Going beyond ‘tolerance’ – Brooklyn forum promotes understanding instead

If there was one word in the English language that Hassan Askari would like to redefine, it would be the word “tolerate.”

“Tolerating someone means that you don’t like him, but you put up with him anyway,” explained Askari, a Bangledeshi-born Muslim and college student who made headlines when he helped defend a Jewish couple being beaten on a Brooklyn-bound Q train last year. “It’s more important to be a brotherhood, to understand one another rather than to tolerate them