As the only Jew in his 150-person high school graduating class in Turkey, Yoel Meranda vividly remembers being picked on and discriminated against by his fellow classmates.
But when he moved to the United States, he didn’t see the same tension between Muslims and Jews.
“What my experience tells me is that these two cultures can live side by side very nicely if they really want to,” said Meranda, a McCormick sophomore.
Meranda was one of four speakers who shared personal stories about growing up surrounded by different faiths Wednesday in the second part of “Shut Up and Listen,” a series of dialogues about the conflict in the Middle East.
The speakers told their experiences to about 60 people in Parkes Hall.
Meranda recalled an incident in one of this high school classes where he raised his hand and made a comment, only to be ridiculed by one of his classmates for being Jewish.
“I really wanted to kill that guy,” he said. “I went back home and I couldn’t tell it to anyone.”
When he found out the classmate was beaten up afterward by five guys he didn’t know, he felt a sense of gratification.
“Just put yourself in my place, and imagine how amazing you would feel,” he said.
Hammad Saudye, a McCormick senior, said he had the opposite experience growing up Muslim in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood.
As a child, he biked around a synagogue parking lot with the Jewish kids in the neighborhood. He said he didn’t really understand the differences between the two faiths when he was younger.
“For a long time, I thought (Shabbat) was an excuse for Jewish parents so that kids couldn’t go out on Fridays and Saturdays,” Saudye said. “I wanted to play with people and I would go around knocking on everybody’s door.”
Bassel Korkor, a Weinberg junior, is an Arab Christian whose parents are from Syria. Though he hails from Ohio, Korkor attended school in Damascus, Syria.
He talked about his mother opening a Middle Eastern eatery in Canton, Ohio, which has a significant Jewish population. Jewish and Arab foods are so similar that customers couldn’t tell the difference, he said.
Korkor, who has dated both Jewish and Arab women, said they share many similarities.
“They’re kinda pushy and loud,” he said.
Tony Bakerli, general manager of residential dining, also grew up in Damascus. His parents come from different faiths – his mother is Jewish and his father is Muslim.
Bakerli said his parents were open minded and taught him all three Abrahamic faiths: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
According to Korkor, the Abrahamic faiths are the three most closely intertwined faiths in world history.
The conflict raging in the Middle East is futile, Bakerli said. “The price of a human being is the price of the bullet they are basically wasting on us.”
