Monday, August 08, 2011

To the Editor

"How ironic that David Yerushalmi, a Hasidic Jew and a political force behind a nationwide campaign against Shariah, or Islamic law, seems oblivious to the profound Islamic influence upon his own Jewish religious traditions.
This is no more evident than in the life and works of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), the great Jewish thinker, who lived in Muslim lands and wrote most of his books in Arabic. In his Mishneh Torah , his influential code of halacha, the Jewish version of Shariah, as well as in his philosophical masterpiece “Guide for the Perplexed,” Maimonides cites numerous Muslim thinkers, and all his works clearly mirror the then-prevailing religious and intellectual trends in the Islamic world.
Mr. Yerushalmi’s obvious prejudice against Muslims and Islam is a betrayal of Jewish history."  (thanks