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Ramin's worst fears were realized: Washington/JTA The community that dated to the Babylonian exile heard Saddam's mes- n its telling, the story of a noto- sage loud and clear, and by the early rious lynching of Jews is not 1970s it had dwindled to barely a hun- unusual. dred Jews. By 2007 there were fewer The storyteller, however, is: than 10, according to media accounts. Abdurrahman Wahid, the former Wahid, however, made good on his Indonesian president, and a leading pledge. Muslim scholar. Best known as the president who In an interview with JTA, Wahid, who shifted Indonesia to democracy from traveled to the United States and then 1999 to 2001, Wahid then was forced Israel in recent weeks to preach his out due to a combination of financial message of Muslim tolerance, revealed scandals and hardliners who opposed the root of his understanding of the his attempts to liberalize restrictions risks and perils of Jewish existence. on political groups and the country's Wahid was a 29-year-old student Chinese minority. at Baghdad University in 1966, earn- Wahid also has gained prominence ing his keep as a secretary at a textile for his insistence on introducing the importer, when he befriended the firm's world's most populous Muslim nations elderly accountant, an Iraqi Jew he to certain truths about the Jews. remembers only by his family name, As an opposition leader, he broke Ramin. new ground by visiting Israel in 1994. "I learned from him about the The apex of this effort, conducted Kabbalah, the Talmud, everything jointly with the LibForAll Foundation about Judaism," Wahid recalled of the (www.libforall.org ), a group that four-year friendship that included promotes moderate Islam, and the long lunches, quiet walks and talks at Simon Wiesenthal Center, was the the city's legendary World Hanging Holocaust conference last year in Bali, Gardens. Indonesia. Wahid has spoken about this friend- At the conference, which was attend- ship before — it is featured in his biog- ed by survivors and Jewish and Muslim raphy by Greg Barton, Abdurrahman clergy, Wahid called Iranian President Wahid: Muslim Democrat, Indonesian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a "liar" for President — but on this recent tour denying the Holocaust. Wahid added to the account his memo- Wahid, 67, continues to promote his ries of Jan. 27, 1969. message with LibForAll, founded in In 1968, the Iraqi government effec- 2003 by C. Holland Taylor, a scholar tively had come under the control of of Southeast Asia and a telecommu- Saddam Hussein, whose title at that nications magnate. Wahid, who says time was deputy to the president, he plans to run for president again in Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. 2009, brings to the venture his prestige At Saddam's behest, Iraqi courts had as the scion of a family of Javanese convicted 14 Iraqis — nine of them Islamic scholars. Jews — on trumped-up charges of spy- ing for Israel; and they were hanged Equalilty And Tolerance that day in Baghdad's Tahrir Square, This Jewish component is just part of just steps away from where the textile Wahid's larger effort to promote an firm had offices. ideology of moderate Islam. He wants Ramin came to his friend Wahid and to demonstrate that the radical factions wept, wondering what would become of are not pre-eminent and to promote a Iraq's ancient Jewish community. faith that preaches equality for women "I said, `This is not only your fate, it and tolerance of non-believers. is my fate:" said Wahid, now frail and LibForAll recruits respected, mod- in a wheelchair. erate Muslim leaders in Indonesia to Wahid said he decided then that "the endorse and write tracts repudiating I Abdurrahinan Wahid, seated, receives the Medal of Valor from Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, as Rabbi Abraham Cooper, far left, and C. Holland Taylor look on at the Simon Wiesenthal Center on May 6. the radical brand of Islam promoted by Saudi-funded advocates of Wahhabi Islam. The organization also is disseminat- ing a 30-lesson video curriculum called "What is Islam" that advances a plu- ralistic vision of the faith throughout thousands of Islamic boarding schools in Indonesia. One of the project's highest-profile coups was getting rock star Ahmad Dani, whose group, Dewa, has been likened to U2, on board with the pro- gram. Dani has recorded a single taking on Laskar Jihad, Indonesia's radical Islamist terrorist group. The song is called Laskar Cinta, "Warriors for Love:' Taylor says plans are underway to translate the videos and tracts into Arabic and other languages. Wahid says moderate Islam stands a greater chance of triumphing over Islamic radicalism once Western lead- ers stop trying to accommodate Islamic extremists. Saudi Arabia, in particular, remains the primary funding source for the global spread of fundamentalist Islam. ❑