Milan: Muslim/Jewish youth meet

Representatives from Italy's Muslim and Jewish youth organisations will meet in Milan on Thursday as part of an initiative for inter-religious dialogue.


The president of the Young Jews of Italy,Daniele Nahim, will sit next to Abdallah Kabakebbji, a representative of the young Muslims of Italy, at an exhibition entitled "The Fairness of Islam".


The exhibition begins on Thursday at Milan's Centre of Culture and Missionary Activity, PIME. Thursday is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day.


"Muslims participating on the day of remembrance may at first seem strange," Kabakebbji told Adnkronos International (AKI). "But for us, this is normal because memory is part of the European identity and it is a reference point that is important for the formation of Europe," he said.


"Within this context, we will will enter as European Muslims and as we have ties with Muslims in the world, we hope that this can be a teaching for all Muslims," said Kabakebbji.


"We also believe that PIME has done well, demonstrating that 'fairness' has no one flag, one language, or skin colour because it is found in all the religions," he told AKI.


"For is it is an honour that there are Muslims who saved Jews from the Nazis."


On Thursday, an exhibition will also be presented in Milan showing how many Muslims saved lives of Jews during Nazi rule in Europe.


Among the 22,000 names of those mentioned in the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, there are 70 Muslims.


The exhibition "Fairness of Islam" tells some of these stories.


"We as young Muslims, began this dialogue with the Italian Jews in 2002, when no one was doing this," said Kabakebbji, who also did not exclude the possibility of a visit to an Italian synagogue, suggested earlier on Wednesday by Daniele Nahum, head of the Union of Young Jews of Italy (UGEI).


"The idea to do this has been around for some time," he said.


"If the dialogue is a concrete and honest one in which friends of diverse religions say everything that they think about the problems that interest the world, it can be done," Kabakebbji told AKI.


"We as European Muslims want to make a critical contribution to society."



Source: ADN Kronos (English)

See also: Rome: Imam cancels synagogue trip

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It seems like the 'The Fairness of Islam' would best be demonstrated by the opening of a synagogue and a church in Mecca.