cairo

In informal discussions with people, I often shock them when I relate the simple fact that Jewish rabbis spoke Arabic and lived in the Arab-Muslim world. So conditioned have we become to Jews being Ashkenazim from Eastern Europe with their lox and bagels, chopped liver and matzoh ball soup, that it is startling for many to find that Jews once lived in the Arab world and acculturated to the norms of those places.

As the Vienna Philharmonic finished its annual outdoor program at the Schonbrunn Castle, the guest conductor Daniel Barenboim exclaimed to the 50,000 gathered that he had a new hope because of the speech by the American President Obama on that day. The statement was met with a roar of approval. The next day, every major newspaper in Vienna carried the transcript of the Obama’s Cairo speech. Apparently, they heard the President in Lebanon and Iran as well.