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Judea Pearl builds bridges as ‘revenge’ for son’s death
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BY: MARILYN H. KARFELD Senior Staff Reporter
Six years ago, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl told his radical Muslim captors in Karachi, Pakistan: “I am an American Jewish journalist from Encino. My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.”
It wasn’t coercion, gallantry or chutzpah that made his son Daniel utter those words, just before his captors murdered him, Judea Pearl recently told several hundred people in Cleveland. Rather, his son was saying, “I respect Islam precisely because I am Jewish, and I expect you to respect me because you are, or claim to be, good Muslims.”
Daniel was not religious in the conventional sense, his father said. But Judaism taught him to understand suffering and injustice. “I am Jewish” was his assertion of the right of every individual to his own faith, heritage and identity.
Speaking last month at an event sponsored by Siegal College, beneath a beaming image of his son, Judea Pearl continued his effort to turn Daniel’s brutal slaying into a call for Muslim-Jewish dialogue and understanding.
By murdering Danny, his captors guaranteed that the respect the journalist earned in the East and the West, his good-hearted smile, and his videotaped last words would become “iconic personal reminders” that terror and violence are aimed at “the very fabric of civilized society,” Pearl said.
Asked often how he copes with the terrible injustice of his son’s death, how he reconciles the contradictions between good and evil, reward and punishment, and loving God despite his gentle son’s murder, Pearl replies, “I don’t. I don’t even try.”
Instead, he focuses on the opportunities his private tragedy bestowed on him. In 2004, he and his wife Ruth co-edited the book I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl. The book, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Anthologies, contains essays from 150 people, included Cleveland Federation president Stephen H. Hoffman, then-head of United Jewish Communities, on what it means to be Jewish.
Judea Pearl said he finds “revenge” for his son’s death through the Daniel Pearl Foundation, established to fight “the hatred that took Danny’s life.” The foundation seeks the goodwill of millions of decent people through journalism and music; it brings Muslim journalists to work at U.S. newspapers, so they can directly experience a free press and bring that back to their own countries.
Daniel was a musician, a fiddler, his father says. Thus, last year the foundation organized over 500 concerts in 42 countries dedicated to tolerance and humanity. The Cleveland Orchestra has been asked to participate this year, Pearl added.
The foundation also sponsors dialogues between Pearl, a computer science professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Prof. Akbar Ahmed, chairman of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, D.C. The two grandfathers take the stage to air grievances and discuss issues. Audiences, which are 50% Jewish, 30% Muslim, and the rest Christian, ask tough questions, Pearl said, and no topic is taboo.
“Muslims are angry because Jews started the state of Israel, an outpost of European imperialism,” Pearl explained. “Jews are angry at Muslims, who after 60 years, still don’t accept Israel, which is not an outpost of imperialism but a homecoming for us.”
It’s hard to measure if the dialogues or the concerts reduce hate, Pearl acknowledged. “Even if they don’t bring world peace, they go a long way to bringing people together. This is the right image of America and of Jews, not the one (Muslims) see on Al Jazeera of Israelis with a helmet and rifle.”
Danny’s murderers miscalculated when they brought the camera into the dungeon as his captors beheaded him, his father said. They zoomed in on the face of an American and a Jew who “sought to build bridges between East and West, armed with a pen and fiddle. It was not the picture his captors wanted.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
It wasn’t coercion, gallantry or chutzpah that made his son Daniel utter those words, just before his captors murdered him, Judea Pearl recently told several hundred people in Cleveland. Rather, his son was saying, “I respect Islam precisely because I am Jewish, and I expect you to respect me because you are, or claim to be, good Muslims.”
Daniel was not religious in the conventional sense, his father said. But Judaism taught him to understand suffering and injustice. “I am Jewish” was his assertion of the right of every individual to his own faith, heritage and identity.
Speaking last month at an event sponsored by Siegal College, beneath a beaming image of his son, Judea Pearl continued his effort to turn Daniel’s brutal slaying into a call for Muslim-Jewish dialogue and understanding.
By murdering Danny, his captors guaranteed that the respect the journalist earned in the East and the West, his good-hearted smile, and his videotaped last words would become “iconic personal reminders” that terror and violence are aimed at “the very fabric of civilized society,” Pearl said.
Asked often how he copes with the terrible injustice of his son’s death, how he reconciles the contradictions between good and evil, reward and punishment, and loving God despite his gentle son’s murder, Pearl replies, “I don’t. I don’t even try.”
Instead, he focuses on the opportunities his private tragedy bestowed on him. In 2004, he and his wife Ruth co-edited the book I am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl. The book, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Anthologies, contains essays from 150 people, included Cleveland Federation president Stephen H. Hoffman, then-head of United Jewish Communities, on what it means to be Jewish.
Judea Pearl said he finds “revenge” for his son’s death through the Daniel Pearl Foundation, established to fight “the hatred that took Danny’s life.” The foundation seeks the goodwill of millions of decent people through journalism and music; it brings Muslim journalists to work at U.S. newspapers, so they can directly experience a free press and bring that back to their own countries.
Daniel was a musician, a fiddler, his father says. Thus, last year the foundation organized over 500 concerts in 42 countries dedicated to tolerance and humanity. The Cleveland Orchestra has been asked to participate this year, Pearl added.
The foundation also sponsors dialogues between Pearl, a computer science professor at University of California, Los Angeles, and Prof. Akbar Ahmed, chairman of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, D.C. The two grandfathers take the stage to air grievances and discuss issues. Audiences, which are 50% Jewish, 30% Muslim, and the rest Christian, ask tough questions, Pearl said, and no topic is taboo.
“Muslims are angry because Jews started the state of Israel, an outpost of European imperialism,” Pearl explained. “Jews are angry at Muslims, who after 60 years, still don’t accept Israel, which is not an outpost of imperialism but a homecoming for us.”
It’s hard to measure if the dialogues or the concerts reduce hate, Pearl acknowledged. “Even if they don’t bring world peace, they go a long way to bringing people together. This is the right image of America and of Jews, not the one (Muslims) see on Al Jazeera of Israelis with a helmet and rifle.”
Danny’s murderers miscalculated when they brought the camera into the dungeon as his captors beheaded him, his father said. They zoomed in on the face of an American and a Jew who “sought to build bridges between East and West, armed with a pen and fiddle. It was not the picture his captors wanted.”
mkarfeld@cjn.org
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