Son of Kahane’s killer says Jews aren’t the enemy

Author Zak Ebrahim, whose jihadist father El Sayyid Nosair was convicted in the fatal shooting of Rabbi Meir Kahane, said contact with Jews, as well as Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” helped him to reject extremism and embrace a path of tolerance instead.

In an interview with Vice magazine published on Monday, Ebrahim explained how he came to realize that the bigoted ideology he was raised on didn’t ring true.

A turning point came when he was involved in an initiative for young people that looked at youth violence in schools. Three days into a national convention, Ebrahim found out that one of the co-participants with whom he had became close was Jewish.

“I had never had a Jewish friend before,” Ebrahim recalled. “I was surprised, as my whole life I’d been taught that not only could we not be friends, but that we were natural enemies of one another. Immediately I realized that wasn’t true.”

For Ebrahim, the moment had a profound significance.

“I felt that I had done something that I’d been led to believe was impossible,” he said. “So I felt a sense of pride in that. That was one of the first instances in which I challenged the ideology I was raised on.”

Another Jewish influence that led him to an outlook of tolerance came from Jewish television personality Jon Stewart and his popular program, “The Daily Show.”

“He challenged the ideas of being bigoted toward gay people. Not only that, but he has a way of breaking it down and explaining the implications of having a bigoted ideology.”

Though acquitted of murder, Nosair was sentenced to 22 years in prison on firearms charges in the November 1999 assassination of Kahane, the right-wing founder of the Jewish Defense League and former member of the Israeli parliament.

Three years later, while in prison, Nosair was also implicated in the first World Trade Center bombings that killed six and injured over a thousand others, through his association with those involved in the attack.

Ebrahim, who changed his name to avoid being identified with his father in the past, last saw Nosair years ago. The frequent relocation that his family underwent made travel to visit him in prison too expensive and impractical.

Now he tours, giving talks on tolerance and promoting his book “The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice,” which he wrote in part, he explains, to show that not all Muslims are irredeemable supporters of extremist ideology.

“It’s very important for me to highlight that, despite being exposed to this ideology that so many people are fearful of, I came out of it promoting tolerance and acceptance of others who are different from myself,” he explained. “If I can come out of that, then what does that say about the vast majority of Muslims in the world who are never exposed to this level of extremism?”

In a recent presentation he gave at TED — a multidisciplinary conference that focuses on spreading innovative ideas — Ebrahim said that fanaticism is a choice and that “even if you’re trained to hate, you can choose tolerance. You can choose empathy.”