University in 2009. My life has been immeasurably enriched by my association with the Muslim scholars and community leaders who have befriended me, most notably Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed of ISNA, the recipient of CAIR's 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award at the recent CAIR Annual Banquet.
My background also includes work as a documentary filmmaker, and much of my interaction with the Muslim community has centered upon the production of "Out of Cordoba," the award-winning film I began to work on in the months following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The film explores the multifaith culture and immense influence of Al-Andalus, and Muslim and Arab thinkers in general, upon Western civilization.
"Out of Cordoba" has screened over 120 times at mosques, churches, synagogues, at universities and MSA chapters, and at conferences and film festivals around the world, including at United Nations Headquarters in New York. You can read more about the film at www.outofcordoba.com. Please contact me if you are interested in arranging a screening at your local mosque or interfaith organization.
In the weeks and months ahead, and working with my new colleagues Amara Chaudhry-Kravitz, Esq. (Legal Director) and Leena Jafar (Operations Coordinator), I look forward to becoming acquainted with all of you as we confront the great challenges before us: helping and representing those confronting public discrimination; promoting respect and appreciation of Muslims and Islam in the American public; furthering greater understanding among America's different communities of faith; advancing the cause of peace and justice for all the people of our country, in addition to defending CAIR against the unfounded and hate mongering attacks of the Islamophobic network.
I am both humbled and honored by the trust that CAIR has placed in me. My selection is perfectly in keeping with CAIR's long-standing commitment to pluralism and promoting greater interfaith understanding, and is, I believe, a symbol of Islam's intrinsic tradition of mutual respect. As I have learned:
O people! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may come to know each other (not that ye may despise each other. (Holy Qur'an, 49:13)
To each among you, We have prescribed a law and a clear way. If Allah had willed, He would have made you one nation, but that (He) may test you in what He has given you; so strive as in a race in good deeds. (Holy Qur'an, 5:48)
Salaams,
Jacob Bender
Executive Director | Philadelphia Chapter CAIR – Council on American Islamic Relations 215.592.0509 [email protected]http://pa.cair.com/news/a-letter-from-jacob-bender-new-executive-director-of-cair-philadelphia/
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MIM: Bio of Bender on the website promoting the film he produced promoting the myth of Muslim Jewish coexistence.
Cordoba is synonymous with Islamist aspirations to retake Spain aka Al Andalusia and reestablish the Islamic Caliphate which existed from 929 to 1031.
The film is touted with the following Islamist propaganda mantra "There is no clash of civilizations between the Muslim world and the West, only the clash of ignorance".
Jacob Bender, Writer / Producer/ Director
Jacob Bender is a documentary filmmaker, video producer, photographer, graphic designer, and interfaith consultant. During a career spanning more than thirty years, Jacob has produced dozens of television, video, audiovisual and radio programs, graphic and print projects, museums exhibitions and educational programs. His clients have included a wide range of major corporations, such as American Express and Time Warner, and nonprofit organizations, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, NASA, The Baltimore Zoo, and the United States National Park Service.
During the many years Jacob lived in Israel, he worked as an audio-visual producer at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, as well as for the Israel Ministry of Education.
Jacob was the Audio-Visual Producer for the United States Constitutional Bicentennial Exhibition in 1985. He is the director of the television documentary, "The Voice Still Speaks: Jews and Revelation," broadcast nationally in 1999 on The Odyssey Channel, and "So Goes a Nation: Lawyers and Communities," produced for Fordham University Law School and narrated by Sam Waterson and Jimmy Smits. "So Goes a Nation" has been screened at over 200 law schools around the world.
Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, Jacob was one of the initiators of interfaith dialogue with the American Muslim community. He has spoken dozens of times at mosques and at large gatherings of Muslims in the United States, particularly at the conventions of the Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim organization in the US.
In 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, Jacob was a featured speaker at the annual Doha Conferences on Religious Dialogue, organized by the Foreign Ministry of Qatar. In 2008, he was invited by the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, to participate in the historic interfaith conference in Madrid initiated by HRH King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia. In January and June of 2009, Jacob spoke at interfaith conferences organized by Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. Jacob has also been a featured guest on the Aljazeera Channel show "Min Washington."
Jacob has published articles in Islamic Horizons Magazine, The Daily Star of Beirut, Lebanon, and an article appeared about him in The Arab News of Saudi Arabia. His "Letters to the Editor" have been published in newspapers around the world, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Jordan Times, The Gulf News, and El Pais.
In 1984, Jacob was a speech writer on interfaith affairs for Rev. Jesse Jackson during his historic presidential campaign.
Jacob has been a leading voice in the American Jewish community for a just resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. 1995, he led delegations of American peace activists that met with Chairman Yassir Arafat in Gaza and King Hussein in Amman.
Jacob has a degree in "The History of Religions" from the University of California at Los Angeles, and studied film and television at New York University's Graduate School of Film.
http://outofcordoba.com/the-team/
MIM: The advisory board for the film includes many noted Islamists and apologists as do the funders.
Advisory Board
Akbar S. Ahmed, Professor of Islamic Studies, American University.
Karen Armstrong, author.
Michael Barry, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University.
David B. Burrell, C.S.C., Professor of Philosophy and Theology, University of Notre Dame.
Charles Butterworth, Professor of Islamic Philosophy, University of Maryland.
Mark R. Cohen, Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University.
Jacob I. Dienstag, Librarian Emeritus, Yeshiva University.
John L. Esposito, Director, Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University.
Majid Fahkry, Professor of Islamic Philosophy, George Washington University.
Reuven Firestone, Professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam, Hebrew Union College.
Lenn Goodman, Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University.
Wael B. Hallaq, Professor of Islamic Law, McGill University.
Joel Kraemer, Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Chicago Divinity School.
Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., Philosophy Department Chairman, Fordham University.
Oliver Leaman, Professor of Judaic Studies, University of Kentucky.
Rev. Ian Markham, Dean and Professor of Theology and Ethics, Hartford Seminary.
Rev. Francis Martin, Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, Washington, DC.
J. Rolando Matalon, Senior Rabbi, Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, NYC.
María Rosa Menocal, Professor of Spanish, Yale University.
Richard Murphy, former US Assistant Secretary of State; former US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic Studies, George Washington University.
F. E. Peters, Professor of Religion, New York University,
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, President, American Sufi Muslim Association.
Richard Rubenstein, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University.
Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, Fidq Council of North America.
Dr. Sayyid Muhammed Syeed, Islamic Society of North America.
Dr. William Vendley, World Conference on Religion and Peace.
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MAJOR FUNDING HAS BEEN PROVIDED BY
Alwaleed bin Talal Foundation
Canal Sur TV
United States Institute of Peace
William and Mary Greve Foundation
Carnegie Corporation of New York
Sabell Bender Trust
International Institute of Islamic Thought
Empresa Pública de Gestión de Programas Culturales
Consejería de Cultura, Junta de Andalucía
Ayuntamiento de Córdoba
Diputación Provincial de Córdoba
Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo
Casa Sefarad-Israel
WITH ADDITIONAL DONATIONS BY
Alan J. Slifka Foundation
Alavi Foundation
Anita Altman Fund
Carol Anshien
Matty Jallow Baby
Esther M. Broner
Chandler Davis and Natalie Zemon Davis
Estare and David Weiser Charitable Fund
First Presbyterian Church of Rockaway, NJ
Sandra H. Gamal
Frank and Judy Greenberg Foundation
Islamic Center of Southern California
Islamic Institute of Florida
Islamic Society of North America
Sally Gottesman
Jewish Communal Fund
Barbara Kane
Joan Levinson
Laurence Lewin, MD
Long Island Muslim Society
Maimonides Medical Society of Western New York
M. Ashraf Sufi
Owsley Brown Charitable Foundation
William E. Rice
Rabbi David Ellenson, Hebrew Union College
Irfan Khan Sardar
Roselyne Swig
Stanley Sheinbaum Trust
http://outofcordoba.com/funders/
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MIM: It is worth noting that CAIR Philly's Civil Rights/Legal Director Amara Chaudhry recently married a Jew.
"To the extent possible, the couple will try to incorporate the cultural and faith traditions common to both their Abrahamic faith traditons."
Bio: http://pa.cair.com/about/staff/amara-chaudhry/About Amara
Amara Chaudhry is a lawyer working for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Philadelphia.
About John
John Kravitz is a lawyer working for the Montgomery County Pubic Defender's Office in suburban Philadelphia.Ceremony Information
John and Amara's wedding ceremony is scheduled to begin at 5:30 in the afternoon and is expected to conclude around 6 o'clock. Our wedding will be officiated by Rabbi Linda Holtzman of Mishkan Shalom, a Reconstructionist synogogue located in the Manyunk section of Philadelhpia. Amara and John will be having a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony. To the extent possible, the couple will try to incorporate the cultural and faith traditions common to both their Abrahamic faith traditons. Your event programs, distributed on the date of the event, will have more details. http://johnandamara.ourwedding.com/view/6693003193839446/35002780This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/6097