Marmur the elder kvells about Marmur the younger's modus operandi re Jewish and Muslim fasting/fast-breaking:
Even when religiously sensitive Jews don’t want to do away with these commemorative events, they may seek added reasons for their retention in our time. Thus, for example, though committed to fasting on the ninth of Av, Rabbi Michael Marmur (yes, he’s my son) wrote recently from Jerusalem (where he lives with his family) that this may be an occasion for Muslims and Jews to eat together at the end of their respective fast days.
Citing his wife, who is an activist in the field of Arab-Jewish co-operation, he suggests that adherents of the two religions should celebrate by having festive meals together when they break their fasts.
Reflecting on contemporary Arab-Jewish relations in Israel, he writes: “We are typically divided by our hungers and our yearnings. Could we perhaps find common ground in our hunger?” Alluding to reported tragic acts of prejudice and violence by dangerous zealots during Ramadan he wants fasting to feed empathy, not fuel fanaticism.
Sorry, Marmurs. That's not going to happen when the dangerous zealots are jihadis who, for religious reasons, want to push all the Jews of Israel into the sea.
I live in Jerusalem. On the annual Tisha'B'Av walk around the walls of the old city we had to have extensive police and military protection because the Muslims were "breaking their fast" and violent. These warm and fuzzy co-existence types need to wake up and smell the coffee--or in this case the tires burning.
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