When I traveled from Baku to Washington, I did not come merely to speak about religious tolerance. I came to describe a reality that I live every day, one that too many people outside Azerbaijan still find surprising.

I am a rabbi in a Muslim-majority country.

I lead the Sephardi Jewish community of Baku, where our synagogue, Jewish school, kindergarten, mikveh, kosher services and rabbinical court operate openly and freely. Our children study Hebrew, Torah, Jewish history and Jewish tradition while receiving a modern education and growing up as proud citizens of Azerbaijan.

For us, these two identities are not in conflict. We are fully Jewish and fully Azerbaijani. That was the message I carried with me to Capitol Hill.

I participated in a religious freedom forum organized by the IRF Secretariat alongside Pastor Rasim Khalilov, chairman of the Azerbaijan Bible Society and a leader of Azerbaijan’s Protestant community. Religious leaders and delegates from around the world gathered with US officials, senators and political figures to discuss freedom of faith and the treatment of religious minorities.

The sight of a rabbi and a Protestant pastor speaking on behalf of a predominantly Muslim country may have challenged some expectations. But in Azerbaijan, our appearance together was not unusual. It reflected the country we know.

There is an old mosque across from the synagogue where I pray in Baku. Sometimes, when I meet its imam, I greet him in Arabic: “Assalamu alaikum.” He answers me in Hebrew: “Boker tov.”

It is a small exchange, but it expresses something important.

Coexistence is not meaningful when it exists only in conference declarations, government documents or carefully worded speeches. It becomes meaningful when it can be seen in the ordinary encounters of daily life: outside a synagogue, in a classroom, between neighbors and among........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)