FALL 2001 • VOLUME
6, NUMBER 2
BY
DAVID LACHANCE
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FRED
LEBLANC
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Muslim
and Jewish students share a meal in the new kosher/halal dining
hall in Wilder. |
On
a typical day, you might find Naomi Gates-Monasch ’04 and Somera
Khan ’04 having lunch together in Wilder Hall, chatting as any
two friends would. “Most of the time, we’ll ask each other, ‘How
are your classes? What have you been reading? How was your lacrosse
game?’ ” Gates-Monasch says. What also comes up is their different
backgrounds--Khan is Muslim, Gates-Monasch is Jewish. Through
sharing meals, “we learn a lot about each other’s culture and
religion,” says Khan.
This fall, Wilder
became the home of Mount Holyoke’s new kosher/halal dining facility,
a place that welcomes students of all backgrounds, but in particular
allows religious Muslims and religious Jews to practice the dietary
laws of their faiths. It is one of a handful of its kind on American
college campuses. Three meals a day, seven days a week, all food
served at Wilder meets the restrictions of both the Qur’an and
the Torah. Says Khan, “I take great pride in Wilder. It brings
the Jewish and Muslim communities together. We are recognized
as cousins--it reminds us that we are in the same boat.”
The dietary laws
of Judaism and Islam are not identical, but, in a reminder of
the ancient connections between the two faiths, share enough similar
aspects to make a place like Wilder possible. Both faiths prohibit
the eating of pork and require animals to be slaughtered in a
particular way. But Judaism, for example, forbids the mixing of
meat and dairy, while Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol.
So, at Wilder, neither cheeseburgers nor Grey Poupon mustard (which
contains alcohol) will be served. But it’s not what Wilder lacks
that draws students so much as what it offers. “One of our students
said, ‘We are so lucky to have a dining hall where we can eat
without any doubt,’ ” said Sister Shamshad Sheikh, the College’s
Muslim chaplain.
The plans for the
dining hall began taking shape two years ago, when students presented
a proposal to Beverly Daniel Tatum, dean of the College and the
author of “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the
Cafeteria?” And Other Conversations About Race. Although Eliot
House, home of the College’s Office of Religious and Spiritual
Life, had provided space for a small kosher/halal kitchen since
1989, that facility had become too small to meet the demand, students
told Tatum.
With a $250,000 grant
from an anonymous alumna, the College this spring began converting
the dining facility in Wilder to a kosher/halal dining hall. The
kitchen was gutted and rebuilt during the summer and furnished
with new equipment. It is now really two kitchens, with separate
storage and preparation areas for meat and dairy foods. Color-coded
dishes and utensils (red for meat, green for dairy) help ensure
observance of the Jewish law that forbids combining of those foods.
One complication
threatened the project at the start: The ritual for slaughtering
animals is not precisely the same in Judaism and Islam, meaning
that meat could not be both halal and kosher at the same time.
But the Muslim students agreed with Sheikh’s interpretation that
the Qur’an allows kosher meat to be eaten when halal is not available,
because both faith groups are “people of the book.”
“While we are tremendously
grateful to the Mount Holyoke alumna’s generous donation of the
resources to renovate the Wilder dining hall, all the money in
the world would not have helped us be successful if we had not
had the commitment to dialogue and cooperation between the Jewish
and Muslim communities,” Tatum said at a September 13 opening
celebration. “It is that commitment and cooperation that has ensured
the success of this project.”
“Peace develops as
we create friendship and trust,” Efraim Eisen, the College’s Jewish
chaplain, told the 100 people attending the opening ceremony.
“One of my teachers used to explain to me that in times of darkness,
the best thing you can do is pray like mad and plant flowers.
This dining hall is a lovely flower, showing the world that here,
Muslims, Jews, and all our students can live and eat together.”
So far, “it’s working
out perfectly,” Khan says. “It’s very popular,” adds Gates-Monasch.
“It is fabulous for those of us who really do care about what
we eat on a religious basis.” This fall, Khan’s cousin is planning
to transfer to Mount Holyoke from a college in Florida, drawn
by the availability of halal food. “That’s a very big deal to
her,” she says.
In the words of Melissa
Simon ’04, a student who met with Tatum to help plan the kosher/halal
dining hall: “I have found Wilder to be a meeting place for students
from a variety of backgrounds, and it serves as a forum for students
getting together to talk about their differences and their similarities.
“Plus, the food is
great!”
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