JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- Muslim and Christian students of Egyptian descent suddenly no longer sit together during lunch at Dickinson High School on Palisade Avenue. At Halal butcher shops and Christian-owned grocery stores, salesclerks speak in hushed tones about the unsolved slayings earlier this month of a Christian Egyptian family.

Friendships that once were free of religious division now are strained, amid speculation that four members of the family were killed because of their religion.

The police have yet to make an arrest and think robbery possibly was a motive.

For years, Mohsen Elesawi, a Muslim Egyptian, shared "shisha" pipes and games of chess with Christian Egyptians at the Christian-owned El Saraya cafe on Vroom Street. Now, when he walks into the room, he often hears a quiet pause.

"Now there is no trust between Muslims and Christians, and there is a lot of anger," said Elesawi, 52, a limousine driver who emigrated to Jersey City 21 years ago. "It's changed dramatically."

Fakher Fahmy, 53, a Christian Egyptian who owns a local construction company, said Muslims and Christians "spoke as friends" before the killings. "Now everybody is scared of everybody."

For decades, Jersey City has been an experiment in peace between Muslims and Christians from Egypt. At odds in their homeland, the two groups had bonded as immigrants, glued by one language and national identity. They shared eagerly in forging a new, American life.

But the slayings have opened a wound and produced an outpouring of emotion. The answer is layered: There are old-world grievances, a largely unspoken anger toward Egyptian Muslims after Sept. 11, 2001, and a newfound immigrant power that has left the Egyptian Christians -- a repressed minority in Egypt -- unafraid to assert their voice here.

The victims -- Hossam Armanious, 47; Amal Garas, 37; and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, found bound and gagged, stabbed repeatedly in the neck and head -- were Copts, or members of the Coptic Orthodox Church. In Egypt, Muslims are the majority and Copts, roughly 10 percent of the population, live with varying degrees of social, political and religious discrimination, according to the U.S. State Department and human rights groups.

But in Jersey City, which has the largest Coptic Egyptian community in the United States, Copts are estimated to outnumber Muslims.

The city's first Egyptians, both Copts and Muslims, began noticeably arriving here in the 1960s. Today, both groups number in the tens of thousands.

Many Copts, along with Muslims, have enjoyed financial success. Fred Ayad, a Copt who left Cairo for Jersey City 35 years ago, rose to become deputy mayor. And Copts from all walks of life, from surgeons to cabdrivers, will attest that in America, they have found a new social comfort. They no longer live on the margins of society: They are among the religious majority.

On Jan. 16, emotions boiled over on the steps of the slain family's church on Bergen Avenue. Hundreds of Copts watched as members of the American Coptic Association gathered before television cameras and declared the killings a religious "execution."

Rumors flew: Armanious had engaged in fiery debates about Christianity and Islam in Internet chat rooms, and may have been threatened with murder, his friends said.

Muslim leaders have responded by condemning the killings but, at a news conference Wednesday, they decried the recriminations against their religion. They invited a representative of the Coptic Church to speak, but no one came.

"It's not the time for us to speak about anything now," said the Rev. David Berbawi, a priest at the family's church, St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church. "We are grieved now."

By Andrea Elliott
New York Times