ANSAmed
Fouad and Patrick together in front of the kosher shop attacked by terrorists.
Men from different religions embrace in front of kosher shop
A Muslim man by the name of Fouad on Monday stood outside a Paris kosher shop where a terrorist attack had occurred in recent days holding a sign saying ”I am Muslim and have come to share your pain”. The man was alone in front of the Porte de Vincennes shop where another Muslim, Amedy Coulibaly, had killed four Jews in recent days. Another man with a typical Jewish ‘kippah’ on his head, Patrick, stepped forward, embraced him and called for photographs to be taken of the two. ”We have to speak about this together. We are all victims,” said Fouad, a 36-year-old aerospace consultant ”of Moroccan origins”, as he noted. Patrick, also 36, works as a real estate agent, has three children and lives in the area where the attack happened.
”It’s great what you’re doing,” he told Fouad. Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu had left the area shortly before after paying homage to the four who will be buried on Tuesday in Israel. The two men exchanged opinions and points of view that sometimes coincided, or at the least came very close to it.
”I do not want to say that we have the same problems, but today in France they take the desire to be Muslim away from you.
When you go into a shop you’re looked at badly. At the very least they think you are a thief,” Fouad said.
”Yes, unfortunately there has been a great deal of assimilating Muslims with terrorists,” Patrick agreed. ”The time has come for people to become aware, and this must start in schools,” the Muslim man said. ”Real political decisions are needed, because right now the government does not have the legislative arsenal suitable for dealing with this type of terrorism,” the Jewish man said, speaking out against the ”18,000 tweets” of support for the attacker. The conversation between the two attracted a great deal of curiosity, and a woman came up to thank the Muslim man for his gesture. An elderly Jewish man of Moroccan origins agreed but noted that the sign should have read ‘our pain’ and not ‘your pain’. ”I wrote that out of respect, because I came here to you.
But you are right. They killed a Muslim policeman, too. I’ll change it immediately,” Fouad said, pulling out a marker from his bag.
”I am a Muslim and have come to share our pain”, he wrote. (ANSAmed).
