The website Middle East Transparent (MET) has an interesting article noting that 19th C. Jewish immigrants to France had eerily similar difficulties that modern day Muslim immigrants are having with the national government. The piece, by MET founder Pierre Akel, reports on how the French government worked to resolve the problem, with the assistance of Jewish religious leaders. Definitely worth reading.

The Jewish Grand Sanhedrin as an example
for reforming Europe’s (and other) Islam?
Pierre Akel

Last week, French Jews celebrated the Grand Sanhedrin convoked by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807. The Emperor submitted to a gathering of 72 rabbis and Jewish notables, both “liberal” and “traditionalist” (“salafi”, in modern terms), 12 questions whose positive answers amounted to a reformation of Judaism in Napoleon’s empire and to a social and cultural revolution for the Jews of France in particular.

In an article titled “paving the way for a Muslim parallel society”, Last week’s Der Spiegel predicted that “a recent ruling by a German judge citing the Koran underscores the dilemma the country faces in reconciling Western values with a growing immigrant population. A disturbing number of rulings are helping to create a parallel Muslim world in Germany..”. In other words, a specter of a Cold Civil War is haunting not only in Germany but all of Europe.

Der Spiegel’s alarmist statement followed on a decision by a German (female) judge that “the exercise of the right to castigate does not fulfill the hardship criteria as defined by paragraph 1565 (of the German Federal Law). The judge had decided that a woman was not justified in asking for speedy divorce from a violent husband as both she and her husband wore “Moroccans”, citing a passage in the Koran that some have interpreted to mean that a husband can beat his wife!

The awareness that there is a “problem with Islam” is increasing in Europe and elsewhere. And, not only in the public opinion and among politicians and intellectuals. The Catholic Church is witnessing a rise in the traditionalist current at both grass root level (in seminaries, for instance) and at the top.

A problem with Islam there is. It is similar in many aspects to Napoleon’s problem with French Jews. Napoleon had discovered that the liberation of Europe’s Jews from their ancient Ghettos and declaring that all citizens were equal was not enough. Judaism, itself, had to undergo the cultural and religious reformation required to meet modernity. Noting the amazing number of brilliant Jewish professionals in modern France, whether in medicine, law, finance, the media, one should remember that until 1807 and for some time later: “it remained to convince the almost illiterate (Jewish) masses of the importance of scientific knowledge because centuries of marginalization had created in their midst the deeply rooted idea that all profane sciences were dangerous for their faith, or the integrity of their religion. Any sciences that did not belong to their religious texts were considered as harmful: grammar, mathematics and history were still considered “suspect” disciplines”!

And,

“The schools, to which they sent their children, before 1789, were under the influence of such prejudices… They were organized in accordance with a carelessness that belonged to another age and managed by ignorant people who taught children Yiddish, some rudiments of Hebrew and the Talmud.

“A real and profound pedagogical effort was required to convince families to send their children t public schools and to explain that profane was not a sin…”.
…