Generally in college I hate, maybe even loathe being in a group for a class assignment. I notice that one of the partners never does their given amount of work or before that part, backs out completely when the assignment is given. When I received my assignment for my Mass Communications class, my partner seemed hesitant to work together because she wasn’t even sure if she would be keeping the class.  A few days later, I was notified she dropped the class. Less than a few days shy of freaking out because no one wanted to be my partner, my professor sent an email out asking if anyone wanted to be Amarra’s partner because hers had also dropped the class last minute. I quickly accepted the offer and we decided to meet each other after the class in the library to work on the given assignment.

The first thing I noticed was the headscarf, or Hijab, covering her entire head. The second was that not one inch of her skin was showing. The third thing I noticed was that she was incredibly fashionable, donning huge circular sunglasses, a button up military jacket, and a shiny, black purse dangling from her arm. I looked down at my Sperry’s, jeans and t-shirt; touching my straightened hair I quickly realized we didn’t have a lot in common. 

Much to our amusement, we didn’t even touch our project in the campus library. We cracked jokes about me being Jewish, her being Muslim, and how our parents cursed us with hard to pronounce names. I told her how my mom works at an interfaith television show, and how I had traveled to Morocco and Spain touring every mosque, temple, church on an interfaith pilgrimage. Amarra told me how her family was from Pakistan, but she was born in Brooklyn.  We discussed how she was the only one in her family who covered her head, and that she didn’t drink alcohol.  Our conversation came to a halt when Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s “Empire State of Mind” rang loud on her cell. I knew I was in Muslim friend love right then.

Amarra confessed that she wasn’t sure about how I would feel teaming up with a Muslim when I am Jewish. The question seemed hilarious. But after living in a small North Carolina town for almost a year, I am noticing that this is becoming more of the reality in the United States. I call Amarra the “exotic bird” on campus. She dons zebra/cheetah printed headscarfs, purple and blue Nike Air Force Ones, and mumbles Lupe and Jay-Z lyrics under her breath as she walks. She is a walking wonder on campus and not enough people seem to appreciate that. With a campus and town known for being intensely diverse, it’s amusing how most people don’t walk up to her and engage her in conversation.

Amarra is single handedly one of the funniest human beings I have ever met. Rapping into a microphone in the middle of the Student Union one realizes how being a Muslim is part of her identity, but isn’t part of who she is as a person.  While she does pray the allotted times per day and never shows her hair to the opposite sex, when she opens her mouth the Muslim factor is gone. 

Amarra and my friendship goes far beyond the college campus. We recently put together a candlelight vigil in honor of those who were killed or injured in Egypt’s revolution, we go shopping together, dance and sing in the car together, and have even visited each other’s homes.  We do have our differences and disagreements. We disagree on alcohol, sex before marriage, Middle East politics, and from time to time why Jewish and Muslim teenagers tend to have such an aversion to one another. But what remains is that we both look beyond the scope of religion. I see her as a human being and she does the same with me.  

(Submitted by Maayan Schechter)