Arthur Schneier

Doha: New York based Appeal of Conscience Foundation (ACF) has called for the establishment of a council of scholars from various religions of the world to sensitise the media about issues that are sacred to followers of different faiths, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, AFC President, said here yesterday. The rabbi, a Holocaust survivor, said, extremists from any faith, who do not believe in peaceful coexistence of various civilizations, should be "marginalised like lepers."

Speaking to the media, Schneier, whose family was killed at Auschwitz by Nazis in 1938, said that he had personally been a victim of religious hatred during the Second World War and hence, opposed hurting followers of every faith. The AOC Foundation, he said, was therefore working towards the establishment of a council of religious scholars drawn from all major faiths of the world including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, among others.

This council would then create an educational resource that media around the world could use while dealing with issues of religious sensitivity, ensuring no faith and its followers were wantonly insulted or harmed.

He said, like-minded Jews also condemned the publication of caricatures blaspheming Islam since they hurt the religious sentiments of the Muslims.

The rabbi lamented the Jewish people had been made scapegoats in various societies since the past 2,000 years.

Minorities in any society, he said, were prone to being made scapegoats or targets of hatred. "Over the centuries, scape-goating is a technique that has been perfected to a science," he said, adding that he supports the move to set up a mechanism under the UN where disputes that have a religious dimension, can be amicably settled.

He said, people of the world, of different faiths, do not want to be tolerated. Instead, they wish to be accepted by the societies they live in, to coexist peacefully.

"Those who do not believe in such peaceful coexistence should be marginalised like lepers," by the general society, he added.