Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, September 18, 1993                   TAG: 9309170100
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B9   EDITION: METRO =W  
SOURCE: GEORGE W. CORNELL AP Religion Writer
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BROTHERS OF MIDDLE EAST SEEM TO BE RECLAIMING ANCIENT KINSHIP

The Middle East peace agreement signed this week in Washington symbolized an unexpected, modern-day assuaging of that ancient, storied rift between half brothers.

It is originally described in the Bible's opening Book of Genesis when the patriarch Abraham was persuaded to send Ishmael away, estranging him from Isaac. But God assertedly befriended both.

Over time, their traditional descendants sometimes cooperated, but for years they have clashed, the mutual distrust and hostility between Arabs and Jews mirroring breach between kinsmen of more than 3,500 years ago.

"We are members of the same family, but that side has been pushed aside," said Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership.

"Maybe that side is being reclaimed. It's been there all the time, but enmity has been winning out. Maybe now there's a chance to reverse that. It's not going to be easy. It's not in the bag. But it's tremendously hopeful."

Both the Bible and Islam's scripture, the Koran, describe the primeval relationship. "We covenanted with Abraham and Ishmael," says the Koran's Sura II, worshiping the God of "Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac."

However, at the outset, Ishmael and his mother, Hagar, were forced to leave Abraham's household by his wife, Sarah, mother of Isaac. She feared the elder son, Ishmael, might gain Abraham's inheritance.

Reluctantly, Abraham expelled the boy Ishmael and Hagar, a maidservant he had taken as second wife at the behest of the elderly Sarah who had not thought she could conceive, but later did.

As Genesis tells it, God reassured Abraham that he would make "a nation" of Ishmael as well as Isaac. Hagar wandered with the boy in the wilderness of Beersheba, lacking water and expecting death for both.

But hearing the lad's cries, God encouraged Hagar, saying her son also would spawn "a great nation." He married an Egyptian and had 12 sons, called "princes."

"Nothing is as bitter as family strife," said Rabbi A. James Rudin, interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee. In the case of Abraham's two sons, the rivalry has "taken on almost mythological characteristics."

He said they are used as "a prototype" of "separation and hatred" for those who want to keep at war, but as "children of a common father" for those seeking peace and reconciliation.

"Both Arabs and Jews trace their spiritual and perhaps physical descent back to Abraham," Rudin said. Both sons "did found great nations" but their relationship is used "both to express antagonism" and also mutual obligations.

"That's what makes the whole symbol so powerful," he said. "That's what makes the Arab and Jewish encounter so painful. We're cousins, and we owe each other something better." He said the new agreements "give impetus to overcoming that estrangement."

M. T. Medhdi, secretary-general of the National Council of Islamic Affairs, said the story of Ishmael and Isaac "provides a link between Muslims and Jews" and are considered the respective forefathers of the two lines.

However, "those mythologies are irrelevant to the hard political issues and human problems today."

The original estrangement was overcome at least temporarily by Isaac and Ishmael, who on Abraham's death both took part in burying him in a cave.

"There was reconciliation there," said Rabbi Joseph Glaser, executive vice president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. "They had been alienated by others, but not from each other."

Much as the jealousy of Sarah had influenced Abraham to oust Ishmael and his mother, Glaser said those outside Palestine in other Arab countries had "stirred up everything" and caused the recurrent warfare.

"Down through the ages, Jews and Muslims lived amicably together," he said, noting that the "golden age" of Judaism had come in Muslim-controlled Spain. "Jews had always lived without persecution in North Africa and the Middle East."

He said the "real enmity" had come only in the last 100 years in the fighting over "that little strip of land" called Palestine. The causes are "twisted and those on the outside have been doing the twisting," he said.

"Finally, they seem to be giving up the hateful business. We can now see the possibility of all kinds of concessions, cooperation and real brotherhood."