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| Muslim Imams and Jewish Rabbis at Nazi death camp |
(Scroll down for video) More than a dozen Muslim Imams along with Jewish Rabbis made a joint visit to a Nazi death camp in order to forge closer ties between the Muslim and Jewish communities, according to video uploaded to the internet.
Muslim religious leaders from the Middle East, United States, Africa and Europe, have joined scholars and Jewish rabbis on a visit to a Nazi concentration camp in Germany. The tour group, led by U.S. Rabbi Jack Bemporad, a Holocaust survivor, visited the camp of Dachau, as part of an educational tour of the concentration camps in Germany and Poland.
U.S. Rabbi Jack Bemporad said: "The fact that you have Jews, Christians and Muslims together trying to learn something about what was one of the most heinous and terrible crimes of the past century, and how we can unite and work together to educate people, inform people so that does not happen again, I cannot think of anything more important to do."
Marshall Breger, professor of law and vice chairman of the Conservative Jewish Policy Center in the United States, spoke of how he was touched by the visit.
"What moved me here was to see how Muslim Imams and religious leaders relate to the true horror of what happened here, and be in some kind of connection with the Jewish community and the other victims of the Holocaust,” Breger said.
Dr. Ahmet Muharrem, an imam, who is the general secretary of the Union of Journalists and Writers Foundation in Turkey, said he was surprised that the camp was held in such a clinical way.
"I was thinking about something that happened in the past by uncivilized people, uneducated, and arrogant people. But what I saw here was very civilized, very technological torture is what saw here," Muharrem said.
A dozen imams and religious teachers from countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Palestine, Bosnia, Morocco and Turkey, are taking part in the tour that aims to educate religious leaders about the Holocaust and to promote tolerance and diversity.
“It was very touching that the Imams and the Rabbis came together and are trying to promote unity between the communities. Hopefully, a lot of progress will be made as religious leaders see up close what happens when blind hate spirals out of control,” Kenneth Higgins, 50, of Queens, New York told YourJewishNews.com after watching the video.
Later in the week, the group will also visit to the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland.Mobile video not loading? Click here to view