‘This is just where we are in history’: Jewish-Muslim dialogue, temporality, and modalities of solidarity

Abstract

Building upon an ethnographic study of initiatives in Jewish-Muslim dialogue in the UK, I explore the way Muslim participants in such initiatives conceptualise the position of their community in the UK in relation to that of their Jewish co-citizens. I argue that while at first blush my Muslim interlocutors appear to read their community, in some historical time-frames, as being in a position of relative disadvantage in comparison to that of their Jewish counterparts, further analysis of their understanding of the positionalities of British Jews and British Muslims reveals a theorization that conveys a strong sense of solidarity with British Jewish citizens and unequivocally conceptualizes them as a political minority. I also suggest that these comparative reflections on the minority condition bear a productive potential for drawing public attention to specific challenges that different minority groups face.