Jewish Daily Forward: At the Death Camps, Muslim Leaders Grapple With Jews’ Pain

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.forward.com/articles/130013/

By A.J. Goldmann
Published August 11, 2010, issue of August 20, 2010.

Krakow, Poland — It was a perfect summer day at the Dachau concentration camp. The clear skies and pleasant breeze seemed almost offensive. And there, beneath the main monument, a bronze sculpture of writhing bodies intermeshed with barbed wire, was an uncommon sight: a group of Muslims leaders prostrate in prayer.


Prayers and Learning: Muslim delegates (above) chant their afternoon prayers before the main monument at Dachau, during a visit by North American Muslim leaders to Nazi concentration camps. Max Mannheimer, 90, who survived Auschwitz and Dachau, shows the delegates the number imprinted on his arm as he recounts his war- time experience.


At the end of the service, prayer leader Muzammil Siddiqi, imam of the Islamic Society of Orange County, California, offered up an additional prayer: “We pray to God that this will not happen to the Jewish people or to any people anymore.”

Siddiqi was one of eight American Muslim leaders on a study tour to Dachau and Auschwitz that was co-sponsored by a German think tank and the Center for Interreligious Understanding, a New Jersey-based interfaith dialogue group. The delegation’s sole female member was Laila Muhammad, daughter of the late American Muslim leader W.D. Muhammad and granddaughter of Elijah Muhammad, the late leader of the Nation of Islam.

The excursion, which ran from August

8 through August 10, was one the U.S. government itself invested with great importance. Accompanying the group were several government officials, including Hannah Rosenthal, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, and Rashad Hussain, special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The unusual trip was the brainchild of Marshall Breger, an Orthodox Jew and a Republican who served as a senior official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Breger, who wore his yarmulke on every leg of the trip, said he first had the idea of organizing the expedition last year, while he was in Israel during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI. He described it simply as a kind of eureka moment.

“There is a view that there is growing anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, reinforced by people like President Ahmadinejad, that there is growing Holocaust denial in the Muslim world,” explained Breger, now a law professor at Catholic University. “In light of that, the idea was to offer education to those who might not have the kind of knowledge that we’ve had about World War II and the Jewish community, and to do this in a public way.”

FULL story at link.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Now this brings tears to my eyes

[Xipe Totec]

2. Mine as well

Semites are my ethnic kin.

Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. I just did something I never do

I sent the story to my mom

[roguevalley]

4. we are all one and all paths lead to the same door. The picture

of them praying is so beautiful.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. I know I hope that this will help to change some minds

Also this hopefully will help counter the cottage industry of holocaust denial in the ME.

Yes complex... but I hope this helps...

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[nadinbrzezinski]

7. They go hand in hand

I invite you to read War a force that gives us meaning... your explanation as to what is going on is in there.

http://www.amazon.com/War-Force-that-Gives-Meaning/dp/1400034639

One of those SHORT books that people should read.

[PA Democrat]

14. Great book. Hedges explains the process that enables people

to commit atrocities against another group. Dehumanize the others and it is shocking what evil is possible by "civilized" peoples.

[Jim Sagle]

11. Much worse, because the holocaust happened, Palestinian genocide didn't.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

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[nadinbrzezinski]

15. As much as the holocaust did happen

and what the other person does not understand is not happening. There are pretty bad things going on as well. Hedges explains the process that is ongoing and why holocaust denial is a cottage industry in the ME.

Things like this should be encouraged, to try to help BREAK the chain.

I also recommend hedges to you.

[phasma ex machina]

8. "We pray to God that this will not happen to the Jewish people or to any people anymore."

Amen!

The potential for America's current economic hardship to create evil troubles me.

[pinboy3niner]

9. Yet people are protesting...

...the promotion of tolerance, understanding and peace at the Park51 site in lower Manhattan...

[david13]

10. I think it takes more than prayer. dc

[Omaha Steve]

13. Kick

[geardaddy]

16. Kicked and rec'd.

Excellent to see this happen.

But I thought Dachau was near Munich, not in Krakow.

:shrug: