Next generation in the Jewish-Catholic dialogue – a congress in Jerusalem

From June 26 to 30, 2016, an interreligious congress took place in Jerusalem in order to promote the dialogue between Jews and Christians, with a special focus on leadership. Once every two years, this event brings together 25 young Catholics and 25 young Jews who receive training to continue on in the official dialogue between the Catholic Church and some of the biggest and most important Jewish organizations.

After the 2014 Berlin congress, this year the participants gathered in the Holy City and spent four very intensive days there. The daily schedule was full, with lectures and workshops that broadened the horizon and challenged one’s mind on the subject of the relationship between religion and politics. On every panel, there was a Jewish and a Catholic lecturer and there was plenty of time for questions and answers.

There were also two field trips during the four days: the first to Mount Zion, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Western Wall tunnel and the second to the Knesset which included a meeting and conversation with a member of Knesset, Hilik Bar.

Beyond the learning experience attained through lectures, what remains in the heart and encourages sentiments of thanksgiving is the meeting with other young people, each one very different from the other, coming from different places and traditions, who connect with one another and become friends in fresh and spontaneous ways, as young people know how to do. Immediately, an environment of friendship was created in which the desire to get to know one another and know more about the other’s tradition is evident. The discussions that began in the lecture hall continued and developed over meals, on the trips and even in the garden of the monastery in which we were staying.

On the last day of the congress, just before the last panel, Amirit Rosen initiated something to which I agreed. We met in the garden and I brought my guitar and we sang songs mostly from the Jewish Israeli tradition. This was another occasion to understand to what extent music succeeds in bring people together in a large circle, creating deep communion and the harmonization of difference. Most of the Jewish participants, and they included a group of rabbis from the United States, were astonished to discover that there are Christians who know the prayers and songs that they are used to sing in their Jewish festivals - this was yet another opportunity to value again our vocation as Hebrew speaking Catholics in Israel, integrated in and participating in Israeli society.