Hassen Chalghoumi is the Imam of the municipal Drancy mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, near Paris.
I am a Yishmaelite, a Moslem Imam, a man of peace, presenting here my honest testimony on this amazing people: I must admit that I believe in miracles but still, there is something unique about this nation, the Jewish people, which I believe is a living miracle.
It is a nation which the Pharaohs tried to extinguish four thousand years ago and failed, a people which the Babylonians attempted to wipe out two thousand eight hundred years ago, a nation which the Nazis decimated eighty years ago but failed to make it disappear, a nation which five Arab nations futilely sought to eradicate from the world map and failed.
This nation, small in numbers, possesses an unusual strength, it has the courage of nobility and has the blessing of Divine protection. It succeeds wherever it lays its hand: finance, business, science, philosophy and literature. It took desert land and transformed it into a paradise, land without oil, natural gas, but through freedom, intelligence and willpower. These are realities where no explanation or logic can fathom or describe outside of one word: miraculous.
