Spotlight on CLAL
Welcome to Spotlight on CLAL. Here you will find stories about what is happening at CLAL and about the work that CLAL is doing across North America. Sometimes we will focus on a program, or a special event, or upon a CLAL faculty member's work and interests. Bookmark this page if you want to get to know us better.
To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.
Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard Invited To Meet With Islamic Delegation, Sponsored By The U.S. State Department
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
In June, Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard was invited to join a small group of Jewish religious leaders to meet an Islamic delegation of seven academic and religious leaders from the West Bank and Gaza. The event, hosted by the U.S. State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program, was held at the Village Crown restaurant in Manhattan. Participants included Sheikh Yousef Abu Snineh, chief Imam of the Masjid Al Aksa in Jerusalem, the third holiest mosque in Islam, and Rabbi Tzvi Hersch Weinrab, executive vice president of the Orthodox Jewish Congregations.
At dinner, the group was divided into five tables with Jewish and Islamic leaders sitting together. Each table had its own translator. The objective of the evening was to foster better relations between Palestinian and Jewish religious leaders and to develop more positive views of each other.
“Ten years ago no one at my table could have imagined such a meeting being held,” said Rabbi Blanchard, who has become an active presence in international interfaith relations. “If we don’t develop a respect for each other, we cannot teach a positive view of each other’s religion.”
The evening was part of the U.S. State Department’s project “U.S. Foreign Policy for Islamic Leaders,” which is geared to expose the delegation to the substance and formulation of U.S. foreign policy.
To access the Spotlight on CLAL Archives, click here.
To receive the Spotlight on CLAL column by email on a regular basis, complete the box
below:
