“Because of its specific association with Sufism and its ensuing identification with Islam, dervishhood is an order comprised almost exclusively of Muslim practitioners. The two Jewish dervishes pictured here in this rare photograph are among the very few who had successfully been integrated into the order without converting to Islam.

The above photo was taken in Sarajevo in 1941, showing a Muslim woman walking with her Jewish neighbor and covering her yellow star with her veil. “The Jewish family was actually staying with the Muslim family after their home was destroyed.

By Bob Pitt (Islamophobia-Watch)

For those who question the links between the English Defence League and fascism, or indeed the clear parallels between Islamophobia and antisemitism, this is a cartoon recently posted on the EDL London Division’s Facebook page.

AFP, Athens -

Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn has threatened to mobilize 100,000 people against plans to build a mosque in Athens, state television reported on Monday.

It is heart-warming and inspiring to see the evidently deep friendship between satirists Jon Stewart and Bassem Youssef, two popular comedians in their respective nations who have a finger on the pulse, not only of their own culture but global culture.

Tablet has a roundtable about the Israel lobby. All the voices are Jewish. The best commenter is Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace, though Noah Pollak of the Emergency Committee for Israel lets his guard down in a remarkable manner.

Student activists in California have exposed inflammatory remarks made by a university lecturer who is the head of an Israel lobby group that tries to pressure college administrations and state officials into investigating what the lecturer calls anti-Semitism.

by ANDREW LEVINE

Western peoples have long viewed the Muslim world through an “orientalist” filter –imagining a backward, exotic and vaguely sinister “other.” But, until recently, they were seldom preoccupied with what they imagined.

Last year we ran a piece on former English Defence League activist Andy Hughes, proprietor of the Islamic Far-Right in Britain blog, whose articles denouncing the Islamist threat to western civilisation are regularly crossposted at the notorious Islamophobic blog Harry’s Place.

We recently posted an article written by Bob Pitt of Islamophobia-Watch concerning controversy over Islamophobic remarks by anti-Muslim speakers that led to several walk-outs at a symposium in London sponsored by the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism (JSA).