Malaysian Jews and Dr Mahathir

Today is just the third day of raya but the Najib-Mahathir War has already started to warm up again after a bit of slow down during Ramadhan.

The pro-Najib camp are now concentrating on the "Justogate" angle, where they argued that there were all sorts of plots such as manipulation of documents by those conspiring to topple the PM.

The pro-Mahathir camp on the other hand are reminding everyone that their rivals' arguments were all beside the point as the billions of ringgit they alleged to be missing from the 1MDB mess has not yet been accounted for.

Honestly, I don't think this fighting will ever end.

It can always takes a new dimension later on with one issue being replaced by another.

I think that, if I want to write continuously about the fighting, I may ended up not writing about anything else.

So today I want to write about something else.

No, not raya stories though. I think that you all are finding my personal stories to be boring.

This time I just want to share with you all the link to this article my mother sent me from Singapore early this morning.

My mother is like that lah...she pretends not to be interested in my writings but kept sending me links to good stuff such as this;

One family's world of Judaism in Malaysia

My mother was probably trying to inspire me to write such articles or at least trying to compensate for not being here with me on Hari Raya.

Well, do go ahead to the link and read the article. It's really interesting.

It even got a section about Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who once shocked the world when he bravely said "The Jews rule the world by proxy" which I'm putting here to encourage you all to read the article and know more about the Jews in Malaysia.

I sit down with Gary in his office meeting room, and a chocolate cake iced with ‘Shalom Andrew Harris’, to discuss his absolutely unique situation. Firstly, what about Dr Mahathir?

“Yes, the previous Prime Minister said things, but I think a little bit is taken out of context,” he says. “But at the end of the day, Yahya Cohen, the late president of the medical association in Singapore, told me he and Mahatir were classmates. And that actually, he was a swell guy.”

Gary’s met Dr Mahathir on several occasions. A photo from one meeting hangs in his lunch room. “Once I said ‘Yahya Cohen’, he became very warm,” Gary says. “He said, ‘Send him my best, how’s that fellow doing, he’s getting old.’ I felt like saying if he’s getting old, Dr Mahathir [born December 20, 1925], you’re also getting old!”

Yahya Cohen was a Jewish Singaporean-born surgeon, with a Yemenite father and Iraqi mother. He became a worldrenowned professor and expert in his field, and died in 2003. Cohen and Dr Mahatir studied medicine together at the then University of Malaya, in Singapore.

Mahatir kept up a correspondence with Yitzhak Rabin when he was Israeli PM, and helped organise a trip with Rabin to bring Israeli kids to Malaysia to meet local Muslim children.

He also runs the Global Peace Forum, and in 2006 invited Bar Ilan academic Dr Ben Mollov and made special arrangements to allow him to enter the country. Dr Mollov went again to Malaysia last year.