Jews and Muslims in Minnesota greet ceasefire in Gaza with tempered optimism

Jews and Muslims in Minnesota have shared in the grief of the past 15 months, since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, sparked a devastating war and a cataclysmic new chapter in the troubled history of the region.

Jews have anguished over Israeli hostages still in captivity. Muslims have mourned the loss of tens of thousands of civilian lives in Gaza.

On Wednesday, with the announcement of a provisional ceasefire and hostage-release deal due to take effect this weekend, Jews and Muslims again expressed a shared emotion — a tempered optimism that this temporary ceasefire will hold.

Ari Parritz, a Jewish developer in St. Paul who was in Israel for his cousin’s wedding when the Oct. 7 attacks took place, is setting aside more complicated feelings about the peace deal — wondering why a similar spring peace deal proposed by Israel was not accepted, fearing the lifelong damage for Israeli hostages — and celebrating this moment.

“Whatever it takes to get these people home,” Parritz said. “My hope and the hope of the world, certainly the majority of Israelis, is that this means it’s done. That war winds down. That you can go back to peaceful living in Israel and Gaza.”

Said Isayed, a Palestinian who owns an integrative medicine studio in northeast Minneapolis, put it simply: “Glad this is over. Maybe not forever, but for now.”

When he’s seen images of Gazans celebrating the ceasefire, Isayed has mixed emotions. He’s thrilled that for now, bloodshed stops. He hopes the world has learned that the military option doesn’t work: “If you keep killing people, you’re going to create another generation that wants revenge, and it’s going to be an endless cycle.”

He mourns the destruction this war has wrought: More than 46,000 dead Palestinians in the war’s 467 days, or about 100 a day. Isayed has a 2-year-old son. How many thousands of children have been killed in Gaza during that span?

“That could have been my kid,” he said. “It takes a bit of the joy out of me enjoying my kid growing up. Thinking about my family back home. It really affects your life.”

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, found himself applauding a man long demonized in the Muslim community: President-elect Donald Trump.

“Trump made a promise in the campaign, he made it to Muslims in Michigan, that he’d end this war before he was inaugurated,” Hussein said. “And on the day of his inauguration, there will be peace in Gaza, hostages will be freed, and humanitarian aid will go in. We believed President Biden had higher moral ground on these issues. It’s the opposite now.”

Steve Hunegs, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, approached the ceasefire with a “cautious cautiousness.” As he digested the news, he expressed equal measures of joy, dread and hope.

“Joy being the families who’ll receive their loved ones alive,” Hunegs said. “Seeing people emerge from a 467-day period of torture and isolation alive, there can’t be any greater joy.”

But he dreaded the condition of the hostages. And he hoped that Israeli successes — the weakening of Hamas, the evisceration of Hezbollah, the fall of the Syrian regime — could lead to lasting change: “Maybe you see some wisps of hope of some alignment in the Middle East.”

When the war was in its first weeks, Sayyid Muntadher, resident scholar at Anjuman-e-Asghari mosque in Brooklyn Park, hosted community candlelight vigils and discussions. Now he’s planning a Friday sermon with hope that this is a “turning point.”

Yossi Aharoni, 37, a music teacher in Crystal, has a complicated identity. He’s Jewish, but he’s anti-Zionist. He was born in Israel — or, as he calls it, “occupied Palestine a.k.a. Israel” — but he sees Israelis as the oppressors. He sees this not as a war but as a genocide.

About the ceasefire, he’s both hopeful and skeptical.

“Even if it’s temporary cessation of hostilities, this is good,” Aharoni said. “A permanent ceasefire would be better. But the proof will be in the pudding in whether or not Israel actually abides by any ceasefire agreement. I’m not hopeful that they will. They haven’t demonstrated to me that anything they say can be trusted.”

Maysoon Wazwaz, the 24-year-old daughter of Palestinian immigrants who is a member of the Minnesota chapter of American Muslims for Palestine, kept ricocheting between joy and rage.

“Biden saying he secured this victory when he’s leaving, it’s just a slap in the face,” Wazwaz said. “The world failed Gaza. The joy comes back in when you see how children of Gaza are celebrating this. I haven’t seen some people in my life genuinely smile for a long time, and now I’m seeing them genuinely smile.”

Melissa Cohen Silberman of Golden Valley, a member of Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Minnetonka, was “over the moon” about a ceasefire agreement. But she still held her breath about the release of hostages.

“I want the hostages out of there pronto, no game-playing,“ she said. ”I want to see the whites of their eyes. And I want Gaza to be helped out in any and all ways possible. But until there’s a reason to celebrate, I won’t be celebrating."

Staff writer Erica Pearson contributed to this report.