By Mahmood Asim, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: A seventy year old man from Jaunpur district in Uttar Pradesh is fighting all odds and has dedicated his life to bridge the gap between Muslims and Jews in the country.
In the aftermath of the Palestine crisis, Jews and Muslims are often seen as arch-enemies, although Jews had a history of peaceful coexistence in Muslim kingdoms for the whole of middle ages when they were being persecuted in Europe. During the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack in 2008 too, a Jews cultural centre in Mumbai was on the target of the terrorists.
Screen grab from BBC YouTube channel
Mohammad Yasin, a 70 year old man who hails from Jaunpur District of Uttar Pradesh, has spent all his life in services of Jews Community in Mumbai by bidding them adieu in their last journey from this world.
Yasin writes last message of their eternal lives on the graves of Jews in the cemetery of the community in the Hebrew language. He learnt Hebrew and now writes the final message in Hebrew, Marathi, Gujarati and Hindi languages on their graves.
Yasin’s wonderful work was highlighted by BBC Urdu recently. Yasin says, came to Mumbai 35 years ago from Jaunpur and is now in no mood to go back. But instead, he aspires and dreams to visit Israel at least once before he dies. “I have never seen Israel before, people say it is beautiful place so I want to visit it once in my life,” Yasin told BBC. He, however, has little hope that his dreams can ever come true.
Yasin earlier used to engage in other professions before coming to Mumbai but because of low wage and deteriorating economic situation he left his hometown and came to the ‘city of dreams’ to try his luck.
As if drawn by destiny, Yasin here chose to work in a Jewish cemetery kicking aside all stereotypes that exist between both communities. What is interesting is that he has not only devoted his whole life shattering all biases, but is also giving training to his son to continue the work.
India has a small Jewish population some of which trace their roots to about 1000 years ago, when they migrated here as traders and gradually settled in coastal areas of Cochin, Surat, etc. Several others came from Europe during colonial rules. Since 1948, however, when the state of Israel was created, majority of Jews have chosen to go to Israel, although about 5000 Jews are still spread across several cities in the country; majority of whom are in Mumbai.