Abrahamic Reunion Leadership Meeting in Jerusalem

Dear Friends,

Recently our Abrahamic Reunion CC held a leadership meeting at Tantur Ecumenical Institute with founding members of our Abrahamic Reunion, local coordinators and international supporters of our work from the Global Hope Fund and Rising Tide International.  We had Israelis and Palestians - priests, rabbis, sheiks and imans as well as women spiritual leaders.  We were led by Shahabuddin David Less, Eliyahu McLean and Sheik Ghassan Manasra.  We ate, prayed, meditated, shared our realities and sufferings, our successes and our failures, and made plans for the future.  We were strengthened by the courage and perseverance of our Palestinian coordinators from Hebron, East Jerusalem, and Nablus who recently had been attacked and injured at the Jerusalem Hug peace gathering by Palestinians opposed to "normalizing" activities with Israelis. We were relieved that they and their family members had been released from the hospital and could be with us.  They have continued to get threats to stop meeting with Israelis and working for peace - but they expressed their strengthened determination to continue with our joint holy work. 

Our future plans included continuing our regular joint trips to Holy sites, holding intra-faith meetings so that Arabs can work on the issues that divide them and the Jews can focus on internal divisions, creating separate meetings just for women and just for youth.  We will be having a strong Abrahamic Reunion presence at the upcoming Parliament of the World Religions where we will present various activities including a workshop for women of different faiths. Our U.S. support group established the Abrahamic Reunion as a formally recognized U.S. 501c3 non-profit organization that facilitates raising funds to pursue our determined and committed activities to build peace and harmony in the Holy Land.  Our other recent events included a joint breakfast and Iftar July 5 - as the Jewish fast day of Yud Zayin b'Tammuz (17th of Tammuz - beginning the three weeks of mourning for the destruction of Jerusalem and our Temple two thousand years ago) falls during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. 

We finished our gathering with a Conference  "Visioning Interfaith Activism in the Holy Land" including a Women's Panel on the "Contribution of Women to Building Harmony Among the Religions". Eighty interfaith activists attended and discussed successful practices and formed partnerships for future activities to counteract fear, suspicion and violence with education and meaningful contact with people of other religions. 

Blessings from the Holy Land,

Elana Rozenman
Executive Director
TRUST-Emun  

 UPDATE:

I want to share that at this meeting we signed the Declaration (see below), which we had already formulated and some of us had signed last November in Shfar'am after an arson at a synagogue there and several other religiously motivated attacks at houses of workshop of different faiths throughout Israel.

See more photos in a photo album of our visit that day to houses of worship of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Jews in Shefaram - and photos of some of us signing the Declaration. We are continuing to collect signatures from rabbis, priests, imams, sheiks, and spiritual leaders.

Last week I visited the Tabgha Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and the Fishes outside Tiberias with other members of TRUST - Emun.  Unfortunately it recently suffered an arson attack, which seriously damaged some rooms and the roof. ( see attached photo)  Hebrew graffiti was found on the outside wall.  The attack was immediately condemned by the Israeli President, Prime Minister, Chief Rabbi, civil society leaders, and media.  At Tabgha I spoke with nuns who are still cleaning up the damage from the fire. I expressed my shock and sorrow to see such destruction.  She said that there are "radicals" in all religions that are causing damage to holy places.  We discussed the power of women to unite and create sisterhood and compassion in the midst of extremists who are distorting our religions for violent purposes.  We embraced and prayed together for the truth of our religions to be strengthened and for all to live together peacefully in the Holy Land.  

A copy of our Declaration was sent to them and we're planning a solidarity visit of our Abrahamic Reunion to this church with Palestinians and Israelis in the near future. 

Blessings from the Holy Land, 

Elana Rozenman
Executive Director
TRUST-Emun        

The Abrahamic Reunion Declaration

The Abrahamic Reunion, a group of spiritual leaders–Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Druze– have been working together for 10 years promoting inter-religious harmony in the Holy Land.

We are women and men of the faiths of this land – our land – who meet together, walk together, eat together, and pray side by side in mutual respect. We demonstrate by our personal example that we can live together in peace and cooperation.

At this difficult time, we want to reaffirm to the public our heartfelt conviction, that (within) our religions are the pathways of love and peace.

We condemn the violence, hatred, racism, and suffering being inflicted upon our communities in the name of religion. We believe and we teach that the holy places of all the religions in the Holy Land must be  respected, and not defaced in any way, for any reason.

We are the Children of Adam and Eve, the Children of Abraham. To our regret, recently we have forgotten that we are from the same family. Arabs and Jews… let us remember that we are one family.

Religious Leaders signing document at the House of Hope, Shfar'am, November 30, 2014:
Sheikh Abdel Salaam Manasra, Head of Qadiri Sufi Order of the Holy Land, Nazareth
Sheikh Ghassan Manasra, Lights of Peace Association/Anwar Il Salaam, Director, AbrahamicReunion, coordinator
Elana Rozenman, Trust - Emun, Director, Abrahamic Reunion, founding member
Sheikh Abu Amin, Bedouin Mukhtar, Al-Sawaed
Rabbi Yosef Yashar, Chief Rabbi of Acco
Rabbi Eliyahu Kaufman, journalist and historian, Haifa
Rabbi Minzberg, educator, Mea Shearim, Jerusalem
Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, Project Coordinator, Shorashim/Judur/Roots 
Rev. Daniel Aqleh, Evangelical Minister, Bethlehem
Rodef Shalom Eliyahu McLean, Abrahamic Reunion coordinator
Elias Jabbour, Greek Melkite Christian, Hope of Hope, Director, Abrahamic Reunion, founding member

Abrahamic Reunion members co-signing, though not present November 30 at House of Hope:
Imam Khalil Albaz, Imam of Tel Sheva
Haj Ibrahim Abuelhawa, Mount of Olives
Hadassah Froman, wife of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman
Ibtisam Mahameed, Faradis, The Tent of Sarah and Hagar, Director
Deacon Jiries Mansour, Greek Melkite Church, St. Anthony's School in Rame, principal 
Reverend Father Masoud Abu Hatoum, Yafia, Greek Melkite Church
Sheikh Hussein Abu Rukkun, Druze from Isafiya, Druze Council

With support from and signing also:
Rabbi David Bigman, Ma'ale Gilboa Yeshiva
Father Nael Abu Rahmoun, Anglican Church, Nazareth
Sheikh Sameer Asi, Imam of Al-Jazzar mosque, Acco
Sister Trudy Nabuurs, Sisters of Zion at Ecce Homo Convent, Via Dolorosa