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This story originally appeared on TODAY.com, part of NBCUniversal News Group, a division of NBCUniversal Media. My 9-year-old son asserts himself as Jewish- Muslim. Here's what he's teaching me During these dark days of war, my husband and I hold onto the hope that our "peace babies" can usher in a better world. Jan. 9, 2024, 11:16 AM EST By Elisabeth Becker When my son Sami was 3 years old, he and I were standing outside of a quaint coffee shop in Connecticut when a middle-aged woman asked him, "Where are you from?" After pausing for a moment, he looked up at a graffitied wall. At its center, a street artist had painted the globe. "My mom is from America, my dad is Turkish from Germany and I am from Earth," he replied, pointing at that wall. This is my favorite story of Sami, now 9, who describes himself as "American- Turkish-German-Jewish-Muslim." I met my Turkish-from-Germany husband almost two decades ago in Brooklyn, during a sticky-sweet summer between adolescence and adulthood. We sipped iced coffee as we discussed the potential of coupling off, even marrying one another. We joked about our future "peace babies," who would be born to a Jewish mother (me) and a Muslim father (him). The whole world felt so open then, a place of possibility and hope that our generation could usher in a better world. The idea of our peace babies eventually became our present: Sami was born in Germany in 2014, whereas his sister was born in the United States in 2019. My husband grew up in Berlin and I grew up in New York City, and we have remained rooted in both countries due to our work and extended families. Today, my Jewish-Muslim family faces our broken world with wet and tired eyes. The Israel-Hamas war, while geographically far away from our lives and families, has hit us close to home. The ongoing conflict has left me bereft and uncertain about the future of my two young children. I have long lived to the beat of interculturality, cosmopolitanism and commonality, yet I now acutely feel — as another author in my virtual writing group recently described herself — like "a stranger in my own life." But as the war rages on, my own feelings of loss are met each day with how Sami embodies the Jewish tradition tikkun olam — our shared responsibility to heal a broken world. Since toddlerhood, Sami has adored all forms of wildlife, from bullfrogs to blue herons with spindly legs. He used to make daily visits to groundhogs, and falcons have perched on his arm. He sees himself as a custodian of nature, tasked with revitalizing the habitats destroyed by humans and protecting endangered species from extinction. Sami specifically mourns the extinct Hawaiian Kaua'i ʻōʻō bird, last seen in 1987; this is one of his many declarations of love for the natural world. I surmise this love of Sami's is innate, as he was born to two squarely urban people. My husband and I fear forests, bugs, lakes and the deep sea. Yet Sami's holistic view of the Earth is also somehow born of us, with the map that makes up his life spanning Europe, North America and Asia. It feels strange to say that my 9-year-old is filled with wisdom. Yet somehow, my young boy with an old soul has taught me how to be a custodian of the world that we share: how to avoid killing a spider, how to tend to the plants that I too often forget about and how to proudly refute the divisions we are told should divide us. "Are you Jewish OR Muslim?" is a question that will follow Sami for the rest of his life. And yet he always seeks bridges, rather than pull himself apart. Sometimes, Sami asks me to read him the "Jewish Quran," what he calls the Torah, to help him sleep at night. During Eid, he requests latkes. On Passover, he wonders whether the Prophet Elijah and the Prophet Muhammad were friends. He chooses "both" and never "or." He chooses, always, the fullness of our world. 32 / TREVOR MAGAZINE WINTER 2023–24