Embrace moderate Muslim leaders
Ynet News:
The delegates to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations deserve our united applause for travelling to Paris last week to express solidarity with French Jewry, which has endured a rising number of violent anti-Semitic attacks in recent years, including the horrific incident in Toulouse last March in which an Islamist extremist opened fire at a Jewish day school, killing three schoolchildren and a rabbi.
In that context, it is also significant that the Presidents’ Conference delegation visited the Shoah Memorial in the suburban community of Drancy in the company of Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, the imam of Drancy. Imam Chalghoumi was among 70 European Muslim and Jewish leaders who took part in the First Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders, which was initiated by The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and held in Brussels in December, 2010.
At that historic event, the first conference bringing together Jewish and Muslim leaders from across the continent, participants resolved to work together to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim bigotry and defend ritual practices sacred to both faiths like male circumcision and ritual slaughter that have been under attack in recent years by courts and legislative bodies in Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
Categories: Arab World, Europe, Interfaith tolerance, Intra-Religious Tolerance, Islam, Israel, Judaism, Religion, Uncategorized