Muslims, Hindus and Jews at One Table: NYUrdu.com Launches in Jackson Heights

A luncheon celebrating the launch of NYUrdu.com, a newly established multimedia digital platform, brought together Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish community leaders at the restaurant Dera in Jackson Heights — the heart of New York’s South Asian population and business community. The gathering drew social, civic, and political leaders from multiple faiths, alongside journalists, writers, poets, and influencers.

Among the speakers was Rabbi Mark Meyer-Appel, who recalled the long history of Pakistani Jewish and Muslim communities living side by side in Brooklyn, describing a neighborhood where a synagogue and a mosque stood on opposite corners without conflict between them.

“There was no fighting between us, and there was dialogue, and there still is.” — Rabbi Mark Meyer-Appel

Rabbi Meyer-Appel added that he often visited neighborhood mosques as much as he attended his own synagogue, reflecting on the close ties that developed between the two communities over the decades.

A Message of Interfaith Unity

Imam Sheikh Musa Drammeh, a widely known scholar and interfaith preacher in New York, offered a short address and prayer, framing journalism as a vehicle for passing on values of peace and unity to future generations. He congratulated the NY Urdu team and its chief editor, offering a prayer for the strength and reach of their work.

Mujtaba told attendees the goal of the gathering went beyond simply breaking bread together, emphasizing that the new platform would also make space for disagreement and differing viewpoints among its readers and contributors, calling that openness a reflection of democratic values.

Civic Leaders Weigh In

Shahida Soomro, a Democratic city council member elected from Connecticut, congratulated the team on the platform’s launch, framing a new publication’s role as more than delivering news — arguing it should also serve as a voice for underrepresented communities.

Attorney Bushra Ahmed said she hoped the platform’s mission would extend beyond Urdu-language coverage to reach communities across South Asia and Central and West Asia, noting that NYUrdu.com’s multilingual approach was already moving in that direction.

Guests from across New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut offered congratulations and well wishes to Hassan Mujtaba on the platform’s launch, with several speakers describing the event as a model of the kind of interfaith dialogue the publication hopes to foster going forward.