This Muslim nation is proudly sending a Jewish singer to Eurovision

Azerbaijan, a Muslim country, will be sending a Jewish singer to the Eurovision Song Contest this May. Arutz 7 spoke with the honorary ambassador of the Jewish Agency in Azerbaijan, Roman Gurevich, about the situation of the Jewish community in the country, which, despite its proximity to Iran, chooses an independent and sympathetic policy toward Israel.

Gurevich talks about the singer and notes that this is not a random event or a lack of knowledge on the part of the Azeri population, but rather a famous singer whose Jewishness is well known. This is a young man named Assaf Mishayev, a singer of a Jewish band who in the past participated in and won a singing competition of the Mountain Jews and now teaches singing to Jewish children and teenagers.

Gurevich sees the incident as further evidence of the tolerance that Azerbaijan has managed to maintain for centuries, even when it is pressured by other Muslim countries, led by Iran. "For centuries of Jewish history in Azerbaijan, the country has never been anti-Semitic. This is perhaps the only country in the world, apart from Israel, of course, that has an entire town of Jews. Before the communist revolution, the town was simply called 'The Jewish Town,' but the Communists changed the name to 'The Red Town.'"

Gurevich talks about the Jewish holidays in which members of the community send gifts to their Muslim neighbors and on the other hand, they also receive gifts from their neighbors on Muslim holidays.

He also notes Iranian attempts to send radical Islamist elements to Azerbaijan to inflame the situation there, "but the government knows how to protect the country, its citizens and the character that is almost non-existent in the modern world, a character of respect for all religions."