17 thoughts on “The ‘Other’ Righteous Gentiles: Muslims – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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    1. I didn’t say it had’t. I said the vast majority were Christian & that Judge Turkel, with a prejudice against Muslims exemplified by his findings in the report that bears his name, couldn’t find it in his heart to recognize this particular Muslim hero.

      1. With judges like Turkel, it is easy to see how or why Israeli courts have arrogated to replace international humanitarian law with local Israeli law, condemning the “protected persons” who live in the occupied territories (or who were expelled from them and/or not readmitted to them) to the very anti-humanitarian excesses that the Geneva Conventions (and Hague Conventions) were intended to prevent. The USA “looks the other way” during 44 years of this travesty much as it looked the other way during the Holocaust (before Axis military excesses gave the USA reason to intervene).

        The USA also has dreadful judges. Think of the “Citizens United” decision.

      2. Don’t you think that the vast majority of non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis were Christian?

        The vast majority of Jews who were killed during the Holocaust were from countries whose populations were primarily Christian.

        I am not sure why it would be surprising that the vast majority of the rescuers recognized by Yad Vashem were Christians.

        1. You should look into the history of Albania during WWII. There were more Jews in ’45 than before the war started. Thousands of Jews from Greece and other European countries found a refuge in Albania, a Muslim country. If you look up “Besa”, the Albanian code of honour, you’ll find numerous testimonies from Jews who were saved by Albanians.
          Hundreds of Jews from France were saved by a Turkish diplomat who – risking his life – delivered Turkish passports to all the Jews of Corsica, for instance. They lived in Istambul till the end of the war.
          The Algerian Jews who had become French citizens through the Crémieux Décret 1871 – and thus had alineated themselves from their fellow Arab and Berber compatriots – were ‘denaturalized’ during the regime of Vichy, and many were saved by their Arab neighbours though they had integrated the colonial society alongside the French rulers. Not to talk about the King of Morocco, the first Arab to become a Righteous at Yad Vashem.
          There is clearly a political goal by not recognizing the Muslim Righteous – even Satloff, the ultra-zionist, hints so in his documentary (Yankel’s link is from that documentary).
          Believe it or not: anti-semitism in the European sense is not historically part of the Muslim tradition. Gilbert Ashkar, a Lebanese (Christian) intellectual, teaching at SOAS or London School of Economics, I can’t remember, wrote a book recently on “The Arabs and the Shoah”. Some of his interventions on the net (at least in French).

          PS. I forgot to mention: there a three-part documentary on al-Jazeera/English on “Muslims in France” from december. I think in part one, we hear about the Algerian Mufti of the Grande Mosquée in Paris, who all while ‘socializing’ with the German occupiers had dozens of Jews hidden in the Mosque.

          1. There are dozens of Albanian Muslims recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.

    2. Shalom,

      Yad Vashem has never recognized an ARAB as a Righteous.
      He deserves to be recognized as a Righteous.

      The rescue of Jews living in an Arab country, such as Tunisia, should be as important as the rescues of Jews living in Europe.

      Shalom,
      Edith Shaked

    3. Shalom,

      There is the issue, that Yad vashem didn’t recognize one single Arab as a righteous.

      Khaled Abdel Wahab who saved 24 Jews in the Shoah, in France’s Nazi-occupied Tunisia, was denied the honor of recognition as a righteous, because, as stated by Yad Vashem, he didn’t violate any law, and he didn’t risk his life saving the Jews, whom he sheltered in his farm.

      Yad Vashem should have recognized him, as only Poland had laws punishing people who helped Jews, and others were recognized as righteous, even when they didn’t risk their life.

      It seems that Yad vashem must improve also its narrative on the Shoah in Europe’s territories in North Africa – France’ Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, and Italian Libya.
      During the Shoah, there was no such a thing as “North Africa” or “Maghreb”, even if great scholars tell you there was. Read Andre Chouraqui stating that, since 1848 with French colonization in North Africa, one must deal with the political realities of each separte country: the departments of Algeria, and the protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia . One also does not write about the Shoah in Scandinavia, but about the Shoah in Finland, Denmark, and Norway.

      Edith Shaked, Holocaust educator

  1. I remember reading about Paris based, indigenous North-African, Muslim community whose members helped smuggle Jews to the Spanish border.

  2. Robert Satloff, the hard-core neo-con from WINEP, has made a documentary called “Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Land”. It was shown on French television in 2010, and it was a beautiful portrait of North African Arabs who saved Jewish fellow compatriots during the WWII. Satloff – who speaks very well Arabic – went to Tunisia and Morocco, and there is a very long sequence on Khaled Abdul Wahab – a Tunisian aristocrat and a very handsome man – and interviews with the Boukhris and Uzzan families who were hidden in his barn. We also follow Abdul Wahab’s daughter to the US (though I think she lives there) where she receives some kind of medal from a Jewish organization. Very moving and highly recommendable. I think there’s a book out there with the same title. And still Satloff is a hard-core Zionist …

    1. Robert Satloff, indeed wrote a book, published in 2006:
      “Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach into Arab Land”

      The documentary is based on his book.
      Edith

  3. A new film is coming out these days in the US: “Free Men” – it revolves around the 500 to 1,600 (accounts vary) Jews that were saved through the courage of Si Kaddour Benghabrit of the Paris Mosque and its staff who were issuing fake “Muslim certificates.” The famous singer, Salim Hilali (praised by Oum Kalthoum) was amongst them.
    The film is directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi and features Michael Lonsdale, Tahar Rahim and Mahmoud Shalaby (an Israeli actor).
    http://youtu.be/dq1V4vXgiYo

  4. It is a thought provoking article and I very much appreciate the author.It is a strange coincidence that today(the 75th Memorial Day of Liberation of Austwitz by the Red Army)while I was listening to the speech by Labour MP Charlotte Nichols in the House of Commons I heard her mentioning about Bosnian Muslims saving the Serajevo Haggadah,I tried to google about it.Stumbled across this article.It is a shame the Palestinian problem has created a deep mistrust and animosity between these two people particularly in the Middle East.As a Muslim originally from South India I grew up in a multi faith environment.In fact my mother taught me first about the evil deeds of the Nazis and the genocide they committed against the Jews(I was 11 years old and mum did not know the word Holocaust then).Later I read in detail about it and still trying to grasp the enormity of this crime.
    The historian Prof Norman Stone stated as follows in one of his books about Adolf Hitler- ”People of the world do not rejoice that the world stood up and destroyed this evil.Beware the bitch which bore this beast is in heat again” What a prophetic words! I lived in Europe to witness the massacre and the ethnic cleansing of former Yugoslavia. Now I am seeing rise of the right wing extremism across Europe.

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