Chief of European Rabbinate Council speaks about unique feature of recent summit of world religious leaders in Baku

“I felt atmosphere of Azerbaijan’s historic kindness once more when I addressed the World Summit of Religious Leaders in Baku”, Chief of European Rabbinate Council Pinchas Goldschmidt said.

Pinchas Goldschmidt attended the World Summit of Religious Leaders on April 26-27 in Baku and was a moderator of the fourth plenary session.

The Chief of European Rabbinate Council said the summit was successful: “It is difficult to amaze Switzerland, but when I arrived in Baku to attend the World Summit of Religious Leaders, which keynote idea was to research an impact of globalization on the religions and religious values, I was amazed at not only the meeting of very different confessions, but also the character of a dialogue between the participants from 32 countries, who represented different religions – Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hindu and Buddhism – in Baku World Summit of Religious Leaders”.

Pinchas Goldschmidt said such dialogues were very important for the people to know each other well and to form mutual trust. “The idea of tolerance embraces respect for other ideas. They are expecting more things from us – religious leaders. I understand it because our duty is to prevent extension of any ethnic conflict to religious confrontation. There are unrests in some regions, world economic crisis, separatism, threats to the territorial integrity of the countries and “the interested people” can put religious mask on these problems. Unfortunately I can show examples not only in Europe, but also in post-Soviet countries. I called on the people to respect feelings of others many times because the contrary approach could lead to the confrontations like an incident wrapped up throughout the Europe in 2005. 12 cartoons published in Danish newspaper was not an expression of painter’s feelings, but it was disrespect for human rights of believers”.

Pinchas Goldschmidt said the participants of the summit expressed their concern over the increase of conflicts, especially ethnic and national confrontations.

“During my talk with chairman of the Caucasian Muslims Office, Haji Allahshukur Pashazadeh I understood that indifference to this problem may create danger for the whole humanity. At the summit I said I do not understand why some Europeans distrust Muslims. The results of the referendum held in Switzerland to ban the building of minarets prove this distrust. As regards Azerbaijan, I felt the kindness of the Azerbaijani people, who created examples of wonderful poetry, mugham, culinary art, as I arrived in Baku, which was declared the Capital of Islamic Culture last year. And all this is felt at the background of the historical buildings constructed in the classical European style in the center of the city by oil magnates before the revolution, modern skyscrapers and expensive boutiques,” he said.

Chief of the European Rabbinate Council appreciates Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s speech in the summit.

“President said representatives of various nations, religions live together in Azerbaijan for long years, centuries. There are over thousand mosques, 11 churches, 6 synagogues in the country. Once more I believed it by the example of the Jewish community in Azerbaijan. The Jews have preserved their religious traditions and feel very well. A new synagogue has been built for European Jews, the government is determining the place for the construction of a new synagogue for Mountain Jews,” he said.


/APA/