Gaza drives a wedge in Paris imam's dialogue with Jews
Hassen Chalghoumi, from Tunisia, pioneered a religious exchange in France.

by Robert Marquand
Christian Science Monitor
January 28, 2009

http://www.islamist-watch.org/1665/gaza-drives-a-wedge-in-paris-imams-dialogue-with

Excerpt:

Hassen Chalghoumi, a Tunisian-born imam of the Drancy mosque outside Paris, takes a modern view of Islam. He pioneered a Muslim-Jewish dialogue in France: He was the first imam to commemorate the Holocaust, to light candles at Hanukkah, and to bring French Jewish leaders on Dec. 8 for the Eid celebrations with 5,000 local Muslims. He tells his faithful they aren't trapped in narrow cultural identities – and neither are Christians and Jews.

But the 22-day Israeli assault on Gaza has undermined his message – and there's concern that hatred fanned by Middle East politics could get more toxic among Arabs and Jews in France. The country has by far Europe's largest groups of North Africans (5 million), and Jews (700,000), two-thirds of whom are Sephardic, with close ties to the Mideast.

The ferocity of the Gaza conflict puts the young imam in an old conundrum: how to advocate peace when ghoulish photos of the aftermath of civilian bombings reach Arab living rooms, as Arab and Jewish positions harden, and as charges of "anti-Semitism" and "Islamophobia" get hotter.

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Related Topics:  Interfaith, Mosques / Imams, Multiculturalism  |  Robert Marquand receive the latest by email: subscribe to the free islamist watch mailing list