Re: Petition to save Tajikistan's last remaining synagogue


Tim Meushaw wrote:
On 2006-03-02, google@xxxxxxxxxxx <google@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Please support the petition by signing here:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/tajikshul

Petition text:
"Despite pleas from international organizations, the Tajikistan
government has begun work on demolishing the country's last remaining
synagogue. Located in the capital Dushanbe, the building is more than
100 years old and serves a few hundred Jews, more than half of the
country's Jewish population.

I was going to post "isn't this a bit late?" as Fiona just posted a
couple of days ago that the demolition occurred, but after doing some
Googling, I see it's supposed to take until next June to finish
completely, and the shul itself may still be standing:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?V1C725ABC (jerusalem post)

It is feared that this demolition will effectively put an end to Jewish
life in Tajikistan and will strike a severe blow to the cause of
Muslim-Jewish mutual respect and coexistence, in the overwhelmingly
Muslim Central Asian republic.

Ha! As if the Muslims have concern for mutal respect and coexistence
with Jews anywhere in the world....

We, the undersigned, call on the authorities in Tajikistan, to halt the
destruction of this historically and culturally important place of
worship, in accordance with existing international standards for the
protection of cultural heritage."

Please pass this message to anyone who might support the petition.

I support the idea of saving the shul. I won't bother signing the
petition, though, as the odds are more likely Moshiach will swoop down
and save the shul singlehandedly than the government of Tajikistan will
see some people (count is now up to 16 signers) signed an Internet
petition and suddenly realize what they're doing is wrong. <sigh>

The real problem is that, like all Internet "petitions", it's
worthless. There's no means of confirming the identity of signers, no
procedure to prevent duplicates, and nothing to prevent someone from
flooding it with bogus signatures. While it makes folks feel good to
have "done something", it doesn't really do anything. No one pays any
attention to them. Unlike real printed petitions, the response is
generally to hit the delete button.

Eliyahu

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