Anti-Hebrewism - Part 2

Another small encounter with entrenched racism. I went to buy some falafel in a little takeaway place I attend regularly. One of the workers loudly objected to me being served on the basis that "he is Yehudi!". The rest of the staff, who know me and know that I am Muslim, started telling him to keep his mouth shut and told him that I was Muslim. Since then, the guy would not meet my eyes when I look at him.

I can honestly say that I sympathise with every single Jew who lives in Egypt - the amount of racism they must be experiencing here must be immense. According to my Shaikh, who teaches me Arabic, the Jewish enclave in Cairo is guarded 24/7 by fully armed troops and no Egyptian is allowed in unless he is invited by people leaving in the enclave. No wonder, to be honest, given the tendency among a lot of Muslims to equate all Jews with Zionist murderers of the Zionist state.

It seems that at some stage, we, the Ummah, have abandoned our brains and embraced our emotions without restraint. It is a crude generalisation and surely the exceptions abound, and yet, as in economics, while it is impossible to predict behaviour of an individual, it is far easier to predict behaviour of masses - and the behaviour of Muslim masses over various issues seems to bear this generalisation out.