Yasher Koach to Naqvi-Mohamed

Re: “We all need to speak out against hate” (Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed, March 16)

As a member of the Jewish faith, I am proud of having Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed as a member of my extended community. I have never met her, but she is a breath of fresh air and a voice of reason no matter what subject she engages in.

And she does so on a basic human level, without any involvement in pandering to politics or political animosities.

The horrific chain of recent events — the massacres at a Charleston, S.C. church, Quebec City mosque and Pittsburgh synagogue, and now this latest rampage in New Zealand — has brought to the fore the absolute hatred inside so many people.

In six short words, Naqvi-Mohamed spells out what we must do to grieve such an event: “You merely have to be human.”

Unfortunately, it is a quality seemingly lacking in many people we normally would look to for compassion and leadership, like the current president south of the border.

I thank Naqvi-Mohamed for her courageous and public leadership and wish her a Yasher Koach — the Hebrew words of praise for doing something well, most often a mitzvah, or good deed, more liberally translated as “a good job well done” — with the hope that this mitzvah will give her the strength to carry on with future mitzvot. Isidore (Issie) Baum, Laval