In Fol­low­ing Sim­i­lar Paths, soci­ol­o­gists Samuel Heil­man and Muchahit Bili­ci explore what should be glar­ing­ly obvi­ous but unfor­tu­nate­ly isn’t: the close par­al­lels between Islam and Judaism. The youngest of the three Abra­ham­ic faiths, Islam shares many fea­tures with Judaism, includ­ing dietary restric­tions, the giv­ing of char­i­ty, fast­ing, and a set cycle of litur­gy and prayer. Islam can’t be said to derive from Jew­ish prac­tice but, as the authors point out, ​“both drew from a com­mon cul­tur­al reservoir.” 

In a series of themed chap­ters — ​”Diet,” ​“Study,” ​“Prayer,” and ​“Iden­ti­ty” — the authors probe the sim­i­lar­i­ties between the two faiths, and the dif­fer­ences. These are illu­mi­nat­ing, some­times strik­ing, espe­cial­ly in the small details. But what is most inter­est­ing are the ways that both faiths have been shaped by moder­ni­ty. For exam­ple, the phe­nom­e­non of the ​“third space” is tak­ing hold in North Amer­i­can Islam­ic com­mu­ni­ties: ​“gath­er­ings for con­gre­ga­tion­al prayer and oth­er pious pur­pos­es … out­side a tra­di­tion­al mosque set­ting.” In Judaism, even Ortho­dox Judaism, the ​“third space” is also gain­ing ground in the form of che­vurot and oth­er extra-insti­tu­tion­al group­ings. As the authors observe, for younger Mus­lims, and pre­sum­ably also for younger Jews, these alter­na­tives are ​“more wel­com­ing, more woman-friend­ly, and more spiritual.”

The impli­ca­tion of this book’s sub­ti­tle—What Amer­i­can Jews and Mus­lims Can Learn From Each Oth­er—is that com­mon ground between the two faiths exists, a sort of ​“ecu­meni­cal third space” where Mus­lims and Jews can rec­on­cile and find joint respons­es to a con­fus­ing and dan­ger­ous world. That may have been true once. But as the authors them­selves observe, this book was near­ing com­ple­tion when Octo­ber 7, 2023 attacks hap­pened, ​“cast[ing] a long shad­ow on the Amer­i­can sphere of encounter between Jews and Mus­lims.” The con­fla­tion of Islamist ide­ol­o­gy and Islam­ic scrip­ture has become tox­ic. For Jews, it can be dif­fi­cult to con­tem­plate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of com­mon ground with almost any­body, giv­en what the authors them­selves refer to as the ​“unprece­dent­ed rise, by an order of mag­ni­tude,” of anti­semitism, after Octo­ber 7, 2023. In this world where rela­tions between Jews, Mus­lims, and even the coun­tries where we live are increas­ing­ly influ­enced by ancient hatred, a ​“third space” may prove elusive.