Speaking at an interfaith panel on Mideast peace, Rabbi David Teitelbaum, executive director of the Board of Rabbis of Northern California, called it a “bitter irony” that public outcry regarding Jerusalem’s holy sites arose only after the city became the Jewish capital.
He asserted that Jerusalem’s holy sites have never been better protected or more accessible to people of all faiths than under the current Israeli government.
The event, held in San Francisco’s Presidio Interfaith Chapel, was sponsored by the Interfaith Witness for Peace in the Middle East. The Rev. Lyle Grosjean, chairman of the organization, moderated the discussion.
During the discussion, representatives of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths addressed the assembled crowd in the order in which their respective religions arose in the world.
Teitelbaum, the Jewish panelist, spoke first, telling the several dozen attendees, “The Jewish vision of the future is always linked to the restoration of Jerusalem.
“Jerusalem is pressed into the Jewish consciousness.”
The Rev. Michael McGarry of the U.C. Berkeley’s Newman Center discussed Jerusalem’s importance to the Catholic community. From the fourth to the seventh centuries, he said, Catholics “began reunderstanding Jerusalem in their minds and hearts.”
McGarry articulated the Vatican’s current position that Jerusalem should be a city with international guarantees making holy places accessible to everyone.
After leading some 25 followers in prayer, Sufi leader Shaykh Muhammed Hisham Kabbani, chairman of the As-Sunnah Foundation, presented the Muslim point of view.
“If Jews feel threatened…we should sit together with Muslims and Christians and Jews, bishops, reverends and scholars, and solve problems very dear to every heart,” rather than letting politicians work out the problems, he said.
He emphasized the need to view the issue from a religious rather than a political perspective.
Teitelbaum countered, “Politics involves moral issues, and moral issues are at the center of religion.”
The Rev. Herb Schmidt of Stanford University asserted that the issue is political as well as religious. He apologized to the audience before reading some statements made recently by members of a Christian church in the Middle East, but said that their voices should be heard.
“We must bring discriminatory processes of the Israeli government to an end. The preferential treatment of Jews over Palestinians is unfair,” the church members’ statement said.
“Jerusalem…is now a priority. It is the heart of the conflict, the key to peace,” Schmidt said. McGarry echoed the need to make Jerusalem a primary issue on the agenda during the peace process.
Teitelbaum continued to emphasize the “process” involved in reaching a peaceful agreement in the Middle East. “We are on the road of a peace process,” he said. “The parties themselves have to come to a peaceful solution.”
As in the peace process itself, differences at the discussion were not resolved, but Teitelbaum said he felt the dialogue was a positive step.
“I want to get across that people have to have more faith in the peace process and the Netanyahu government because they are committed to the process.”