Since its launching on Tuesday at 1 P.M. local time, the campaign has raised an average of $1,000 every 15 minutes, said Tarek El-Messidi, a Muslim-American social activist, who helped coordinate it through a crowd-funding platform. He collaborated in the effort with Linda Sarsour, an organizer of last month’s women’s march in Washington and a supporter of the BDS movement against Israel.
“The feedback we’ve received has been amazing,” El-Messidi told Haaretz in a phone conversation from his home in Philadelphia. “You could say there is a silver lining in all the hate that is being directed against Jews and Muslims in America right now in that it has brought the two communities together, and this is just one example.”