The Jewish Community and Islamic Community in BiH will organize a conference that will mark 200 years of an insufficiently known but very important event for “Jewish Sarajevo” as well as their Muslim neighbors, but also a story of 500 years of coexistence and life together.
It is an unbelievable story of events that happened about two centuries ago when Muslims from Sarajevo stood up against the unjust Ottoman Ruzdi Pasha and released the rabbi Moshe Danon and twelve other most respected Jews from Sarajevo.
Ruzdi-pasha condemned them to death in 1819, or 5579 by the Jewish calendar, and he requested huge ransom for their heads that the Jewish Community in Sarajevo could not afford.
However, something unexpected happened. They shared their concerns with their neighbors, Muslims. This event, according to Moshe Atijas, really disturbed Sarajevo because the detainees were known as pious, righteous and honest people, and they did not have “any guilt that would justify their imprisonment.”
“Since the greedy Pasha was planning to execute detainees at dawn, on Sabat, and angry people of Sarajevo, about three thousand of them, broke into Pasha’s palace and released the detainees,” wrote Moshe Atijas.
This true story, about which exists relevant documentation, became a legend that, as Finci wrote, meant a lot for Sarajevo and BiH in times when our country and its capital city went through the most difficult moments of its history.
This is a story that can help people to understand that image of BiH, which existed for centuries, and which was disturbed by the last war. It is an image of people who lived and live next to each other, with each other and for each other.
“We know that the past cannot be returned, but we can learn from the past, in order for our future to be better for everyone,” wrote Jakob Finci.
(Source: Radiosarajevo.ba)
