tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post4381339532547119665..comments2024-03-14T02:22:26.957+00:00Comments on Point of No Return: Jewish Refugees from Arab and Muslim Countries: Restoring synagogues is no substitute for live JewsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-55458640250797040032010-12-21T12:13:50.945+00:002010-12-21T12:13:50.945+00:00Agree with you totally, Sammish. See my piece
http...Agree with you totally, Sammish. See my piece<br />http://jewishrefugees.blogspot.com/2010/01/are-we-witnessing-jewish-renaissance-in.htmlbataweenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15829104245735619972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12677825.post-27571265670512163282010-12-21T00:17:03.219+00:002010-12-21T00:17:03.219+00:00It is unbelievable. The title says it all. Thank...It is unbelievable. The title says it all. Thanks Betaween. <br /><br />I have been battling for quite sometimes now in some French and English blogs the same issue. That of some incredible claims of grandiose Islamic civilization and its understanding and respect it has towards Judaism in some small instances Christianity just because they have been restoring (finally, it took them so long) old synagogues (Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia) and basilicas (Algeria lately). I have always claimed that architectural structures, especially religious ones, will serve no purpose if one cannot pray and use them for the purpose of religious introspection. I have been harshly criticized by questioning and putting in doubt the connection between restoring past religious structures and respect of other religions in Islam. I think it is the only thing they (muslim bloggers) believe prove their respect and understanding and exonerate them from prejudices towards Judaism and Christianity.<br /><br />In fact, architectural restoration projects all spring from the idea of preserving (snapshot) history as a remembrance of time past, not of making changes in the present to attitudes, opinions and pre-conceptions. All museums relics are indications of time past, of time buried in history and simply forgotten in memory. Therefore it seems to me that restoring synagogues and basilicas is not entirely a sign of respect and understanding but quite the opposite. It is a sign of forgetting who the people who first built these structures were. What were the communities that sustained them in time of happiness and in time of grief? What happen to these people? It is as if the structures are fixated in time motionless there for all to see without any souls that gave them life and purpose previously. The fact that they will be become museums to attract tourist hard currency attest to the idea that muslims do not really want to come to terms of what happened in their backwards in recent times as well as times immemorial. The presence of structures does not prove that life was good. There are just things build by humans. It is the people who brushed aside in the sideline of history as if they did not exist. “Evidence of absence does not mean absence of evidence” once said Carl Sagan. <br /><br />This is the sadness about these restorations projects. The dilemma is that nobody can be against restoring structures, but to use it as proof of understanding between religions is at best naive and arrogant. Unless I see the communities that are truly associated with these religious structures living, working, raising children and burying the dead close of these relics, these structures mean nothing.Sammishnoreply@blogger.com