Community Rallies
Around Targeted Muslims

After a longstanding Muslim community was targeted with vandalism, Christian, Jews and Muslims gathered Friday and vowed to write over the hateful speech with words of peace.

The interfaith gathering took place under shared umbrellas midday Friday at the Abdul Majid Karim Hasan Islamic Center. The center is just over the New Haven-Hamden town line at 870 Dixwell Ave.

For the third time recently, vandals sprayed obscene graffiti on a walls of the center and the home of its eponymous leader.

As a result, religious leaders of all three faiths, under the umbrella of Interfaith Cooperative Ministries (ICM), gathered at the mosque Friday for a press conference followed by prayer. Muslims, Jews and Christians were all well represented at the event. They came from Hartford and Bridgeport as well as New Haven and Hamden.

They stood not far from where the F‑word was sprayed in red paint on the side of the mosque.

“The word written on the side of this building is written in the language of hate, the language of rudeness, the language of division,” said the Rev. Shelly Stackhouse of Church of the Redeemer (pictured at the top of this story), co-chair of ICM. ​“We are here today we speak another language” of love, understanding, hope and peace. ​“We want to invite whoever wrote this on this building to come and learn from us how to speak a different language, how to write different words and how to make peace within this community.”

Abdul Majid Karim Hasan (pictured holding Stackhouse’s umbrella) built up the congregation over four decades, mostly in New Haven’s Dixwell and Beaver Hills neighborhoods. He has developed strong ties to leaders of New Haven’s Christian and Jewish communities and put his congregation at the forefront of the quest for interfaith unity.

For background stories on the congregation click here, here and here.

Hasan said he doesn’t know who did it, that the police are investigating, and the FBI stopped by this morning.

Bill Reiner, spokesman for the FBI office in New Haven, later said the FBI is ​“reviewing the facts to determine whether a federal investigation is warranted.”

Frustration seeped into Hasan’s quiet, eminently reasonable voice as he spoke of the defacement.

He even said the mosque may have contributed to the problem by not installing surveillance cameras outside, which he says will be done. ​“How many times does this have to happen before they catch somebody, or have we been a party to not catching them by not putting up video cameras? I thought that wasn’t necessary because I thought it was random, but three times…?” he asked, his voice trailing off.

He welcomed the support of fellow members of ICM, although he added that he and his center seem to need that help more than others do.

Rabbi Herbert Brockman of Mishkan Israel in Hamden (pictured) arrived early with a sound system and two assistants in tow. He has known and worked with Imam Hasan for 20 years, and feels a special kinship with him.

“Islam and Judaism are very closely linked faith traditions, as well as with Christianity. For me there are three monotheistic faiths.” He added that even though the word on the wall was not specifically denigrating Islam, it’s still cause for concern. ​“We all felt the pain that he would, driving up to his mosque and seeing profanity written on it. You don’t see it on other buildings around here, and that worries us. So, do something now, don’t wait for something worse to happen.”