Former Knoxville resident's Muslim nonprofit raises almost $240,000 to help Jews after Pittsburgh shooting
Amy McRaryA former Knoxville resident's Muslim nonprofit raised nearly $240,000 in days for Jewish victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, an effort buoyed by celebrity interest and social media.
CelebrateMercy, founded by University of Tennessee graduate Tarek El-Messidi in 2013, is a nonprofit that teaches about the Prophet Muhammad. On Oct. 27 — within hours of a gunman killing 11 people at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue — CelebrateMercy launched its fundraising effort.
It aimed to provide financial help to victims’ families for funeral expenses, medical bills or other needs. “We wish to respond to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action,” the Launch Good campaign information said.
Its message resounded. “Muslims Unite for Pittsburgh Synagogue” met its initial $25,000 goal in six hours. As more money came in, the campaign upped the goal four times. The last goal of $150,000 was reached in 50 hours.
By then the effort was viral, praised by CBS’ “Late Show” host Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg of “The View." Actor Ashton Kutcher wrote about it on Facebook; “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling tweeted about it.
“It amazed me, and it really inspired me personally. I’ve seen people respond before, but this was on another level,” El-Messidi said.
The campaign’s ended; $150,000 has been given to the families. A total of 5,820 donors gave $238,634 — nine times the original $25,000 goal. The money left will go to impact long-term Jewish-Muslim relations and foster Muslim-Jewish collaboration, dialogue and solidarity.
El-Messidi said CelebrateMercy is now deciding what projects to fund. "It will be like giving grants. We haven't been in this position before. We have always been the ones asking for money."
El-Messidi, 38, lives in Chicago and has lived in Philadelphia and Cincinnati. But he grew up in Knoxville, graduating from Farragut High School and earning undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Tennessee. He was the 2000-02 president of the Muslim Student Association at UT and the 2005 president of the Muslim Community of Knoxville.
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Knoxville “was very formative in leading me to this work,” El-Messidi told USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee. “The Muslim community is very small in Knoxville, and most of my friends going to public schools were Christians."
Having friends who openly talked about their Christian faith and their relationship with Jesus made him decide to learn more about his Muslim religion and its founder Muhammad. "It made me want to figure out who am I in the midst of this ocean," he said.
The CelebrateMercy campaign was inspired by a teaching of Muhammad, he said. As a Jewish funeral procession passed Muhammad, he stood as a show of respect. When other Muslims asked him why he did that, Muhammad answered, "Is it not a human soul?"
Unite for Pittsburgh isn’t El-Messidi's first campaign to help Jews. In February 2017, he co-organized crowdfunding asking Muslim-Americans to give to repair vandalized Jewish cemeteries in St. Louis and Philadelphia. That campaign raised more than $160,000 in a week and earned international media attention.
His first crowdsourced effort of kindness came after U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in 2012 in Benghazi, Libya, by Muslim extremists. El-Messidi asked Muslims to respond to "evil with good" and write condolence letters to Stevens' family. The result was about 7,700 letters from Muslims in 115 countries.
