First “Families Meeting” series concludes with a spectacular night

The first series of “Families Meeting” project, intended to bring together the members of diverse cultures, faiths and ethnicities and let them get to know each other, by Intercultural Dialogue Platform (KADIP) in cooperation with Foundation of Solidarity (DIDADER), came to an end with a final gathering at Syriac Catholic Church.

My Town Is a Living Laboratory of Pluralism

Rabbi Joseph Meszler

In my small town of Sharon, Mass., there is a great deal of love, a good dose of hatred, and a lot of ambivalence. It is emotionally exhausting keeping up.

In the past year, our town's different synagogues, churches and prominent mosque have come together to collect food for a food pantry on Thanksgiving, stuff backpacks for poor children on MLK Day, share music in an interfaith concert and pray for victims of gun violence. We have also had a brick thrown through a church window with anti-Semitc graffiti because of the church's pro-Zionist stance, and Rev. Pat Robertson came to town to slander the Quran as "a book of hate." And then there are people who just want to be left alone and don't want to get involved.

Muslim and Jewish Leaders Unite to Combat Hatred

Rabbi Marc Schneier*

Secretary of State John Kerry performed an important public service on May 20 by personally announcing the release of the U.S. State Department's 2012 Report on Religious Freedom, which contains the disturbing findings that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are on the rise in countries around the world. Bad news is never welcome, yet Secretary Kerry deserves praise for highlighting the dangerous growth of anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim bigotry and for making a compelling case that both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism are closely related pathologies that should be opposed by people of conscience everywhere.