The rabbi (president of the Conference of European Rabbis) writes in favor of inclusivity and diversity in 2014 (though he does not push for these values in the Jewish state of Israel):
Some outlets have reported that moderators on French forums have had to censor up to 95% of all comments, whilst some 25% of those comments have had to be blocked completely. Using the anonymity of the internet, people are expressing a type of hatred that I had hoped extinct.
Perhaps worst of all, I have heard anecdotes of ambulances whose staff are not willing to venture into boroughs of major European cities for fear of their own lives. Every European with even a modicum of awareness can see that if the status quo remains we will end up with a Europe that is vastly different to the Europe we know today.
When I visit South Africa and I see communities sheltering from gangs in walled complexes. When I see private security firms patrolling the streets and ordinary citizens who are afraid to travel to some neighbourhoods, I feel lucky to live in Europe.
For me Europe is inclusive. Cities like London, Milan and Berlin are multicultural metropolises. The cities are enriched by the many and varied communities who live within them, each with their own unique smells, sights and sound who have come together from all different parts of the world. We are naturally inclusive and placid; our societies are open and free.
As the representative of one of the oldest European minority faiths on this continent, I want to reach out to the diverse Christian communities, the diverse Muslim communities, secular groups, governments and politicians, to help us stop this growing trend of antagonism and conflict. I believe that we have the responsibility to recreate an atmosphere of tolerance and mutual respect between the secular modern state and religious movements, in order to make sure that the experiment, which we call Europe, is not going to fail.
Islam is practiced peacefully by millions of people who are calling Europe their new home. The ones to be targeted, if we want to live without fear of attacks such as who perpetrated the attacks in Paris, are extremists. The distance between radical Islam as practiced by Isis, Hamas and Al Qaida and mainstream Islam, is as far as the distance between moderate nationalism and National Socialism.
Instead of alienating the great majority of peaceful Muslims, who live peacefully in Europe, with broadside attacks against the soft target religious symbols of Islam such as halal, and the burka. Radical Islamic preachers, websites, movements and cells should be diagnosed, isolated and destroyed. The cheap point scoring of the extreme right against Muslim immigration not only fails to solve the problem, but pushes the moderate immigrant into the claws of the extremists.
We have to isolate and stop the extremist among us and we propose that the EU and the member countries work to create a core set of basic European values all faiths can subscribe to, similar to the program which has been released as the “Manifesto for Combating Religious Extremism” by the Conference of European Rabbis. Religious leaders must take the lead and they have a unique responsibility to preach an ideology of peace and tolerance.
There is no hope for humanity, if we do not tolerate each other, and if we do not respect each other’s differences. Europe is not going to be saved by European countries adapting Middle Eastern practices of intolerance towards minorities, but by introducing new Europeans to the values of pluralism and mutual respect, expelling from our midst those voices which call to destroy our common home.
The voice, which calls the faithful in a mosque to bomb planes, and the voice, which calls on ending freedom of religion in Europe, are both equally dangerous to the future of Europe. Let us stop both trains and tell the people to step out engage in dialogue and respect each other.
I wonder if the rabbi has ever read the Torah? I don’t recall much in there promoting the virtues of inclusion and tolerance.
Terrorism is just the tip of the spear of the Islamic threat to the West.
