By Rabbi Howard Joseph

I was one of the fortunate – or should I say, blessed – religious leaders that gathered in Brussels in Januray 2005 for the historic conference of Imams and Rabbis for Peace that was sponsored by the Hommes de Parole Foundation of Paris and was under the patronage of Albert II, King of the Belgians and Mohammed VI, King of Morocco.

As the only Canadian rabbi – there were no Canadian Imams – I felt a special responsibility to maximize the opportunity to interact with Imams, Sheiks and Kadis from almost the entire Muslim world – from Morocco to Uzbekistan. After many decades of involvement with Christian-Jewish dialogue this was my first encounter with Muslim religious leaders. Unfortunately, some Middle Eastern states such as Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Libya were not represented.

Among the outstanding Jewish personalities in attendance were the former Chief Rabbis of Israel and France: Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi Doron and Rabbi Rene Samuel Sirat. The Jewish participants largely came from Europe and Israel. The small American delegation included Rabbi Irving Yitz Greenberg, a long time advocate of Jewish-Christian dialogue.

About 100 Imams and Rabbis were in attendance as well as about 70 selected experts, Jewish and Muslim professors at various universities including Dean Rabbi Dr. B. Barry Levy of the McGill Faculty of Religious Studies. It was apparent that many of the participants had never before participated in any form of interreligious encounter. Their willingness to meet reflected the great sense of urgency to give voice to Muslim and Jewish religious leaders who wished to recapture the contemporary moment from those who have held our religions hostage to violent and extreme attitudes and actions. We agreed that these have disgraced our religions and diminished respect for religious faith itself.

We asserted the genuine voice of our scriptures that establish the dignity of human beings as the fundamental consequence of religious faith. That is the standard by which true faith must judge itself. Imams and Rabbis both based this idea on the concept found in the Koran and Bible of human beings being created in the Image of God. This was one of the commonalities among the many re-discovered by the two faith communities that for so long have lived together and have only recently been moved apart by narrow and intolerant elements in our communities. We accepted the challenge expressed by Andre Azoulay, Adviser to King Mohammed VI of Morocco, that we must rebuild the ethical and moral space that is common to Islam and to Judaism. Many Israeli rabbis underlined the profound sharing of Muslim ideas that pervaded medieval Jewish thought and is reflected in the writings of Maimonides and other thinkers.

After the first day of dialogue it was clear to all the participants that the genuine voice of faith and morality was present. As an old Talmudic dictum states: words that come from the heart will enter the heart. The personal interaction among the rabbis and imams grew between sessions, during coffee breaks and at the dinner tables. We rapidly moved into a relaxed and friendly mode of encounter.

The final resolution called upon all faith communities to renounce violence in the name of their religion and to seek peaceful means to resolving disputes. [The resolution and other related documents can be found at hommesdeparole.org.] The religious leaders present pledged to take this message back to their individual communities and begin to build a more hopeful future. Future conferences are planned to widen the circle of participants and a joint committee was formed to implement the initiatives taken in Brussels and to monitor events and issues that affect Muslim and Jewish relations.

The issue of Middle East peace emerged from time to time but never as an impediment to friendly dialogue. The Muslims present from non-Arab countries reminded everyone that this local issue should not stand in the way of Muslim-Jewish dialogue.

A workshop on difficult texts concerning the ‘other’ in each tradition came to the realization that this is a large and complex topic involving historical contexts and modes of scriptural interpretation that could not be adequately addressed in this brief session. We hoped that a future conference would appropriately tackle the issue.

We proceeded in the knowledge that there are dangers and the risk of failure in the path of peace we have chosen. We prayed that the atmosphere of openness and reconciliation that we established would continue in many joint efforts for the well being of the world and to restore respect for our faiths. We have tried to move from a situation that appeared to be a Holy War to one that envisions a Holy Peace.

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