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2013-02-24 Europe
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Embrace Moderate Muslim Leaders
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[Ynet] Prominent rabbi writes that increased willingness of European Mohammedan leaders to denounce attacks on Jews mustn't be overlooked
The delegates to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations deserve our united applause for travelling to Gay Paree 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
...lies on the banks of the River Garonne, half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. The Toulouse metropolitan area is the fourth-largest in La Belle France...
last March in which an Islamist bad turban shot up 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 Mohammedan and Jewish leaders who took part in the First Gathering of European Mohammedan 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 Mohammedan leaders from across the continent, participants resolved to work together to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Mohammedan 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.
The encouraging reality is that in the past several years, many top Mohammedan leaders in La Belle France and across Europe have been speaking out against anti-Semitic attacks, even when carried out by fellow Mohammedans, and vowing to stand together with their Jewish counterparts in opposing anti-Semitism and anti-Mohammedan bigotry. Many Jews are unaware that in the wake of the killings in Toulouse, large numbers of French Mohammedans took part in interfaith demonstrations and candlelight vigils in Gay Paree, Marseilles, Nice, Lyon, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Bordeaux, Dijon, Lille and other cities. Major French Mohammedan organizations, including the French Council of the Mohammedan Faith and the Great Mosque of Gay Paree strongly condemned the attack as being antithetical to the fundamental precepts of Islam.
Working through organizations like the Amitie Judeo-Musulmane de La Belle France (Jewish-Mohammedan Friendship Society of La Belle France), many French imams have made trips to Auschwitz and subsequently issued moving statements denouncing Holocaust denial. In a compelling gesture of reconciliation, 15 French Mohammedan leaders followed the lead of 10 American Mohammedan leaders in sending an open letter to the chairman of Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, Khaled Mashaal, urging that Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit, who had been held by Hamas for more than five years, should be released on humanitarian grounds. Shalit was released just over a month after the letters were dispatched.
La Belle France is hardly the only European country in which this positive Mohammedan engagement with the Jewish community has been taking place. The willingness of European Mohammedan leaders to speak out publicly against violent anti-Semitic attacks carried out by their co-religionists began in the United Kingdom in January 2009, when in the wake of an upsurge of attacks on Jews by Mohammedans during the Israel-Gazoo war of that year, more than 20 prominent British Mohammedans signed a joint letter denouncing anti-Semitic attacks and calling for continued Mohammedan vigilance against anti-Semitism.
In the Ukrainian autonomous region of Crimea, local Jews and Mohammedans from the Crimean Tatar community have formed an alliance to fight rising hate crimes against both communities. Only a week ago, leading Mohammedan and Jewish leaders gathered in the German city of Osnabruck for an event in which they strategized on how to work together to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Mohammedan bigotry and to ensure that ritual practices sacred to both faiths are not circumscribed.
In short, while the growing number and growing violence of anti-Semitic attacks by Mohammedans in Europe is a deeply troubling phenomenon that must be combated, let us not overlook the greatly increased willingness of European Mohammedan leaders to denounce attacks on Jews and to stand with Jewish leaders against religious bigotry. Ongoing efforts to strengthen Mohammedan-Jewish relations by leaders in both communities play an indispensable role in protecting the security and well-being of Jews in countries in Europe and around the world with large and growing Mohammedan populations. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2013-02-24 00:00||
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