As part of the Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar, this paper will contribute to the following academic fields of interest:
The Philosophy of Friendship; Friendship and Gender; Friendship, Gender and Peacebuilding; Interfaith Friendship.
Interfaith friendship challenges assumptions and allegiances of specific faith communities. Indeed, when ‘facing inwards’ towards their own faith communities, friends committed to ’facing outward’ to other faith communities have been condemned, some simply as naïve, whilst others have been demonised as traitors. These friends have been compelled to examine their friendship, not only as a form of intimate reflection, but also as a template for modelling this friendship to their own local and national faith communities, as well as to the wider public.
Thinking critically about Ellithorpe’s assertion that friendship is ‘a relationship of ethical significance, with public, political, and spiritual dimensions’ (Ellithorpe, A., 2022), questions about the public significance of a private friendship will be explored through a joint presentation of a Muslim interfaith activist and an orthodox Jewish academic each of whom are deeply committed to their long-lasting friendship, their interfaith and peacebuilding endeavours as well as to their own faith lives and faith communities.
As the conflict in the Israel-Palestine region continues, committed friends and interfaith relationships have been severely strained across the globe, and the past eighteen months have been catastrophic for many of the friendships forged between Jews and Muslims in the UK.
Nevertheless, despite the polarised voices and radical opinions, some friendships have flourished. Through auto-ethnography and more recent anthropological work on friendship, this session will work to disentangle the complications of a robust friendship across religious belief, political affiliation, and the expectations and allegiances of a person’s own faith community.