World Jewish News

Devoted to dialogue Jewish Kazakhstani touts country's moderate Muslims.

The elegant man with the well-trimmed mustache and pinstriped suit has given funds to a mosque here and an Orthodox church there, while underwriting many of his country's Jewish institutions.
This off-handed admission by Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) president Alexander Mashkevich offers clues to understanding Kazakhstan.
Indeed, on the eve of a planned U.S. war on Iraq, he believes his country provides a positive model for relations between the West and Islam.
Bordered by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, this central Asian nation popped into focus two years ago, as many Americans turned their sights on nearby Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan has already hosted one and is looking forward to holding another international gathering aimed at building a dialogue of civilizations.
"We the Jews from this region are against the equation of Muslims with terrorists," said Mashkevich in an interview last week. "The idea of EAJC ... is to show the Jewish world and the whole world that it's possible to identify a majority of Muslims [that can] cooperate with us in the common fight against terrorism, extremism and obscurantism."
Mashkevich brought that message to U.S. officials in Washington last week. The business magnate, with others from EAJC and from the District-based NCSJ -- Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia, attended meetings at the White House on Wednesday of last week.
As evidence for their homegrown model of interfaith harmony, EAJC leaders can point to a meeting of Jewish and Muslim leaders from East Asia, Britain, Australia and Kazakhstan itself held in the former Kazakh capital of Almaty last October.
On that occasion, both the country's Chief Rabbi Yeshaya Cohen and Acting Superior Mufti Khadgi Duanayev signed a joint statement that called for the establishment of a Center of Islamic-Jewish Dialogue there.
"Islam and Judaism are religions of peace, not of war," the statement read in part, after decrying the human toll of terrorism. "We don't see each other as enemies. The postulates of Islam and Judaism state that people should treat each other as partners in their combined search for a spiritual source in our world."
The EAJC is looking forward to taking part, as a nongovernmental organization, in a Feb. 13 Euro-Asian Forum on Peace and Stability in Almaty. Six countries are on the guest list so far: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. As its pre-mission before a solidarity trip to Israel, the U.S. Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations will also take part.
The Jews of Kazakhstan form a tiny minority of close to 15,000 in a nation of some 15 million. Yet there is little anti-Semitism in a country largely split between Muslims and Russian Orthodox Christians, according to NCSJ and the EAJC.
For instance, when Mashkevich was seeking to construct a Jewish place of worship in the new capital of Astana, he claims to have gotten full cooperation from local authorities.
"The mayor gave the best place to us for land to build a synagogue," he said.
The Jewish community now boasts five working synagogues across the country, a day school with about 150 students and 14 Sunday Hebrew schools serving another 600 pupils, Mashkevich says.
The psychology professor-turned-metals mogul has contributed both money and time to the local resurgence of Jewish life. Last year, he helped found the EAJC, which draws on Jewish communities in 28 countries in the former Soviet Union, the rim of Asia and Australia.
EAJC secretary general Michael Chlenov, himself Russian, hails "the fringes of old Russia" such as Kazakhstan as bastions of "peace, tolerance and stability".
"These areas have much to say and their message is very positive," said Chlenov, who is based in Moscow.