“Bayt Dakira” is an outstanding venue for teaching the values of tolerance and coexistence, a venue that promotes the convergence between Islam and Judaism, said Tuesday in Essaouira, Olusegun Obasanjo, former president of Nigeria and current chairman of the Brenthurst-Oppenheimer Foundation.
“I have never visited a place that promotes the convergence of Islam and Judaism as I have seen firsthand in Essaouira. This should be a very good lesson for all men and women of good faith in the world,” he stressed in a statement to MAP, on the sidelines of a visit by members of the board of directors of the Brenthurst-Oppenheimer Foundation to “Bayt Dakira”, a spiritual and heritage space for the preservation and enhancement of the Jewish-Moroccan memory.
In Bayt Dakira, “we live the brotherhood that unites humanity: we are equal regardless of our religion or race,” he said.
Obansajo, who highlighted the farsighted leadership of King Mohammed VI, emphasized the roots of Morocco in a multi-millennium history, embodied by Essaouira, an emblematic city reflecting, he said, the exceptional diversity of our respective spiritualities.
Eminent personalities, members of the board of directors of the prestigious South African Brenthurst-Oppenheimer Foundation, paid a visit to “Bayt Dakira” in Essaouira on Tuesday, in the presence of André Azoulay, Royal Advisor and president-founder of the Essaouira-Mogador Association.
They had thus the opportunity to discover this spiritual and patrimonial space of preservation and valorization of the Jewish-Moroccan memory.
Besides Olusegun Obasanjo, the visitors included Jonathan Oppenheimer, the former president of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and the former president of Sierra Leone Ernest Bai Koroma.