Kindred Spirits Cross A Religious Divide

A unique friendship is developing between Dr Taj Hargey, founder of Cape Town’s Open Mosque in Wynberg, and Rabbi Greg Alexander of the Cape Town Progressive Jewish Congregation. Read on as the two religious leaders swop thoughts about each other.

- Sue Segar

Rabbi Greg Alexander

I FIRST HEARD ABOUT DR TAJ HARGEY when the Open Mosque controversy exploded in the newspapers in 2014. I realised he was doing what Rabbi David Sherman had had to do in our synagogue 70 years ago. I felt strongly about Dr Hargey’s cause. What was wrong with trying to get people to worship together and do beautiful things? The crime, apparently, was that he was not doing it how a “good Muslim” should. He was saying men and women were equal, that women could read prayers and that the Quran backs this up. For this, he was threatened and fire-bombed. I wanted to reach out to him and tell him that what he was doing was great and that we, in our synagogue, had been there before. I wrote to him. Some time later he contacted me and asked to meet. I went over to the mosque and we sat down and told each other about ourselves and what we were doing. We decided to collaborate.

Any religious text is open to interpretation. One person can read a text as telling him to go out and kill nonbelievers but the same text can tell them to strive to be a better person. So here was an imam who was reading in the text that men and women were equal. That’s a core teaching of our synagogue. As progressive Jews we believe men and women have equal obligations and equal rights to participate in Judaism. Here was somebody in the Muslim world trying to do what we’ve been doing for decades and getting flak. This struck a chord. I felt he needed our support.

The Cape Town Progressive Jewish congregation, also known as Temple Israel, has three branches – in Wynberg, Green Point and Milnerton – and about 3,000 members. Our vision is to create a caring community based on study, spirituality and good deeds.