From Exodus to Hizmet: Redefining Other and Self in Thought and Action

The Abrahamic traditions offer ambiguity with regard to the issue of human relations. As Judaism and Christianity emerged, each referred to itself as the “True Israel” (Verus Israel), contending theologically and for political acceptance by the pagan Roman authorities. Islam’s arrival into Europe in the eighth century offered a new “other”—addressed by Christendom through the violence of the Crusades. “Self” and “other” in religion and politics found a new platform in anthropology as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century. The concept of “race” helped to “other” non-Europeans based on a crude schematic of humanity. Contemporary solutions to exclusion include Seeds of Peace, which shapes ethno-political opponents into friends; and the Hizmet Movement, whose constituents seek to help perfect the world by thinking, speaking, and acting dialogically within an inter-religious, multi-ethnic, and international framework, and by serving others—embraced as “us.” Appositely, Siona Benjamin’s unique paintings visually articulate conceptual embrace.