Jewish family builds mosque for Cambodia villagers
Chim
By Ker Munthit
Associated Press
Article Launched: 05/15/2008 03:15:16 PM PDT
TRAMOUNG CHRUM, Cambodia — When residents of this poor, Cambodian
village need something built, they call on the Lightmans.
The Jewish-American family's latest gift: a mosque.
"We never had such a beautiful mosque in our village," said 81-year-
old Leb Sen, a toothless, village elder with a wrinkled face. "The
young people said to me that I am very lucky to live long enough to
see one now."
Flashing a broad grin, Leb Sen brought his palms together and bowed
repeatedly in gratitude toward his American donors — Alan Lightman;
his wife, Jean Greenblatt Lightman and their daughter, Elyse.
Alan Lightman, a 59-year-old humanities professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, said building the mosque was not part of his
family's original plan to improve education in the village, about 44
miles northwest of the capital, Phnom Penh.
"It's too much to comprehend. We never imagined that we would build a
mosque in a remote village in Cambodia," said Lightman, author of the
best-selling novel "Einstein's Dreams."
"It was so strange for us to be there," he added, " ... halfway across
the planet, and it's a religion that's far from our religion."
The Lightmans first learned about the village in 2003, when a friend
introduced them to various rural education projects. Two years later,
the Harpswell Foundation, an organization founded by Lightman to help
children and young women in developing countries, built a four-room
concrete school, the village's first.
Some of the 600 villagers came to Lightman in 2006 asking him to fund
a new health center, a popular choice among the women, and a mosque,
which the men favored. He told the villagers they would have to choose
one.
In the male-dominated community, it was a mosque.
"The men have won again, but the mosque is also very important for
preserving our culture and tradition," said 50-year-old Sit Khong, one
of the five women in the village who were part of a committee to pick
the project.
"We will never find enough money to build it ourselves anyway."
The mosque, with the gold-colored inscription "Funded by Loving Gift
of Lightman Family" above the front door, opened on May 9. It can
accommodate about 200 people and replaces a tiny building on wood
stilts that held only 30 worshippers.
The villagers follow Imam-San, a small Islamic sect that incorporates
Buddhism, Hinduism and animism. The Imam-San makes up about 3 percent
of Cambodia's 700,000 Muslims, who themselves represent only 5 percent
of Cambodia's 14 million people, according the U.S. State Department
annual report on religious freedom.
Besides mixing in elements of other religions, Imam-San followers pray
only once a week, not the traditional five times a day.
"In the view of the real teaching of Islam, they are not pure," said
Tin Faizine, a 24-year-old Muslim student who was interpreting for the
Lightmans.
Lightman said this would be his "first and last" mosque, because "I
don't think I have the resources or the time to build more mosques."
The mosque was built with $20,000 from his family's savings, not the
foundation's funds, he said.
In the future, he plans to focus on education for underprivileged
Cambodians, which is his foundation's main goal.