By Brooke Anderson – WSJ
TRIPOLI, Lebanon–Three months ago, when masked men torched a priest’s bookshop in Tripoli, charring thousands of works, the likely aim was to instill fear and ignite hatred in an impoverished city already contending with religious tension.
Instead, the fire sparked an outrage that went beyond the small Christian community of Lebanon’s northern capital. Within hours, Muslims and Christians were working together to clean the ashes from the shelves and floors.
And within days, financial and book donations began pouring in from around the country and the world. This week, around $36,000 – raised through a community crowdfunding campaign – will be released for the restoration of the bookshop.
Now, Father Ibrahim Sarrouj, a Greek Orthodox priest and a lifelong lover of books, is setting his sights beyond restoring his shop, looking to open a public library to pay tribute to those who helped recover from the disaster and also as a venue for learning to fight the ignorance that led to the hate crime.