Muslims and Jews in Bosnia observe Holocaust Remembrance Day and call for peace and dialogue | AP News
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CAPTION CORRECTS ROLE OF ROSENSAFT General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Rosensaft, right, gestures with Bosnian Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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CAPTION CORRECTS ROLE OF ROSENSAFT General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Rosensaft, right, signs a document representing Muslim-Jewish peace initiative, with the Bosnian Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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A view of the Srebrenica Memorial Center in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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CAPTION CORRECTS ROLE - General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Rosensaft, speaks at the presentation of Muslim-Jewish peace initiative, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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A Bosnian Muslim woman prays next to the monument with names of those killed in the Srebrenica genocide, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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CAPTION CORRECTS ROLE OF ROSENSAFT General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Rosensaft, right hugs Bosnian Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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CAPTION CORRECTS ROLE OF ROSENSAFT General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Rosensaft, right, signs a document representing Muslim-Jewish peace initiative, with the Bosnian Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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CAPTION CORRECTS ROLE OF ROSENSAFT General Counsel Emeritus of the World Jewish Congress Menachem Rosensaft, center, sits prior to the start of the presentation of Muslim-Jewis peace initiative, at the Srebrenica Memorial Center, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Potocari, Bosnia, Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024. Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and promote compassion and dialogue amid rising global sectarian hatred fueled by Israel's war in Gaza. (AP Photo/Armin Durgut)
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SREBRENICA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Jews and Muslims from Bosnia and abroad gathered in Srebrenica on Saturday to jointly observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day and to promote compassion and dialogue amid the Israel-Hamas war.
The gathering was organized by the center preserving memory of Europe's only acknowledged genocide since the Holocaust — the massacre in the closing months of Bosnia's 1992-95 interethnic war of more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks in Srebrenica.
The event on Saturday underscored the message that the two communities share the experience of persecution and must stay united in their commitment to peace.
"Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Jews are one body, our ties are intricate, forged in hard times and times of prosperity and interaction," said Husein Kavazovi, the head of Bosnia's Islamic Community, in his address to a group of survivors and descendants of victims of the Holocaust and the Srebrenica genocide who took part in the commemoration.
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"Both our peoples have suffered and had experienced attempts to destroy and eradicate them (and) at the present moment, when the evils of antisemitism and Islamophobia are gaining ground around Europe and the world, we must renew our vow to be good neighbors and care for one another," he added.
Menachem Rosensaft, a child of Holocaust survivors and until last summer the general counsel for the World Jewish Congress, was also in attendance. Rosensaft had repeatedly led delegations of Jewish scholars and young diplomats at ceremonies to commemorate the Srebrenica massacre that are held every July in the eastern Bosnian town.
"Today, we remember. Today, we mourn. We join together in sorrow, and our tears become prayers — prayers of remembrance, but also prayers of hope," Rosensaft told the gathering.
"This commemoration is the place for us to jointly commit ourselves to doing everything in our power to prevent the horrors we remember here today from being repeated," he added.
Rosensaft recalled in his speech the stories of Bosnian Muslims who risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbours from the Nazis and, about 50 years later, Bosnian Jews saving and caring for their Muslim neighbors during the country's internecine war.
Jews settled in Bosnia in the 15th century after fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Their thriving community was decimated by the Holocaust and today numbers around 1,000 people.
"We must do all in our collective power to change the future, to prevent further destruction and violence, and to reject all manifestations of antisemitism, of Islamophobia, of bigotry, of xenophobia, and of hatred. And we must do so together," Rosensaft said.
The commemoration was followed by the launch of the Srebrenica Muslim-Jewish Peace and Remembrance Initiative devised and signed by Rosensaft and Kavazovi. The signing of the initiative was witnessed by a Srebrenica massacre survivor, Munira Subai, and the leader of Bosnia's Jewish community, Jakob Finci, who was born in a concentration camp in 1943.
Kavazovi and Rosensaft committed to collaborate in times of crisis, maintain consistent and compassionate channels of communication, remember and commemorate the victims of past genocides and repudiate all forms of bigotry.
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Having spent a lot of time in Bosnia and throughout the Balkans I find the area to be complicated/complex and thoroughly beautiful with a history that dates back tens of thousands of years, all the world major religions live there in some countries as many as four languages are spoken along with two or three alphabets, many can trace their history back to NW Iran the Kruds the steppes of Russia etc, it is not unusual to blonde hair, blue eyes, with very wide faces and very slanted eyes. To me it is one of the most fascinating places on earth.
During WWII many Muslims saved Jews from the Nazis and Jews have returned the favor currently. During WWII Jews/Muslims fought side by side with Tito's partisans to defeat the Nazis. Many Jews were saved by the Albanians during WWII one of the most notable was Albert Einstein was taken in by Albania and smuggled out via boat to the US.
The meeting of Jews and Muslims in Bosnia is a faint ray of hope that perhaps someday this can happen in the M/E.
The Yugoslavian civil war brought on by Serbia resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslims, Sebrinica was the largest mass killing but far from the only one.
There is a memorial there today where Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Orthadox Christians fought and died together in stopping the Nazis.
Many people believe that Yugoslavia was an iron curtain country, it wasn't, it never was. In fact Tito faced down Stalin and later Kruschev and changed the face of communism. Another part of history that is forgotten.
fighting a common enemy will usually help to bridge political and religious differences.
Quite right. So what our planet really needs is for aliens to attack.
There is a saying in Balkans, dabogda poginuo s puskom n zidu (may you die with your rifle on the wall)
The Slavic people will fight to the last person as Hitler found out Russia and the US after WWII. This saying is a huge insult if said to another person, it means may you die as a coward.
I can remember sitting at a cafe having Turkish coffee in Sarajevo and ended up talking to a group of people that included Christians, Jews and Muslims it was a very enlighting conversation. Sarajevo is a magnificent city that was partially destroyed in the Yugoslavia war but has been rebuilt some using the original stone from the 11th and 12th century. When sitting there observing the people/cultures/languages/history you are sitting at the cross roads of the world. It is an experience that I will never forget and plan to go back one last time.
It would also be nice to see instead of the marches and demonstrations supporting Hamas in North America. Although I no longer have first hand eyewitness knowledge of what is happening in Canada between Muslims and Jews, especially these days, in my memory is what happened immediately after the 9/11 terrorism. I have posted this before, and will post it again.
In the northern area of the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) on Bayview Avenue, a mosque and a Jewish Temple stand side-by-side, even share a parking lot. They were not only just friendly neighbours, they invited each other to celebrations, events, even services. As soon as the announcements were made about the terrorists flying into the WTC and Muslims were identified as being the culprits the young men of the Jewish Temple started phoning each other to grab whatever they could use as a weapon, such as a baseball bat, a crowbar, whatever (most people in Canada didn't have guns back then, I don't know about now) and come immediately to the mosque. There they formed a ring around the mosque to protect it from anyone who might attack or vandalize the mosque, and they were eventually replaced by the police.
Those were the days, and I hope that they can happen again.
I remember reading something about that, very impressive.
what a crock of shit. that's like me saying all chinese citizens are blood thirsty commies that want the running dog american imperialists dead, or all canadian males are gay, with neither being true. those demonstrations are about protesting the collateral killing of innocent palestinians, namely women and children, are they hamas terrorists too? I doubt that, well not before they started burying innocent family members that had been killed, anyway.
it's about the american government turning a blind eye for decades to israeli ultra nationalists killing palestinians and stealing and "annexing" their lands in the west bank for decades without any fear of penalty. did you think all those acts wouldn't have repercussions? there are people profiting on both sides of that war, in money and in power, and they should have that removed. unlike religious clergy working together for the same goals in other parts of the world, that backwater part of the east mediterranean can't get it's shit together, even after over 2000+ years. ... and we both know why, religious extremists. you want this shit to end? make religious extremism by the clergy on both sides instantly terminal from the top down. maybe they would all forget about killing each other for awhile if they were too busy rebuilding their extremist and hypocritical churches, mosques, and synagogues from rubble.
10/7 was a revolting act of terrorism, but bibi is now negating those optics with his own acts of terrorism, and he's now gambling his autocratic pal trump will be elected. extreme US government pressure needs to be exerted on bibi both here and there until all parties compromise and agree to a permanent and lasting 2 state peace, with equally extreme penalties for noncompliance on both sides, or america needs to be ready to take their checkbook and walk away. fortunately most israeli citizens feel the same way about bibi and the fringe religious extremists propping him up. he needs to be booted from the government, have his trial for corruption, and get stuffed in a concrete room for the rest of his life before somebody gets the idea that those occupying so many square miles of east-med real estate would be better off left working it out on their own dime. personally, I think the religious extremists on both sides deserve a one way boat ride to somewhere west of malta and whoever is able to backstroke it home to israel/gaza/westbank wins. with bibi in power, israel is an endless money pit for the american taxpayer.
I agree Bibi should go, but not in the middle of a war. I dislike religious extremist ultra-orthodox Jews (for personal reasons as well) as much as I dislike the extremist Palestinians and Hamas and the Iranian government and its proxies as much as I do those who would end the military aid to Israel, which Alexander Haig has said is like having the biggest carrier in the middle east without needing one American serviceman on board. I personally feel that Israel is entitled to the whole of Israel "from the river to the sea", as a Jewish state welcoming peaceful Palestinians, Bedouins, Druze, Christians, just as the moderate Jewish Israelis do now. However I have no respect for anyone who would cut Israel off from American military aid.
Buzz, do you realize what you're saying? There is a difference of opinion and parts of that comment are accurate as you well know, especially the ''settlers'' in the West Bank. And the majority of Jews in Israel want Netanyahu out now something that you have agreed with in the past.
I changed my mind.
"Blessed Are Peacemakers"...
"Blessed Are The Peacemakers"
Yes, in deed.
ESPECIALLY "in deed".