JEWISH JOURNAL
by Rabbi Mark Diamond
September 17, 2014

Jews worldwide will soon mark the onset of a Jewish New Year with the specter of rising anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East. Amid the preponderance of daily bad news, it is uplifting to celebrate narratives of tolerance and respect. Earlier this month, I was one of 12 rabbis meeting with two distinguished Los Angeles-based diplomats, Consul General of Israel David Siegel and Consul General of Azerbaijan Nasimi Aghayev. We broke bread together and discussed our shared goal of shining a positive light on the unique story of Azerbaijan, a Muslim nation that enjoys positive relations with the United States, Israel and its own Jewish community.

World Jewry has a special relationship with Azerbaijan, home to a nearly 2,000 year-old community of approximately 15,000 Jews. Azerbaijan has been a haven of tolerance and respect of Jews through centuries of persecution and exile in many other countries.  It remains so today, a remarkable achievement given the current state of Muslim-Jewish relations in the Middle East and elsewhere. Azerbaijan is a predominately Shia Muslim nation that sits directly north of Iran and has enjoyed more than two decades of diplomatic relations with Israel.  

During the luncheon, we learned a great deal about how and why Azerbaijan invests in and supports its Jewish community and Jewish heritage. The republic is home to one of the largest all-Jewish towns outside Israel, the centuries-old Red Village of Azerbaijan, whose Mountain Jews meet and pray in several stately synagogues.  Azerbaijan’s capital city of Baku features a state-of-the-art Jewish day school with more than 300 students. Baku’s Chabad rabbi, born and raised in Israel, recently decided to become a citizen of Azerbaijan, a nation he is proud to call his new home. Baku has a beautiful new synagogue for the Mountain Jews, built in 2011 and paid for by the Azerbaijan government……

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http://www.jewishjournal.com/opinion/article/israels_most_valuable_muslim_ally