- Muslim and Jewish communities in Duluth, Minnesota, united to remove graffiti painted on a local mosque.
- John Dahl reached out to a synagogue a few miles away to ask for help cleaning up the graffiti.
The Muslim and Jewish communities in Duluth, Minnesota, gathered last weekend to remove graffiti painted on a local mosque.
The idea of inviting members of the neighboring synagogue to help repaint the mosque was suggested by John Dahl, president of the executive board of the Islamic Center of the Twin Ports, who discovered the graffiti during the weekend.
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“My initial thought was it was a terrorism event or some type of hate crime,” said Dahl. “But then I looked to see what it was, and it probably was just some teenagers,” Fox 21 reported.
“And I thought, well, this is the second time we’ve had some graffiti. Maybe we can make some lemonade out of lemons and reach over to our Jewish sisters and brothers in the community and see if they can help,” said Dahl, MPR News reported.
Therefore, Dahl reached out to Temple Israel synagogue to ask for help cleaning up the graffiti.
“What I quickly found out was that … not only was the Jewish community receptive to it, but they would actually consider it almost an honor to come over and help,” Dahl said.
“I was just overjoyed because I was hoping that that’s exactly the reaction that this request would have elicited.”
It’s noteworthy that many local communities have always come in support of the Muslim community in many cases.
In 2021, members of the local community in Suffolk County in Brentwood, New York, came together in a show of support for the local mosque that was vandalized.
In September 2019, the vandalism of the new welcome sign at the Islamic Centre of Grand Junction, Colorado, prompted the community to show support and start crowdfunding to repair the damaged sign.