I am a Jew, I am a Muslim, I am a Christian

Joann Sfar makes, or seems to make, an extremely public statement pertaining to the fact that Arab Muslims and Jews can live together peacefully and even become friends. It’s common knowledge that Muslims and Jews have a long and bad history with how they treated one another. However, to see in Rabbi’s Cat that the rabbi and the Muslim were friends was a surprise, to say the least. It is also known that fundamental Muslims (along with some fundamental Jews and Christians) despise other faiths, and will do everything necessary to show it, (i.e. September 11th). I found it very profound that Sfar included this encounter with the rabbi and the Muslim in his book, to see the friendship they both shared (since they both had the same teacher or “ancestor” as the book describes, pg. 84). I think Sfar was trying to show that people of different faith, especially Arab Muslims and Jews, could get along peacefully and be friends. This goes against some common stereotypes that Jews and Muslims can’t or won’t get along. I’m not exactly sure what Sfar’s point was in putting this in his story. Maybe he wanted to make a political statement that although Jews and Muslims have had a bad history, they can still put that behind them and get along. Going with that, the French in this story were racist to both the Arabs and the Jews and maybe Sfar was trying to show that if people stick together (especially those who are persuctued) they can make a difference in society. Or maybe Sfar just wanted to put it in his story, maybe he had no reason at all for putting it in there but to show that the rabbi had a friend who just happened to be a Muslim. Either way, I think Sfar was making a statement that people of different faiths can get along and can even work together/be friends. It’s too bad that in today’s society there is so much racism toward people of different religions.