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I do not usually spend much time speaking about interfaith work because it does not seem to be a topic of great interest to the Jewish community except when there is a major interreligious crisis. But this past Shabbat I participated in an interfaith conference that was truly out of the ordinary.

I was flying to Israel several days in advance of the Jewish Community Federation's mission. Just prior to leaving San Francisco I came across an announcement for a conference to be held in Haifa on the Shabbat before the mission arrived. The conference was titled "Now is the Time for Jews, Christians and Muslims to Talk," co-sponsored by the Israel Interfaith Association and the Konrad-Adenauer Foundation. IAI is affiliated with the United Religions Initiative, a global interfaith organization started by Bishop William Swing here in San Francisco.

The organizers were uncertain about whether, given the current crisis, the conference was really going to come together. So, when I arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport, I called and was assured it would indeed happen. When I arrived at the hotel, three or four people were hanging around the lobby and I was convinced that the conference was going to be a bust.

I could not have been more wrong.

Suddenly, 100 people emerged, packing the opening session. Jews, Christians and Muslims from Israel had come together to try to truly understand each other and identify common values.

Within a couple of hours, the first extraordinary moment occurred: It was time for Kabbalat Shabbat.

All participants attended. The leader explained the flow and meaning, and then led the traditional service. As soon as he was finished, the table was moved and the Muslim worshippers began their evening prayers, again with a complete explanation. At a time when it appears that communication has broken down in the Middle East at an astonishing rate, this moment of interfaith communication was one to treasure. But there was much more.

The group included the usual conglomeration of academics and activists, professionals and students — grassroots types who vow to change the world by building greater interfaith harmony. One would hardly expect major religious officials at such a gathering. However, conference participants included Rabbi Yitschak Bardea, chief rabbi of Ramat Gan; Sheik Uda Muhammad, imam of Ahmadiya Mosque in Haifa; Bishop Paulus Marcuzo, Latin bishop of Nazareth; Sheik Muhamad Dhamshe, imam of Sachnin and vice chairman of the Islamic Movement in Israel; and Professor Ali Qleibo, an expert on Muslim concepts of the sacred at El Quds University.

In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined this group getting together under any circumstances, particularly during the current violence.

To be sure, the speakers steered away from politics, recognizing that politics would interfere with the goal of greater understanding between the different religious groups. They were hardly of one mind, yet each argued that a correct understanding of their respective religious tradition encouraged dialogue and mutual respect. The chief rabbi cited examples of positive dialogue (during the Creation story when God states that "We will create man"), negative dialogue (Eve and the snake) and no dialogue whatsoever.

Pressed to deal with real examples of intolerance, one questioner asked the chief rabbi about comments made by former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef regarding Arabs and asked the imam about inflammatory statements made in the mosques in Gaza and elsewhere. Both Jewish and Muslim leaders refused to back down from their positions supporting tolerance and dialogue, even while explaining away particular examples.

The fact that the chief rabbi of Ramat Gan gave his entire Shabbat to the conference amazed me. I could not help wondering whether interfaith dialogue was easier for him to engage in over intrafaith dialogue. At one point, Jewish law got him off the hook. Pressed to sign a joint public declaration with the bishop of Nazareth emphasizing his call for broadening the dialogue far beyond the confines of the conference, the chief rabbi explained gently that he was not permitted to write on Shabbat.

A few observations. It seems that at an Israeli conference with an official translator, there are at least 50 unofficial translators often arguing about whether the official translator got it just right. Secondly, while all the Israeli Jews spoke English as far as I know, none of the Israeli Arab Muslims spoke English. They all spoke in Hebrew.

Thirdly, this conference may not have bridged all the gaps between Judaism, Islam and Christianity, but the organizers deserve tremendous credit for moving the effort along — particularly under nearly impossible circumstances.

Finally, a conference such as this one gave me the reassurance and faith that amid all of the disappointment and despair over the renewed violence, there is also a glimmer of hope — when people of good will and different faiths come together out of mutual respect.

So the side journey to Haifa was filled with surprises. The biggest of all came for me one evening when an eloquent woman described her community under nightly attack and the fear under which her children now live. She has not slept for two months, she explained, because of the noise and the gunfire. And while she tries to remain strong for her children, when she embraces them, she knows they feel her trembling because she, too, is afraid. She yearns for peace, she said, for an end to the bloodshed.

I was confident as she spoke, as many people in the room were, that she was from Gilo — a Jerusalem neighborhood that has endured endless shelling by Palestinian gunmen. But yet again I was surprised: She was a Palestinian Orthodox Christian from the adjacent neighborhood of Beit Jala.

Even while I wondered why Beit Jala's residents did not demand that Palestinian gunmen firing at Gilo leave their community, I knew at that moment that the conference was special. It really had opened both hearts and eyes, reminding all who attended of our common humanity.