The aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 massacre tested many of the alliances American Jewish communities had spent years building with other minority groups — some of which ruptured at the moment the diaspora needed friends most. But in a recent conversation on American View with host Mike Wagenheim, Dr. Anila Ali of the American Muslim & Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council (AMMWEC) described a different trajectory: one in which a Muslim-led organization has spent over a decade deepening, rather than abandoning, its solidarity with Jewish Americans.

Roots in a Post-9/11 Reckoning

Ali traced the origins of her work back to the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when, as a young Pakistani-American mother newly settled in Southern California, she began hearing rhetoric inside her local mosque that startled her — commentary blaming America, and increasingly Jews, for the attacks. Having grown up in a household that, despite Pakistan’s own painful post-Partition history, never taught hatred of other faiths, she said she recognized the sermons as reflecting an imported ideology rather than the Islam she knew.

She came to believe that a small number of organizations claiming to speak for American Muslims were pursuing an agenda distinct from that of ordinary Muslim families who had come to the United States for religious liberty, women’s rights, and equality — and that countering it required Muslims themselves to build an alternative platform grounded in what she calls the shared “Abrahamic” inheritance of Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.

A Women-Led Civil Rights Movement

That conviction led to AMMWEC’s founding in 2011, which Ali describes as the first Muslim women’s civil rights movement in the United States. She said the organization emerged partly in response to what she characterized as chronic tokenism and misogyny within existing Muslim advocacy groups — institutions she said discouraged women from serious leadership roles even as South Asian Muslim women had historically led entire nations.

In its early years, Ali said, AMMWEC built substantive relationships with Jewish organizations, including chapters of the Anti-Defamation League, and hosted large interfaith iftars that drew rabbis and synagogue communities alongside Muslim families — gatherings she recalled growing so popular that venues struggled to accommodate everyone.

A Shifting Political Climate After 2015

Ali said that dynamic began to shift around 2015, as anti-Zionist rhetoric and, later, more overtly antisemitic language grew more common in public discourse — a trend she said accelerated after the election of Rep. Ilhan Omar, whose comments she believes normalized antisemitic tropes within some Muslim circles rather than bridging divides. AMMWEC’s continued outreach to Jewish communities, she said, drew backlash, including harassment of Muslim candidates and volunteers who declined to adopt anti-Israel positions.

Despite that pressure, Ali said AMMWEC held to its founding principles, framing opposition to antisemitism as a matter of Islamic values rather than political convenience.

Interfaith Dialogue as a Working Model

Much of AMMWEC’s work, Ali said, centers on sustained, honest dialogue rather than symbolic gestures — including interfaith town halls and “Abrahamic Unity” events bringing together imams, pastors, and rabbis. She pointed to one such gathering held roughly six months ago in California, a breaking-bread event she said was boycotted by several established Muslim civil-rights organizations, which she argued only underscored the divide she has spent years working to close.

She also cited AMMWEC’s role convening Sunni, Shia, and Ahmadiyya imams alongside Christian and Jewish clergy following the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, when law enforcement sought Muslim community voices to reassure an anxious LGBT community.

Leading the Israel Day Parade Delegation

Among the moments Ali described as most significant was leading what she said was the first-ever Muslim delegation to march in New York’s Israel Day parade, held amid heightened security concerns this year. She described the experience as humbling, recalling Jewish New Yorkers of multiple generations thanking marchers along the route — a moment of reciprocity, she said, for the support Muslim Americans received from Jewish organizations like the ADL in the aftermath of 9/11.

A Growing Coalition

Ali pointed to AMMWEC’s second annual Washington, D.C. conference, held in recent weeks, as evidence the coalition is expanding: participation grew from roughly 35 organizations and 50 attendees at last year’s inaugural event to more than 70 organizations and 250 attendees this year, spanning Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, and Hindu communities, as well as both Democrats and Republicans.

She closed the interview with an open invitation to other organizations to join what she calls AMMWEC’s “Abrahamic effort” to build broader coalitions against hate.