Source: Combined Jewish Philanthropies
http://www.cjp.org/content_display.html?ArticleID=206978
NEW YORK, Jan. 22 (JTA) -- It was billed as a historic first -- the visit last November of an imam to the New York Synagogue.
But the visit turned sour when the imam, Omar Abu Namous, launched into a barrage of criticism of Israel, calling for a binational state of Arabs and Jews to replace Israel and denying the historical record of Arab belligerence against the Jewish state.
That surprised even his host, Rabbi Marc Schneier, a prominent New York rabbi active in interfaith outreach.
Earlier this month they tried again, this time at Abu Namous' mosque, the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the city's largest.
Timed to coincide with Martin Luther King Day, the event was filled with lofty rhetoric about tolerance and coexistence. Weightier issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict were officially banned from the discussion.
But toward the end, Schneier pressed Abu Namous to speak out against anti-Semitism in the Muslim world, and in particular against a major London mosque that reportedly is selling a DVD in which Jews are described as pigs who will be exterminated on the day of judgment.