Bijan Khakshour, an expert on Jewish culture and religion, pointing out that the Jews of Iran have long been pioneers in helping to hold special mourning ceremonies for Imam Hussain (A.S), said:

The two months of Muharram and Safar, and especially the Arbaeen ceremony, show the mutual understanding of religions and the unity of religions in holding a religious and ethnic ceremony.

According to Shafaqna, every year the Arbaeen procession is held in the presence of a large number of people around the world, which is a symbol of the widespread presence of religions and sects in a collective movement.
In order to get acquainted with the history of such ceremonies in Judaism, Shafaqna had an interview with Bijan Khakshour, a Hebrew language teacher, expert on Jewish culture and religion, who is a member of the Isfahan Jewish Association.

- What is the attitude of the Jews towards the event of Ashura and Imam Hussain’s (A.S) uprising?

Khakshour: There is a book titled Al-Kharraj and al-Jaraee by Qutbuddin Ravandi, which refers to a part of the Jews’ sympathy with the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (A.S).

The story is that after the event of Ashura, when the head of Hussain (A.S) is taken to the Yazid Assembly, Yazid held a Thanksgiving for what he had done and gathered the leaders of religious minorities and tribes in one of his palaces to show them the blessed head of Imam Hussain (A.S) and he was proud of his victory in this war and announced that he was able to gain power.
One of the Jewish leaders at this time standed in front of Yazid and said: I wish God did not bless you! Yesterday he was your Prophet and today you killed his daughter’s son?
And he practically condemned Yazid and said, “Woe to you!” There is a distance between me and the Prophet David, but the Jews of my people, who know that I am a descendant of David, respect and honor me, and are you proud of killing and martyring the generation of the Prophet of Islam?
Yazid became angry when he heared these words in front of the crowd and ordered that a rope be thrown around the neck of this Jewish leader and they constantly pressed it, but he insisted on his words and said that in my religion, it is said that everyone Kill the generation of a prophet, his place is in hell, and I will not back down from my word.
Yazid ordered to make the rope more layered and thicker. Eventually, they ask him to make a will because Yazid ordered him to be killed.
According to the book, he kissed the blessed head of Imam Hussain (A.S) and said that in my thesaurus and tradition, the elders of a nation are honorable and the oppressed people are superior to the oppressive people and he testified to Hussain’s oppression and Yazid immediately ordered his assassination in the presence of the followers of the religions in that palace.
An example of the Jewish attitude can be seen in this incident.

-Do Jews in Iran participate in Muharram and Arbaeen ceremonies?

Khakshour: The most obvious example of this peaceful coexistence is when you see the Jews in Muharram and Safar erecting the black flag of Imam Hussain (A.S) over their houses or place of business and in the two months of Muharram and Safar, even if the feasts of their religion intersect during these days, they do not hold a celebration and keeps the sanctity of these two months together with the society.

In our neighborhood, every year on Muharram and Safar, Arbaeen ceremony are held, and most of the times I have participated in these rituals and listened to the speeches of the speakers.
There is a hairdresser in Isfahan who puts a flag of “Ya Hussain” on the top of her beauty salon every year on Muharram and Safar through which the sanctity of these two months is symbolically depicted in a beautiful way.
These events show that Muharram is more than a religious ceremony in Islam and is respected in other ethnicities and religions.
Religious minorities play an important role in Tehran’s Sarollah Procession and participate in ceremonies.

It is also narrated from our ancestors that in the Jobareh area of ​​Isfahan, when a Husseiniyah was built for charitable purposes, the Jews of the Sabzeh Maidan neighborhood were the first to take the lead in financing the construction of the Husseiniyah.

- Is it customary to hold religious rites in the form of Muharram mourning or the Arbaeen walk in Judaism?
Khakshour: Jethro, the father-in-law of Prophet Moses (A.S), after years of idolatry, seeing the miracle of God, responded to the prophecy of Prophet Moses, and abandoned idolatry and polytheism, and joined the Shariah and monotheism, and name of this person is even mentioned in a part of the Torah.

At the top of his power and position in Egypt, a person tended to monotheism and became a companion and helper of Prophet Moses (A.S).
The second person is Al-Hurr ibn Yazid bin Najiyah Al-Tamimi Al-Yarbuʿi Ar-Riyahi in the Karbala event.
He was called at the request of Ibn Ziyad to fight against Imam Hussain (A.S), and when he received his mission, Alavi’s call was whispered in his ear that “O’ al-Hurr! Glad tidings for paradise be for you”, and this whisper caused a change in him and he was the first person who went to the field in Karbala and finally was martyred in the fight against the oppressors to Imam Hussain (A.S).
Changing the personality of Hurr, who was a symbol of freedom, is the way of the elders, who at the same time give up bad power and privilege and follow the good, and the role of people like Al-Hurr ibn Yazid and Jethro who ignore the world is valuable and I hope one day I can to depict a part of these events or play their role.

-What is the central message of events such as the Arbaeen Walk?

Khakshour: In Judaic culture, the rite of walking was performed in this way in ancient times. There is a day in the Jewish calendar called the “Ninth Aw”. This day is a memorial to the destruction of the first and second temples.
On this day, the Kalimians fast for 25 hours, sit on the ground and perform special worships. From a week before this day, they do not consume some joyful foods and perform a symbolic ceremony commemorating the displacement, confusion and hardships that have been done in the history.
In ancient times, it was customary for a group to go barefoot and on foot to the places of pilgrimage on this day, recalling the bitterness of those historical events and asking God for prosperity and the appearance of the savior of the human world.
This mass walk is done to remember that sorrow, but the aim of this walking is that by reminding the causes of those bitterness and displacements, human beings try not to make those mistakes and by doing good deeds and right behavior cause prosperity. And Jerusalem will be settled and the unity of the tribes will take place in it.
The central message of such ceremonies is that human beings, by seeing and remembering the bitter historical events, especially where the blood of the innocent people is shed, learn to defend the oppressed people and not to pay a ransom to the oppressor, and to be free like Hurr.
A model of the marches performed in the ancient Jewish culture is on the three major festivals in Judaism, Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Weeks or Pentecost), and Sukkot (Tabernacles, Tents or Booths) when pilgrims who mostly were farmers and gardeners, collected firstfruits and charitable gifts during the three festivals and took them to Jerusalem for charitable purposes, which is a symbolic form of group work.

- In your opinion, what are the popular and social dimensions of these ceremonies and how can they be used to establish inter-religious relations?

Khakshour: Social and in-depth benefits of events such as the Arbaeen walk, which unfortunately was not held this year due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus, is that some people are doing the right thing together at a special time.
This is the solitary state that Imam Khomeini has mentioned many times in his speeches and believes that the secret of victory is the solitary state.
The solitary state is evident in the Arbaeen walk, in the tears shed for the Oppressed State of Imam Hussain (A.S), when a Jewish woman puts the flag of Imam Hussain (A.S) on the door of her barber shop every year, when Armenians and Zoroastrians help to hold ceremonies in the Sarollah procession of Tehran and others, when the Jews of Jobareh take the lead in building the Hussainiyahs.

In the two months of Muharram and Safar, the mutual understanding of religions and the unity of religions in holding a religious and ethnic ceremony can be seen beautifully.
A clear example of this religious unity is the behavior of the people against Corona.
Just like during the imposed war, when all ethnic groups took the lead in defending the country and were martyred, today there are medical staff of all religions in hospitals. Armenian, Muslim, Zoroastrian physician and medical staff of different religions and ethnicities have volunteered for eradicating the virus with the heart solitary state, and we hope that the day will come when the virus will be eradicated and religious ceremonies will go well and the Arbaeen march will be more glorious next year than in previous years.
A billboard in Brazil depicts several children of different ethnicities and religions wearing face masks, asking God to eradicate the virus from our world with the privilege of purity of these children and purity of their prayers.

Source: en.shafaqna.com