Welcome to the neighborhood, Mr. Shalgham

As we report in this week’s Jewish Standard, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has a new neighbor in Englewood: Abdurrahman Mohamed Shalgham, Libya’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Friday’s article covers the legality of the ambassador taking up residence in the city, as well as reactions from Boteach and the city’s mayor, Michael Wildes. Despite protests from Wildes and Boteach, for the foreseeable future, Englewood will have to live with its newest resident.

As if to give the people of Englewood a firsthand look at his politics, Shalgham made headlines in The Jerusalem Post today with a presentation at the United Nations. Libya – the country that sponsored the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that murdered more than 100 people – is at the end of its temporary stint on the Security Council. As a farewell gift, Shalgham showed a slideshow of mutilated Palestinians.

“This has been a bitter experience for us. We have witnessed injustice and inequality destroy truth,” he said, in what he described as a parting evaluation of the Council, just as Libya prepares to end its rotating membership.

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