My Muslim Trip to Auschwitz (Replay)

Being Jewish with Jonah Platt - Jonah Platt // Jewish Identity, Culture, and Current Events

In this powerful episode of 'Being Jewish with Jonah Platt,' the host recounts his transformative journey with Sharaka, an organization fostering Muslim-Israeli dialogue through the March of the

Key takeaways

• Moderate Muslims around the world are eager to build bridges with Jews but often face danger or silence due to extremism and algorithmic echo chambers.
• Personal connection—like those formed on a bus tour through Europe—is more powerful than ideological assumptions in breaking down barriers between communities.

Main topics

• Jewish identity in the context of Holocaust remembrance
• Interfaith dialogue through Sharaka and the March of the Living

Notable quotes

"We have friends, many friends, who want to understand and love and support us. Certainly not everybody. But enough."

"I look up to Mia... She'd rather them think she was a Jew and dislike her. That's why I look up to Mia, who I think has a Jewish soul."

Conclusion

Jonah Platt concludes that meaningful change begins not with judgment or fear, but with intentional connection. The journey to Auschwitz

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) A few months ago, I got a call from the head of Holocaust education at an organization called Sharaka. Founded after the signing of the Abraham Accords, Sharaka, which means partnership in Arabic, creates person-to-person opportunities for moderate Muslims from around the world to come to Israel and Poland to connect with Israelis and gain a better understanding of Jews and our story. It is an incredible organization doing work no one else is doing. creating bonds that transcend borders and beliefs. So when Sharaka invited me to join their delegation to this year's March of the Living, I was delighted. For those who don't know, March of the Living takes place every year on Yom HaShoah, Israel's official Holocaust Remembrance Day, that aligns with the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, an historic and tragic moment of Jewish bravery and defiance. This is not to be confused with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place in January on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a historic moment in which an army of non-Jews came upon 7,000 barely alive Jews who happened to be left in an empty death camp the Soviets didn't know anything about. So you can tell which holiday was planned by the Jews and which by the goys, but I digress. March of the Living. brings thousands of people from all over the world to walk the 1.2 miles from Auschwitz, which was mostly administrative and staff buildings, to Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, which was the main extermination site where Jews were either gassed to death or enslaved. The march mirrors the death marches the Nazis forced prisoners to walk in the freezing snow from Birkenau to Auschwitz as the Soviet army closed in, so they could destroy the evidence of their crimes and kill more Jews while they were at it. But again, I digress. I was touched and excited that Sharaka wanted me to join them for such a meaningful delegation and for what would be my first time in Germany or Poland. But already having a major international trip planned to Azerbaijan, which I've already told you about on this show, I thought it was probably too much time away from my family. But when I told my wife about the trip, she told me that not only should I go, I had to go. She would hold down the fort with two young kiddos, yet again, so that I could fly thousands of miles away to participate in this important work. Get you a partner like that. Major weekly shout out to Courtney. Fast forward to the 27th of Nisan, the day of the Jewish calendar on which we celebrate Yom HaShoah. After so many years and movies and stories and books and photos, I was finally standing at the gates of Auschwitz. The two things that struck me most about this epicenter of death were its size and its color. So many buildings, so much ground, just a massive operation. I especially felt this in Birkenau, which was shockingly vast. It was also really something to see the place in color, an experience my friend Amy had alerted me to. Shout out to Amy. We only see Auschwitz in black and white photos,