Justice and respect for all

Congratulations on your fine article about our esteemed local Muslim community (“SLO County Muslims react to terrorist attacks,” Dec. 6). I am proud of our greater SLO community, that Muslims here have received only messages of support and none of the threats other Muslim communities have received.

I do, however, have one correction to that article. I am the rabbi to whom Imam Mus’ab Abdalla referred in the article, and while I did indeed offer him community support, I did not offer to “guard” the mosque and certainly would not offer our Jewish youths for that task.

I reached out to Imam Abdalla because it was important to me, as a Jew, to express support to our Muslim brothers and sisters in this time of Islamophobia. As Jews, we have many generations’ experience being targets of hate. We are also charged by our faith to pursue justice and respect for all, especially for those deemed “strangers.” We are grateful to live in a nation guaranteeing all law-abiding citizens freedom of belief and worship, and we are committed to ensuring our community lives up to that ideal.

This story was originally published December 27, 2015 at 8:29 PM with the headline "Justice and respect for all."