Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: A rabbi, a priest and an imam walk into a room …
But seriously, this is no joke. Rabbi Ariel Picard, Father George Khoury and Imam Ghassan Manasra are working to make sure that the country that prays together, stays together.
The Israeli trio traveled across the United States last month in a tour arranged by the American Jewish Committee. In addition to their brief stay in San Francisco, they also visited such Western cities as Denver, Seattle and Orange County.
Their message: It is still possible for all Israelis to eventually live in peace. And, Picard noted, he’s still looking for an original rabbi, priest and imam joke.
“It’s very important for people to know that, despite all the differences in Israel, we can be together and we can move and change a lot of things together,” said Khoury, a Greek Orthodox priest and psychologist. Dressed for weather far hotter than San Francisco’s breezy afternoon fog, he wore a white button-up shirt topped by a white-on-white priest’s collar.
“Many people look to religion as a source of conflict and a problem, so it’s right to advance the religious issue and [work with] the religious leaders. Because once you exclude them, the damage will be more than the benefits.”
The three religious leaders shared an obvious rapport, and occasionally huddled in Hebrew before tackling a question. Khoury and Manasra utilized Picard as a thesaurus on several occasions, shooting him a Hebrew phrase before being given an English equivalent such as “point of view” or “grassroots.”
The three have been working together for several years, and each has been involved for decades on his own with various Israeli interfaith campaigns.
Picard and Manasra are in the midst of a project in which headmasters of Muslim and Jewish religious schools in Jerusalem get to know one another and participate in dialogue and educational sessions.
“It’s a very good way to give the principals our support and they can take it to our students. And I think we can change the insides of their schools through the principals,” said Manasra, a casually dressed man with small spectacles, brilliant blue eyes and a passing resemblance to James Earl Jones in the actor’s younger, thinner days. Unlike the foghorn-voiced Jones, however, the imam barely registers more than a decibel.
“We cannot go directly to the students, that’s very bad, very dangerous.”
He knows that through experience.
“We did a meeting between both sides. And it was a very, very big problem. They did not talk about religion. They talked about politics,” recalled Manasra, who continually referred to his fellow spiritual leaders as “my friend, my brother.”
“And then instead of keeping in touch they … ” He made a parting the Red Sea-like motion with his hands.
Manasra also runs inter-Muslim dialogue groups, and has established Jewish education courses for fellow imams. He says several participants in his programs have been compelled to leave “the Islamic movement,” his blanket term for fundamentalist Islam.
Khoury also reports an encouraging — though not entirely successful — program he ran with three extremist Jews and a militant Muslim. The four “went back to Jerusalem with different views,” yet stopped corresponding with him abruptly after several months.
“In their communities, it was not acceptable to be a peace-promoter advancing democracy,” said the priest.
“They were for a complete Israel and the Muslim man was correlated to the jihad.”
Picard downplayed the importance of reaching out to extremists, prefering to focus on everyone else. For one, there’s more of everyone else.
“Our belief is extremists are always a minority, and we then get power from the silent majority. And our work is to influence this silent majority through moderate people,” said the Orthodox rabbi.
“As we bring these people more and more influence, the extremists will find themselves quite alone.”
All three men expressed optimism that Israel will see a better tomorrow, but Picard warned it may take more time than Americans, in particular, are used to waiting.
“If I weren’t optimistic, I wouldn’t be here. But I am an optimist with patience. I believe this is going to be a very long process. We’ve had 100 years of war and we might have 100 years until we get peace,” he said.
“One of the mistakes of politicians is they think they should have results tomorrow. You cannot have results tomorrow … But we should not give up on hope. Maybe it will not be our generation but our children or grandchildren, but we must never give up hope or we will achieve nothing.”