BICOM

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin yesterday hosted a gathering of religious leaders from across the spectrum of Israel’s faith groups, including senior Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders. They called for tolerance and calm, rejecting violence and incitement.

Those who attended the event at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem included Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi, David Lau, the chair of the Council of Muslim Religious Leaders, Sheikh Mohammed Kaiyuan, the spiritual leader of the Druze community, Sheikh Muwaffak Tarīf and Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III.

With major holidays approaching in the Jewish, Muslim and Christian calendars, Rivlin said that the gathering was designed to “promote a message of calm and tolerance.” He explained that “This place, our home, is engulfed in the flames of incitement some of which originates in the words of well known, and senior religious leaders, who purport to speak in the name of religious truth.” Rivlin also reiterated that Israel is “committed and obligated to the well-being of all faith communities, and to the freedoms of worship and religion,” emphasising that this includes the status quo at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, which has been a regular flashpoint for violence.

Several of the religious leaders present also spoke. Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Shlomo Amar said that such gatherings “enhanced our understanding of each other’s faith,” and that “Even when we cannot agree on how to solve problems, we do not allow such disagreements to disrupt our friendship.” Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Tarif commented, “There is no such thing as violence in the name of religion,” only love and peace.

The event concluded with a joint statement by the Council of Faith Community Leaders in Israel, which declared “our commitment to the sanctity of life, and denounce all forms of physical or verbal violence against the innocent, in particular instances when such acts are committed in the name of religion, which are a desecration of the Name of God.”