A recent opinion poll by The Sunday Times showed that the majority of the Maltese were intolerant towards people of other races, including Arabs and Jews.
Respondents were also asked whether they would accept Jews or Arabs as neighbours. Again, a majority showed that they would not.
People with an unblemished character, no matter what their race is, make wonderful neighbours and citizens. For instance, we hear a lot about a few Libyans who are arrested for drug trafficking in Malta but we rarely hear about the law-abiding Libyans, who make up the vast majority, or those who invest in Malta - the Corinthia Group comes to mind - employing thousands of Maltese.
And I do not think it is fair to ask people whether they would mind having a Jewish neighbour (Maltese, English or Israeli) - many do not know, or even met, a single Jew, since there are fewer than 100 of us living on the island. One should ask those who live next to people of the Jewish faith whether they like it...
The Maltese are the warmest, nicest neighbours one can have and vice versa. In wonderful Malta each minority community is just another Maltese community and this status quo can be an example to the world.
Let me add that my late husband George Tayar was a Maltese president of the Jewish community and he never felt any anti-Semitism in Malta; neither did his father Achille. In fact a street was named after George Tayar; he was just another wonderful Maltese. I must add that individual people can and do dislike others without any reason - ,that too is democracy. They can dislike food, perfume, car drivers, politicians and neighbours, but they are forbidden from harming them without using the law.
Recently an article in The Times stated that Malta is the only European country that had no synagogue (also that Cyprus just has one). Yet the same newspaper some years ago reported the consecration of a synagogue in Malta!
We, the Jewish community of the Malta synagogue, are also - as of March 2004 - members of the ECJC the European Congress of Jewish Communities.
We have always had a synagogue here - the last ones in Spurs Street, or St Ursula Street, Valletta, or in private homes... In the last few years Mr A.H. Ohayon, president of the community, and the congregants raised enough money to buy a small flat in Ta' Xbiex and turned it into a synagogue and we pray there.
Often we repeat: Shma Israel (Listen, O Israel), a basic command of our religion that is: "thy shall love thy Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy might and .... thou shall love thy neighbour like you love yourself...." Sounds familiar? Religions are so similar, you know.