Rabbi Leo Baeck, the leader of the German Jewish community who survived his incarceration in the Terezin concentration camp, offered these words in his 1949 presidential address to the World Union for Progressive Judaism in London: "...as in a great period of the Middle Ages, [Jews and Muslims] are ...almost compelled to face each other... not only in the sphere of policy [the State of Israel in the Middle East], but also in the sphere of religion; there is the great hope... they will ...meet each other on joint roads, in joint tasks, in joint confidences in the future.