By Coral Gables Gazette staff
The City of Coral Gables will host a public Ramadan observance at City Hall, marking the start of the Islamic holy month with a ceremony intended to recognize its spiritual significance and the diversity of the city’s residents.
The event, scheduled for 5:45 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19 in the City Hall courtyard at 405 Biltmore Way, will include a mayoral proclamation, remarks from community leaders, and a poetry reading reflecting on the meaning of fasting and reflection during Ramadan. City officials said the observance is open to the public and members of the media.
Recognition of a sacred month
Ramadan, observed by Muslims worldwide, is a period of fasting, prayer, reflection and community. From dawn until sunset, observers refrain from eating and drinking as part of a spiritual discipline intended to cultivate mindfulness, humility, and compassion. The month concludes with Eid al-Fitr, one of Islam’s most important holidays.
The Coral Gables observance will formally recognize the beginning of Ramadan through a mayoral proclamation, continuing a civic tradition in which local governments acknowledge major religious and cultural observances observed by residents.
City officials, community leaders, and members of the public are expected to attend the ceremony, which will take place in the courtyard adjacent to the historic Mediterranean Revival–style City Hall building.
A civic tradition of inclusive observances
Public observances of religious and cultural holidays have become a regular feature of civic life in Coral Gables, reflecting the city’s evolving demographic composition and its role as a regional center within Miami-Dade County, home to one of the largest and most diverse Muslim populations in the southeastern United States.
Such events serve both ceremonial and educational purposes, offering residents an opportunity to learn about traditions observed by their neighbors while reinforcing the city’s commitment to inclusion and civic unity.
The Ramadan observance also aligns with the broader rhythm of the city’s civic calendar, which includes proclamations and ceremonies recognizing cultural, religious, and national observances throughout the year.
Public invited to attend
The ceremony will take place outdoors in the City Hall courtyard and is open to residents and visitors. No advance registration is required.
City officials said the observance is intended to honor the spiritual importance of Ramadan while providing an opportunity for community members to gather in recognition of a tradition observed by millions around the world.
The event begins at 5:45 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, at Coral Gables City Hall, 405 Biltmore Way.
This Post Has 13 Comments
Are you also hosting different religions as well? Or are we just pandering to Islam
Yes they host menorah lighting with a huge event by the city in Ponce circle park every year.
Does that help?
Yes they host menorah lighting with a huge event by the city in Ponce circle park every year. Oh and the Christmas lighting every year at city hall, open to all.
Are you hosting an event for Ash Wednesday?
Or are you just trying to avoid the community meeting tonight at the Youth Center at 6 pm to discuss your horrible idea to create a dog park where neighbors do not want it?
No tom, this was the only day we all could find with the city to attend, as many of us are fasting for the month of Ramadan to commemorate Lent and Ramadan (Muslims revere Jesus and mother Mary too). It was the only date that worked out.
Julie they host menorah lighting for Jewish religion and the lighting of the Xmas tree. Have you not see that happen every year for multiple years? Islam is an abrahamic religion and 4.5 million Muslims since as as early as 1800 have lived in the country. many are 2nd and 3rd generation. Muslim gables residents brought this up and are co sponsoring this event.
It’s one event just like Christmas and Hanukkah.
Does that answer your bigoted, hateful, exclusive question ?
At a time when Western Civilization is besieged by the advance of Islam in Europe and elsewhere, and its growing, insidious menace to infiltrate a belief system incompatible with democracy and our values in America, the Coral Gables City Hall decides to promote it. It decides to promote those that mistreat women and force them to hide behind a clothing prison, be it a burka, a hijab, or a veil. It decides to celebrate those that consider homosexuality not just a sin but a crime punishable with either prison or death. It decides to be tolerant with those that have no tolerance towards believers of other creeds, or non-believers, and that as soon as they grow to a majority seek to impose their own laws and customs wherever they go, rather than adapt to and respect those of the places that welcome them. Today’s ceremony will have plenty of poetry and show the kind face of Islam for proselytizing purposes, distancing itself from the Muslim radicals who killed thousands of Americans on 9/11 and in countless other terrorist attacks in the West, as well as from the Hamas beasts, and the Shiite clerics currently murdering thousands of young Iranians who seek freedom from Sharia law and Islamic oppression, while the rest of the Muslim world, the “moderates” look the other way. Never have those moderate Muslims filled the streets of a city in the Middle East, or even in Europe, to protest the deaths of innocents slaughtered in terrorist attacks, at the hands of the Islamic State, or by the Ayatollahs… They only care about those killed by Israel, while openly harboring the desire to exterminate every single last Jew. They are also the ones who regard dogs as impure animals unworthy of existing, and the ones whose beliefs justify lying to those they consider infidels to advance the expansion of Islam.
While our Constitution allows for freedom of worship, letting people practice Islam in their private homes or houses of worship is much different from officially promoting it at government level. Especially when in Tallahassee our leadership moves forward legislation to forbid any attempt at establishing Sharia Law in Florida. Having Coral Gables City Hall promote Islam in the public realm is an affront to all Christians, Jews, and freedom-loving people of this city. It is virtue-signaling by tone-deaf local leaders bending a knee to political correctness and well-meaning but mistaken multiculturalism. Meanwhile, Christianity and Ash Wednesday are ignored.
Perhaps it is the money from Qatar or the UAE that is starting to make its way into local South Florida pockets, in much the same way it has into Tucker Carlson’s, the explanation behind this sudden, misguided interest in promoting Islam.
Julie maybe you should come and learn a thing or 2. They are tax paying residents. The Jewish minority has a fully funded memorial in front of city hall (courtesy Lago) and also a separate function and Ponce circle park for years, why can’t other residents ask for representation. Seems equal to me. And you don’t have to go. But that is not very American to ask for exclusivity only for your religion.
As a Christian I am appalled that you don’t think we pander to Jewish lobbies when we do roshashana and hannukah (also give public school holidays for those days) but this we are pandering to Islam? I mean Islam is not a person or a company . It’s a monotheistic religion that loves Jesus,Moses and Abraham. It’s similar to our Christian tenets.
I for one love that we are hosting Christian, Jewish and Muslim events. Why not? And if residents want to celebrate Diwali or Chinese new year, so be it. Go have fun and learn a thing or 2. Not everyone has look and be the same as us.
Wow Alfonso, check your heritage, you may have Spanish- north african and Arab Muslim
In you from 780 years of Moors influence.
Are u misreading the Jewish and white evangelical lobby in the USA. Get your self together.
There are 2nd and 3rd gen American Muslims, tax paying residents. You can’t celebrate their Ramadan that also commentates lent? No problem. Don’t go let them be. But if all Muslims are responsible for all acts of craziness since time immemorial then check Epstein files, who are the majority of men in there. Jews and Christians. Epstein was a Jewish Israeli spie. Prince Andrew, mind you a Christian prince just got arrested today.. Most serial killers are white Christian (influenced) men. Most 20th century wars caused by white Christian Americans.
2 million Iraqis killed, were they not Muslim and were they not killed uselessly by America and British allies?
What about our slave trade? Is all white Christendom to blame for the centuries of horrors we have inflicted on Africans. American Christians pretty much eradicated most native Americans, culture and language. Israel had killed over 1 million Palestinians in the last few years, capturing illegal lands, but blame who??
Get over yourself and stop watching so much Fox News. No religion is an enemy of ours. Let them be, the American Muslims, as you let Jewish Americans be and Christian Americans . In the last century more Muslims have been killed across the world than anyone else including the Balfour declaration of 1924, to
Multiple USA inflicted gulf wars and Israeli aggression.
We are in America as I practice my faith or lack there of, let the Muslims, Jews and Christians be. Freedom of faith is for all and if in public offices we out Christmas trees and menorahs, why not a small celebration for Muslims. It is the 2nd largest religion in the world.
Islam is as kind as judiasim or Christianity. There are violent Christians (aka crusades, Spanish Inquisition, Iraq war, Afghanistan) and violent Jews too (the whole creation of 1924 of Israel through war and murdering).
People are violent or non violent and find their flavor in their versions of faith.
If Tucker is bought by Qataris, every American politician is bought by Israeli assets.
Whataboutism and name calling are not going to deny the facts. And no, I don’t waste time with Fox News.
Your position would be the logical and noble one, inherited from Christian humanism: let’s respect everybody and live happily together. The problem with Islam is that in the long term, most of its practitioners do not share that disposition. Their belief system compels them to actively seek the conversion of all mankind to Islam, by whatever means necessary. Once numerous enough, they will lovingly invite you to convert, like any other religion would do. But if you fail to do so and they are in the majority, then you will have to pay the jizyah to continue practicing any religion other than Islam or otherwise be expelled from your own place or worse. I suggest you visit Molenbeek in Brussels or El Raval in Barcelona to see how that unfolds in real life.
The first Irak war was caused by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, and the second by his own WMD bluff and the Bush administration’s disastrous foreign policy pursuit of geopolitical interests. However, most Iraqis dead in that conflict perished at the hands of the Sunni insurgents or the Shia militias of Muqtada al-Sadr, rather than coalition forces.
As for the slave trade, perhaps you will feel better about our own nation after realizing it has existed since time immemorial. All cultures have practiced slavery, including ancient Egypt, Greece (Athens included), Rome (where it was the backbone of the economy for centuries), the Arabs, and even China, where it was officially abolished only in 1910. Out of those, maybe the largest slave trade was undertaken by the Arab merchants doing the trans-Saharan route through the Sahel, with Timbuktu as a major hub where to buy black slaves and send them North to Argel and then Constantinople, which turned into the largest slave market in the world after it became the capital of the Ottoman empire in 1453. The largest number of slaves in that market were white ones from all of Europe, from Russia to Spain and even Ireland. Men were typically castrated to avoid their reproduction and women turned into household labor or sexual slaves. Those who converted to Islam fared better, and some slaves could be bought for by their families or religious orders whose missionaries did that constant rescue work. The first overseas war the United States fought was precisely against the Barbary pirates from Argel and Tripoli, who enslaved American sailors after the protection of the British Royal Navy was removed.
American chattel slavery was a moral stain, but a product of its time and more than atoned for with the blood of thousands of Union soldiers, mostly white but also black ones, who selflessly died to end it in the Civil War.
My neighbors are Muslim, my doctor is Muslim, my kids teacher is Muslim. Where I shop for groceries, the nicest cashier and helper is a Muslim lady who is very devout. Where I workout the nicest trainer is Muslim. Occasionally when I travel to NYC, the cabbies are all Muslim. I have experienced nothing but kindness. I have travelled to many countries and my experience in Muslim countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan and others I can’t recall has been great. Hospitable and welcoming. Bosnia and Albania too similar to my experience in Croatia. I have been duped more my Miami frauds and as a catholic myself I can also paint all Catholic Latinos as horrible and our whole religion and its people suspect with years of experience here. But guess what we don’t do that. Most of Latin America and the corrupt governments are predominantly led by Catholics. So is all of Catholicism bad? Is catholism to be eradicated ?
Epstein and most the men in the files are Jewish American, or dual Israeli nationals followed by white Christian men. Bernie madof and most major financial crime in the last 20 years has been committed by white Christian and Jewish men. Most mass shootings and massacres of civilians in the usa in the last 20 years again white Christian men. And yet when I speak to my Muslim neighbors or travel the world and happen to also visit Muslim countries like Turkey, I will never hear
Muslims degrade Jesus or Moses or Abraham or mary. It is part of their tenets to show more respect to all our scriptures and religious figures than we do when we make nasty cartoons and skits on Jesus and mary on SNL or broadway shows like Book of Mormon.
They would never desecrate the memory of their prophet, or our Jesus, or Moses that way.
The issue is when we commit acts of terrorism we are just brooding, deranged white men and/or lone wolf of if you are Jewish you just run to Israel and hide. Israel is a safe haven for criminals and pedos.
We have rampant pornography, strip clubs, child trafficking (miami being a hub) and yet we think we have given so much freedom to our women when we objectify them from the weather girl on TV to making personal comments as our president does of news reporters.
If we measured ourselves the way we measure Muslims or Islam we would be the biggest perpetrators of war and mass genocide- Germany, Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, USA civil war, the making of America at the expense of natives, transatlantic slave trade with millions of Africans were killed, IRAQ (which yes we did kill 2 million Muslims), Afghanistan, Christians killed Bosnians and Croatians, we killed Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (only time nuclear weapons have ever been used) and so much more. We by proxy give weapons of mass destruction to Israel that the whole world except usa, Canada, uk and Germany (pretty much countries that stole others’ countries) and all human rights organizations even those based in Israel condemn.
The day you realize all our politicians are bought by Israel and most blackmailed due to Epstein files and the day you realize the corrupt Supremacist Zionism has infiltrated Catholic Churches and evangelical sectors, you will realize how the enemy is not the Muslims. There are 2.2 billion of them and to be disgusting about them without even knowing one, well it’s that disgusting and sad for u.
More whataboutism and platitudes, yet no denying of reality.
Two or three upright Muslim individuals may unarguably make a valuable contribution to the communities that welcome them, but sooner than later creep into thousands as more arrive and they have 3-5 children per 1-2 we do, growing to a population bent on imposing a theocratic vision of politics and society where everything is dictated by Islam, and not even Human Rights as inscribed in the UN declaration from 1948 are acknowledged, much less a democratic order. If you bothered to step outside your hotel in Dubai, and spent time there doing business like I did, you would be well aware of how the UAE society is divided in three fundamental tiers: the local Muslim Emiratis, the Western technicians, professionals, and business people, and the underclass of Nigerians, Bangladeshi, Indians, and other poor, overworked folks who make the place work under extreme conditions. The Emirati and the Westerners do business during working hours but, once the required interactions are finished for the day, live totally separate lives. Westerners are confined to the (rather wealthy) sectors where they get to live comfortably, yet not a single Emirati gets to spend social time with them: no shared dinners, no family time, no bonding with whom they consider infidels. To the point where they almost bump into you when going through a doorway and pretend you are invisible, so they would not acknowledge a Kafir. Not to mention the stories of that underclass, or the submission of women where even weddings would have a party for men in a hotel ballroom and a separate one for women on another one across town, both at the same time. And these are the moderates, our allies who share strategic interests with us and know that their prosperity and security are tied up to their relationship with the West. While it is true that hospitality and piety are common virtues in them, the Ummah or community of the believers has varying degrees of attainments to the Coran and different ways of being Muslim, but not a single one of them escapes its deepest tenets and commandments, where Islam comes first, second, and third over any Constitution, right, law, or local custom. As Saudi Arabia or Qatar finance mosques, investments, paid mouthpieces, and social works in the West they get to dictate what version of Islam propagates, and those are more likely than not Wahhabism and Salafism.
And that is what you fail to recognize with your false equivalences. Catholicism or any other Christian denomination, as well as Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism, and any other religion are private systems of belief that undoubtedly inform the worldview of those practicing them but are not trying to reshape every aspect of society forcefully into an alien theocratic system.
I am glad all those responsible for crimes committed alongside Epstein are being brought to justice. And yes, there are criminals from all races, creeds, and backgrounds. So what? The pornography, oversexualization, and moral decadence of the West you rightly condemn have happened against and in spite of Christianity, not because of it. Same for the mass murderers you mention. White? mostly, Christians? not quite.
All we want is for our children to grow in a country we can recognize, with the rights, protections, and duties we have enjoyed this far. Where women can dress how they please and not be gang-raped because they are seen as less than human, and where we continue to be free.