The CRIF in action
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Published on 28 November 2004

JEWS AND MUSLIMS GATHER AND SHARE

Over one thousand people gathered at the exhibition halls of the City of Science in Paris for the first Jewish-Muslim Friendship Day organized at the initiative of Michel Serfaty, rabbi of the Paris-suburban city of Ris-Orangis, with the support of CRIF, the Paris Mosque and the Paris Consistoire. Simone Veil, President of the French Foundation for the Memory of the Holocaust, Roger Cukierman, CRIF's President, the Bishop of Saint-Denis Olivier de Berranger, the Imam of Bordeaux Tariq Obrou, Paris Chief rabbi David Messas and rabbi Gilles Bernheim of the Paris La Victoire synagogue attended the function.



Roger Cukierman criticized the attitude of CSA, the French broadcasting authority (see related item) and highlighted the fact that CRIF pioneered the rapprochement between Jews and Muslims in France, especially through its dedicated Commission for relations with Islam chaired by Dr. Bernard Kanovitch.

A group of French Muslim Boy Scouts, back from a trip to Jerusalem, offered a branch of olive tree to Rabbi Serfaty.

Rabbi Michel Serfaty explained, "The Jewish-Muslim Day tries to do for both communities what the French Jewish-Christian Friendship Association did between 1946 and 1966 for Jews and Christians."The dialogue was hard to start but the outcome was the Vatican II Council. Jews and Muslims must learn to know each other and to understand each other. With the Muslims, the Jews share a common past, made of heydays and also of persecutions. I asked the Muslim leaders to recognize the injustices, like the statute of dhimmi making Jews inferior beings. We are now building a place for dialogue between people of good will, the extremists will be marginalized."

In October 2003, on his way back from the synagogue, the rabbi was attacked by an Arab who cursed and hit him. The man was arrested and brought to trial last week after four months in jail. The prosecutor asked the Court to condemn Adbelrahim Azougagh to six month in jail. Before leaving the court, rabbi Serfaty shook hands with his aggressor and told the judge, "This trial is neither mine nor his. It is the trial of his culture and environment, of those who work at mixing what is happening here with what is taking place 5,000 kilometers away."

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