Jill Hamburg Coplan: Through the centuries, wherever Sufism held sway -- like Ottoman Turkey -- Jews could find safe haven. If I could find a Sufi, I thought, I could approach him with genuine respect, bringing my own real curiosity about mysticism, and produce for American newspaper readers a kind of encounter that might help them understand Islam in a different way than a demonizing story about a radical hostage-taker or half-crazed suicide attacker ever could. And if not, well, Judaism reserves its mystical texts and practices for old male scholars who've mastered everything else. Perhaps the more tolerant Sufis would open a door for me...