speaking about the holocaust to muslims

8/9/2019 Speaking About the Holocaust to Muslims

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Speaking about the Holocaust to Muslims: first-ever events inRabat, Casablanca, Tunis, Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad, Erbil, Amman, Jerusalem and Nazareth...

Q&A with Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, President of the Aladdin Project

In late January and early February this year, the Aladdin Project and the French Ministry of Foreign

Affairs organized a series of first-ever events in ten cities: Rabat, Casablanca, Tunis, Istanbul, Cairo,

Baghdad, Erbil, Amman, Jerusalem and Nazareth. Presented in these literary evenings were the Arabic

and Turkish translations of “If This Is a Man”, the masterpiece by Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, in the

context of January 27, the UN-declared International Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the

Holocaust.

Anne-Marie Revcolevschi, President of Aladdin Project, answered our questions about these gatherings.

Before discussing the events you have organized in ten cities in the Middle East and North Africa,

tell us about the objectives of the Aladdin Project, the NGO which you now chair after many years

at the helm of the French Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah?

True to its original vision, the Aladdin Project’s mission is twofold: to combat the plethora of denial and

trivialization of the Holocaust, particularly coming from certain spheres in the Arab and Muslim world,

while working to promote intercultural dialogue, tolerance and understanding by making Jews and

Muslims aware of each other’s history and culture. We seek to achieve these goals through thedissemination of knowledge in the languages of these societies, namely Arabic, Persian, Turkish, French

and English, among others.

The propaganda I am referring to is sponsored by certain states, notably Iran, with significant connections

to Islamist circles and is being spread throughout the Muslim world through the use of modern media,

including the Internet.

So the Aladdin Project is addressing the public opinions, intellectuals and politicians in those countries to

respond to the disinformation: by translating for the first time into Arabic and Persian books related to

this period and disseminating them through our online library (www.aladdinlibrary.org), and by providing

straight-forward information on our multilingual website (www.projetaladin.org) on the Holocaust,

Jewish history and Jewish communities in Islamic countries until the end of the Second World War. We

also publish on our Web site articles from the Arabic, Turkish and Persian media on these subjects. Our

other goal is to explain, again through the dissemination of knowledge, the history of Jewish communities

in the Muslim world, distinguishing between periods when relations between Jews and Muslims were

harmonious or violent. As far as the Holocaust is concerned, this would also include, for example, the positive roles that Muslim rulers such as the late Mohammed V of Morocco or Moncef Bey of Tunis and

citizens in several Muslim nations played in protecting Jewish lives.

In the spirit of mutual knowledge, we also wish to make Europeans and Westerners more familiar with

Arab and Muslim cultures and societies. Let me be clear: there are no double standards in our approach;

we oppose all forms of incitement to racial hatred, be it against the Jews in the form of anti-Semitism or

against Arabs or peoples from other parts of the Muslim world. And we are certain that education and

dissemination of information and knowledge of the “other” are key to overcoming the existing prejudices

and stereotypes.

http://www.projetaladin.org/newsletter/link.php?M=128&N=22&L=50&F=H






Why did you decide to deal with the history of Jewish communities in Islamic countries and why

did you stopped at their departure from these countries?

My simple answer to your first question is that we did it, because this memory and therefore this history

are in the process of disappearing in these countries where the Jews left, often forcibly, to resettle in Israelor in other countries. The result is that younger generations today are completely unaware that Jewish

communities had been part of the history of their country and have a distorted picture of the Jews.Historians and intellectuals in these countries with whom we work have been the first to tell us how

essential it is to recall and to teach this part of our common history, which is not the case today..As for

your remark that on our Web site, we have not gone farther chronologically? You're right and we have

plans to develop this section of the site.

Do you have Muslim partners who are going along with you in your projects?

Absolutely: the setting up of such a network has been, since the beginning, a priority and an asset. First,

our patrons such as Prince Hassan of Jordan, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Princess Haya Al

Khalifa of Bahrain, the only Arab woman to have been president of the UN General Assembly, former

President Ely Ould Mohamed Vall of Mauritania and Mr Abdurrahman Wahid, former President of

Indonesia, who recently passed away. Moreover, our Committee on Conscience, the intellectual andethical guarantee of our initiatives, is composed of different personalities such as Mr Driss Khrouz,

director of the National Library of Morocco, Professor Ilber Ortayli, President of the Topkapi Museum in

Istanbul, Dr. Mustafa Ceric, the Great Mufti of Bosnia, Mr Hedi Baccouche, former Prime Minister of

Tunisia, Professor Darioush Shayegan, eminent Iranian philosopher…Our Board of Directors is composed of personalities who hail from different cultures, nationalities and

religions: Muslim, Jewish, Christian and lay. Finally, less than a year after the launch of the project at the

UNESCO, more than a thousand personalities, about half of them from the Muslim world, have supported

the Aladdin Project. Some of them have chosen to speak out publicly on our Web site and every day, we

receive messages of encouragement, suggestions and corrections from predominantly Muslim visitors to

our Web site (it has an average of 15 000 visits per month). Our newsletter is sent out to 7,000 people in

more than 50 countries. More than 10,000 electronic books that we have translated into Arabic and

Persian have been downloaded.

Now let’s talk about the tour of Holocaust conferences that you have just completed. What were

your objectives?

Last March, representatives from a number of Arab and Muslim countries came to Paris to participate in

the launch of the Aladdin Project. With them, we then asked ourselves two questions: a) Should the

Holocaust be talked about in Islamic countries? For us, the answer was a clear yes. b) Is it possible to talk

about the Holocaust in Islamic countries? To find out the answer, we needed to organize these events. So

on the occasion of January 27 th, the UN-declared International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I proposed

that we organize in these countries literary conferences about Primo Levi’s “If This Is a Man” (or “Survival in Auschwitz”, as it is known in the U.S.). We had translated it for the first time in Arabic and

Persian. We also wanted to present at the same time the general historical context of the Holocaust.

Why this book?

Because it’s an exceptional testimony due to its dual dimensions: on the one hand, it testifies about

deportation and the Holocaust, and on the other hand, it questions human beings and humankind by

questioning the reader, any reader. We thought that reading Primo Levi was the best possible way to

explain what had happened and to put an end to amalgams and denials of the Holocaust. And I can tell

you straight away, we were right.



Then we asked the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be our partners so that the French cultural

centres in these countries would be able to organize with us these lectures and the Ministry accepted.

That’s how we were able to organize between January 26th and February 5th literary and historical lectures

in the French cultural centres, institutes and French schools in 9 cities: Jerusalem, Nazareth, Casablanca,

Tunis, Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad, Erbil and Amman. In Rabat, the event took place in the NationalLibrary.

How is such a tour organized?

Mainly thanks to the commitment and energy of more than 50 personalities, convinced of the novelty and

importance of this project! Having said that, I want first to salute Bernard Kouchner, Minister of Foreign

Affairs, whose personal commitment has been a major asset in the proper implementation of this project.

We have been able to rely on the full cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of most of our

ambassadors, cultural counsellors, and directors of the cultural institutes and centres in the countries

concerned, despite the fact that everything was organized on short notice. In the name of the Aladdin

Project, I want to thank all of them. Their support and help were indispensable. We are equally grateful to

our Muslim friends, intellectuals whose word is respected and who talked with authority and competence

at these ten conferences: Professor Mohammed Dadjani, Professor at the University of Al Qods in

Jerusalem, Mr Khaled Kassab and Professor Yossi Chetrit from University of Haifa in Nazareth,Professors Cengiz Aktar and Ilber Ortayli in Istanbul, Professor Mohamed Fantar in Tunis, Professors

Jamaa Baida and Dris Khrouz in Rabat, eminent thinker Tarek Heggy in Cairo, Dr. Amira Mostafa in

Amman, Professor Adel Al-Kayar and Dr Ali Al-Rufaie, dean of the law faculty of the University of

Bagdad, Ambassador Hussein Sinjari and distinguished historian Dr. Kemal Mudhir in Erbil.The different personalities, members of the Aladdin Project, naturally committed themselves fully to the

success of these events. Let me start with three of the founding members of the Aladdin Project whose

energetic commitment made an important difference: André Azoulay, Advisor to the King of Morocco,

who made a groundbreaking speech at the National Library in Rabat; our vice-president, Serge Klarsfeld,

who travelled thousands of miles to Tunis, Cairo, Amman, Baghdad and Erbil and spoke tirelessly in

public meetings and in private encounters with Muslim personalities about history and his personal

memories, and Ambassador Jacques Andréani, president of our Committee on Conscience, whose

diplomatic foresight and experience have been an important asset for our initiative. I must also make aspecial mention of Claude Lanzmann, who had to squeeze in a 24-hour return trip to Istanbul in the

middle of his travel itinerary. He spoke passionately about his film, Shoah, and the Aladdin Project and

we look forward to the Aladdin Project’s launch in Turkey of Shoah with Turkish subtitles. Annie Dayan

Rosenman gave a commentary on Primo Levi in front of Tunisian intellectuals, teachers and pupils; Jean

Mouttapa explained Primo Levi in a Nazareth auditorium packed to rafters and paid tribute to Salem

Joubran, author and poet and translator of “If This Is a Man” into Arabic. Dr Aly El Samman, a

prominent Egyptian personality, presided with clarity and authority the evening lecture in Cairo;

Professor Abdou Filali-Ansary’s remarks placed the evening at the National Library of Morocco on a

high intellectual level. François Zimeray, the ambassador for human rights issues, gave us his unsparing

support and went to Bagdad to address the literary evening alongside Serge Klarsfeld and Abe Radkin.Finally, other friends joined the project: the historian Jean-François Forge went to Istanbul, Professors

Joel Kotek and Luba Jurgenson travelled to Morocco and Professor Philippe Menard went to Cairo. RabbiDaniel Fahri was invited to the event in Tunis by the French institute.

As always when you organize events on this scale, there are “wild cards” that force you to improvise.

Thus German historian Peter Schoettler was stuck in Berlin with high fever and had to be replaced at the

last minute by French historian François Lafon from the Sorbonne.

In short, all this was achieved through a team work coordinated by our excellent executive director, Abe

Radkin, who himself was present in several cities.

Where did you go yourself?



To Jerusalem, Nazareth, Ramallah and Cairo. And I must tell you that when I heard Egyptian poet Mrs

Hala Aziz read in Cairo the account of the “selection” of the Italian convoy in Birkenau death camp by

Primo Levi in Arabic and in an impressive silence, I told myself that this common humanity to which we

all belong and from which the Nazis had wanted to eliminate us in Auschwitz, was rising from thesewords, in the depth of the hearts and minds of all of us who were listening.

How did the public react to your events in the 10 cities?

All the events took place in an atmosphere of civility and mutual respect. The audience listened

attentively and they were receptive to the lucid and precise explanations offered by the contributors, even

if they sometimes knew the Holocaust history. Often, one could feel emotions rising in the hall when

certain contributors such as Serge Klarsfeld or Rabbi Fahri told their personal stories.

Who came to listen to all of you?

It varied. The great majority of the people who composed the audience were Turkish, Arab or Kurdish

intellectuals, academics, civil society activists, students and of course the personalities who support the

Aladdin Project in those countries. The number of guests who were present varied according to the cities.In all, we presented the history of the Holocaust, for the first time, to more than 1,500 persons, who also

included four ministers, one deputy minister, five parliamentarians, nineteen ambassadors, four university

presidents and eight deans of faculties were among the participants, as were presidents of the Jewish

communities in Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco.

What were the similarities and differences from one city to another?

Of course, although it is difficult to sum up the meetings in so many different cities. First of all, I would

like to stress how much the fact that prominent personalities of the Muslim world support Aladdin Project

– indeed, we projected a short film of the launch conference of Aladdin at UNESCO in all the events –

helped people to unwind. The fact that the Aladdin Project has given priority to the transmission of knowledge and to education through translation of books and informative materials was highly

appreciated. In all the meetings, the lack of books and documents in Arabic was mentioned!! We were

also told that the price of our books in paperback is too high for interested people in these countries to

afford, particularly as many people don’t have access to Internet in order to download the books free of

charge from our online library. One of our next steps will be to publish low-cost editions of these books.

And considering the offers which I have already received form a publisher in Morocco, I am optimistic

that we will manage to distribute them.

The other similarity which deserves to be underlined is that the reception of this history was made much

easier than one would have thought from the moment when it was pointed out that the Holocaust was the

consequence of Christian and European anti-Semitism and that some Arab countries had been exemplaryin the way they confronted the Vichy policy and Nazism.

The third common factor, which I have already mentioned, was the insistence of our Muslin intellectualinterlocutors that the history of the Jewish communities in their countries must be written in Arabic and

taught to the young generations. This issue obviously calls for a sustained political will and I hope we will

be able to work with the indigenous historians and associations in these countries who share the same

wish and whose cumulative competence and experience are essential for the success of such a project.

Finally, the question of the Israeli-Arab conflict and the situation of the Palestinians in Gaza were

sometimes evoked, but no one drew parallels between the nature of the Holocaust and the political

conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinian issue was, of course, much more dominant in

Jerusalem and Nazareth and less so in some of the other countries.



What has also been obvious to me was the wish, I would even say the demand, of Muslim intellectuals to

find the words, the tone and the style in which they themselves would teach their fellow-Muslims the

history of the Holocaust and the history of Jewish-Muslim relationships in their language.

Conversely, they wished to let the Europeans know better the major works of their thinkers and writers.

This also a second imperative of the Aladdin project and we will be working with our Muslim friends tosee how this could be best achieved.

Were you disappointed by the low turnout of Palestinians in Jerusalem?

In fact, I expected it. The meeting, which was initially scheduled in Ramallah, had to be moved to East

Jerusalem at the last minute due to security concerns. There was not therefore enough time to properly

invite Arab participants in the city. We thus ended up with some 25 people, and only a handful of them

were Arabs. I wasn’t surprised, as several factors contributed to this absence: a last minute organisation,

no translation in Arab, and of course the proximity of the conflict and the situation in Gaza. I must say

that several prominent Palestinians we had invited, including Mr. Yasser Abd Rabbo and Mr. Faisal Al-

Husseini, had excused themselves for not being present because they had received the invitation only a

day before the event. In that meeting, the Palestinian issue was evoked by the Arabs in the room, who did

not compare it to the Holocaust, but expressed frustration that the Israelis and the Jews were “indifferent”to the Palestinians’ suffering. But the silver lining was the speech by Professor Mohammed Dajani from

Al Qods University, who chairs the Wasatiya movement and who is determined to work with us on this

issue. He thought we could go further in the teaching of Holocaust history at the university, obviously

with the help of Israeli historians. In Nazareth, Professor Yossi Chetrit of the University of Haifa chairedthe meeting and the conference hall was packed with a very interested audience.

How did the political class react?

Rather well, it seems to me. In Morocco, the official support was confirmed by the fact that we were

welcomed at the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco and by the advisor to the King, André

Azoulay. In Tunisia, it was the advisor to President Ben Ali, Professor Mohamed Fantar, who spoke

during the event. In Egypt, Mr Hossam Nissar, Deputy Minister of Culture, attended the conference andwe discussed with senior Egyptian officials the possibility of organizing a conference at the Library of

Alexandria. In Jordan, where the situation was more tense, Serge Klarsfeld and Abe Radkin had a very

fruitful meeting with Prince Hassan. Finally, the presence of the Iraqi Minister of Science and

Technology, Mr Raid Fahmi, in the Bagdad meeting, and the fact that Mr Raouf Abdurrahman, Minister

of Justice (the judge in Saddam Hussein’s trial) and Mr Majid Amin, Minister of Martyrs’ Affairs,

attended the Erbil conference, all had the same meaning.

And the press?

We are receiving from the different diplomatic posts, the press reviews in order to translate them but weare also reviewing Web sites and blogs. Dozens of journalists were present and the conferences were

widely covered by the media: television stations (Aljazeera in English and Arabic, France 24 in Arabic,English and French, Iraqi Kurdistan TV, ZDF), radio stations (RFI, RTL, Radio Netherlands Arabic

Service, Radio Aswat and Radio Atlantic in Morocco, Radio Iraq Al-Hurr…), news agencies (AFP,

Moroccan national news agency MAP, Tunisian national news agency TAP, Iraqi news agency Aswat al-

Iraq…) and hundreds of newspapers and websites. The great majority of these “first-hand” reports and

articles are positive and have greeted this initiative. Then there was, as we expected, a negative backlash

from media close to Islamist or radical circles who criticized Aladdin as a “Zionist” initiative whose aim

was to cover up the accusations in the Goldstone Report!



What is your appraisal of anti-Semitic prejudices in these countries?

One cannot seriously answer this question after spending only a short time in these countries. I can tell

you, however, that during the dinner hosted by the French ambassador in Turkey, several leaders of theJewish community in Turkey spoke about the current trends of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in that

country. They were very much in favour of positive efforts, such as what the Aladdin Project is doing, toincrease Muslims’ knowledge of Jews and Judaism as an effective means of fighting stereotypes and

myths. And it’s no news to say, of course, that in many parts of the Arab world, the images of the Israelis

as “killers of children” and worn caricatures of the rich and exploiting Jew, stream from the satellites to

the TV screens.

I reiterate that many of the Muslim intellectuals we met insisted on the necessity of teaching the past

history of Jews in the Islamic world in order to fight against the stereotypes of historical hatred between

Jews and Muslims, as if this animosity is in their genes or fate. If this is not done, it is obvious that anti-

Semitism will continue to grow. Mein Kampf and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are still sold in the

streets, even though, for the first time, at the Book Fair in Cairo, they were not on the shelves ….On the

other hand, you only need to ask for them and they are brought to you the next day with the Arabic

translation of Faurisson’s book “with no extra charge”!! So there are a lot of efforts that need to be made

to get rid of this hate literature from bookshops as well as from the Internet!

Finally, do you think of this totally new initiative of Aladdin as positive?

It would be so easy to say yes; but we are in this for the long haul. So many bad winds are gathering to

spread hatred and intolerance. The evolution and the change of mentalities is the fruit of long efforts of

education, reading, and setting examples. But one of Aladdin’s strengths is to work on long-term

goals….and to believe that in the face of adversity, we must cherish our hopes. Anyway, this is my

profound conviction. Last year, the representatives of Muslim leaders came to our launch conference at

UNESCO in Paris and the door of respect for historical truth and tolerance was half-opened. Today, we

went to them and other doors were half-opened, those of intellectuals, teachers and the civilian society.

The third step belongs to them: they have to carry on. Of course, we will be there to keep on translating,to help train teachers and researchers and to maintain as many doors opened as possible, doors opened on

the history and culture of the other.

What are your next projects?

Briefly, first we have to develop our relationship with our interlocutors in the cities where the events took

place. This is essential in moving forward with the question of the teaching of the history of Jewish

communities, the translation of new books on Holocaust, the diffusion of books already translated and

their use in classrooms, particularly the Diary of Ann Frank and If This Is a Man . We are going to have aseries of meetings to analyze the conferences with all the people spoke in those 10 cities, and I am

convinced that new ideas will come up. We also need to have the film Shoah by Claude Lanzmanntranslated into Turkish, Arabic and Persian and organize its screening by TV networks. There is a project

for an exhibition in Istanbul. The training of history and literature teachers with the help of UNESCO and

also a conference in Alexandria are also in the works. Finally, there will be a visit to Auschwitz probably

next December at the invitation of the Mayor of Paris, the Aladdin Project and UNESCO. We have just

agreed upon it with the new Director General of UNESCO, Mrs. Irina Bokova. But all this takes time and

requires means. So we are going to work hard to find the means.



A final word?

During the debate on the Aladdin Project in Baghdad, the Iraqi professor Adel Al-Kayar said: “Three

Jewish geniuses have changed the face of the modern world: Marx, Einstein and Freud… Is there hope

that a new genius will get out of Aladdin’s lamp to bring peace to this region?”

I have no illusions: I know only too well the size of the challenge facing us, but I also know that throughhard work and keeping faith, we can make a change. Otherwise, what’s the alternative? As President

Abdoulaye Wade said at the launch conference of the Aladdin Project in UNESCO: “The worst attitude is

one of doing nothing and waiting, in the hope that somehow things will get better by themselves. We

need to be vigilant, ready to fight without concession on every front.”

I cannot but advise our readers to read and pass on President Wade’s whole speech, inspiring, full of

wisdom and lucidity (http://www.projetaladin.org/assets/files/President_Abdoulaye_Wade_ENG.pdf )

***

Major books on the Holocaust in Arabic and Persian can be downloaded free of charge from Aladdin

Online Library. Please visit our website:

www.aladdinlibrary.org






speaking about the holocaust to muslims

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