The Adhan at Harvard? A Jewish Response

Back in 2008, a controversy developed at Harvard University regarding the right of Muslims to sound the adhan(call to prayer) in a public space. Three graduate students published an op ed in the Harvard Crimson claiming that, unlike church bells or a menorah, this display was not in keeping with the commitments of the pluralistic university.

Many disagreed, and a fair account(fair, according to the Harvard Muslim chaplain's blog) of the controversy appeared in the New York Times.

I just obtained my copy of the 2010 edition of The Best Spiritual Writing. It carries a reprint of an article by Leon Weiseltier, a Jewish writer for the New Republic, that had, in my judgment, some wise ruminations on this issue and, in addition, on the wider question of the cacophony created by open civil space and the pleasures, as well as challenges, of the "ravishments of other traditions."

You can read it here.

Ring The Bells | The New Republic