Rabbi sees hope in humanistic values within faiths

(Vatican Radio) While the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants remains unresolved, a rabbi in Jerusalem says his hope for the region lies in the ability of Jews, Christians and Muslims to sincerely live out the humanistic values common to their respective faiths.

“The hope that I see is in human beings… Jews, Christians, Muslims, offering sympathy and condolences, based on the humanistic values in our religions that we all share,” said Rabbi Ron Kronish. “That’s something we can all do and it’s important to do, even as the conflict goes on, to retain somehow our humanity, our religious sense of value for human life, despite the ongoing war.”

Rabbi Kronish is a co-founder and the current director of the Jerusalem-based Interfaith Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI).  His nonprofit group includes more than 60 Jewish, Christian and Muslim organizations. Its goal is to promote peaceful co-existence between Muslims, Christians and Jews in Israel through dialogue, education and action projects.

“Unfortunately, the hope is not to be found in the political echelons lately,” he told Vatican Radio. “In the last 15, 16 years, all they do is talk about peace agreements and can’t seem to make them.”

At the time of publication, Israel and Hamas were on the third day of their most-recent truce, which began on Sunday. And representatives of Israel and Hamas were once again in peace talks, aimed at reaching a long-tern ceasefire.

“We are trying to at least counter the growing lack of empathy,” he said of his organization’s recent activities during this past month of violence between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza. “We still believe we have to keep this sensitivity to human life in the forefront.”

Listen to the interview with Rabbi Ron Kronish:

In spite of the importance and prevalence of religion in the region, the rabbi said religious leaders in Israel have not said much about the conflict; he called the silence “unfortunate”.

“People don’t know what to say right now, so they’re being silent,” he explained. “We don’t hear anything in the news from Palestinian religious leaders or from Jewish-establishment religious leaders. It’s been quiet, probably, acceptance on both sides.”

Establishment religious leaders in the region tend to promote their government positions, he added.

“In my case I have written blogs… expressing my hope for an immediate ceasefire, that this killing has gone too far, that the military option is not a (real) solution,” he offered.

He described the impact of the conflict on daily life in Israel as “one of great anxiety, stress, worry, concern and confusion.”

During the interview with Vatican Radio at the end of July, Rabbi Kronish said more than half the population of Israel was running for cover in shelters and in other safe spaces, with communities close to the Gaza border most affected.

The ICCI had not yet rallied religious groups together to issue a common call for peace because, the rabbi explained, consensus on the message was not likely and  because “people are confused and it is not easy to figure out what to say.” Though he left open the possibility for an eventual common call for peace.

He also noted that his colleagues in the field of peace and reconciliation had suspended their activity during the conflict.

“When the ceasefire is reached and when the anger and the vengeance and the hot atmosphere recedes sooner or later—from my point of view, the sooner, the better—then we…go back to the very difficult work of reconciliation,” he said.

GROWING LACK OF EMPATHY

The rabbi lamented the great difficulty in gathering people for dialogue in recent years, irrespective of the current conflict.

“They’ve lost faith, they’ve lost hope in the political peace process,” he said. “(Peace-building) is long-term work, and it gets harder and harder as hatred and fear, and even I would add irrational thinking, builds up on both sides… We have a situation, where I would say, we have a growing lack of empathy on both sides, which is making dialogue on the grassroots level very difficult.”

When asked about the rise in anti-Semitic activity in Europe and elsewhere since the start of the current conflict, Rabbi Kronish acknowledged the complexity of the problem.

“Part of the answer is that religion and politics are mixed (in the Middle East) and it’s very hard to separate them,” he offered. “It’s been a problem for decades now that anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism turns quickly into anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism.

“It has to do with media reporting and disinformation and people using certain information to enflame things. It’s very hard to control, especially in today’s world”, with the prevalence of social media, he stated.

‘LIGHT TAG’

Rabbi Kronish also reflected on religiously motivated crimes and on a recent social phenomenon in Israel, which he calls a “hate crime epidemic”. He said there are two sides to the issue. The first includes “extremist Jewish rabbis… that have been promoting extremist views toward the other.” A movement of extremist youth, called “Price Tag”, developed as a result. Though Rabbi Kronish believes the movement to be quite small, its members act out against groups they dislike, mostly with vandalism. In early July, however, some of these young people allegedly kidnapped and killed a Palestinian teen in retribution for the murders of three Jewish youth, which “fanned the flames of this current conflict,” the rabbi said.

In response, Rabbi Kronish and others founded a counter-movement, currently consisting of 40 member organizations, called “Light Tag” (Tag Meir). He said he and other members of Light Tag visit and offer empathy and comfort to both Palestinians and Israelis injured in the recent violence. They also attended the wake of the Palestinian teen, who had been killed as payback, offering their condolences to his family.

“The problems of religious extremism is by no means limited to the Jewish side,” he said. Hamas “and a whole bunch of not insignificant states and groups” have been “preaching and teaching hatred of Jews, of Zionists for years,” he said.

“They’re very  vocal on the Internet; they’re very vocal all over the world and a large part of the current problem arises from fundamentalist Muslim hatred of Jews and Zionists that leads to violence,” he said.

PREACH AND TEACH PEACE

While a common call for peace among religious groups is perhaps not possible, there are still opportunities for a religious response to the current conflict, he said.

“We’re facing a situation that we need to respond (to) at some level,” said Rabbi Kronish. “So the response that we’ve been doing in recent weeks has been less on the level of calling on the government and more on the level of expressing empathy, condolences and sympathy to people who’ve been injured.”

“Any religious groups who think they have influence with the power elites should try to get a ceasefire,” he added. “Unfortunately, it’s not likely we’re going to get it by ourselves. We need the international community.”

And, contrary to politicians and diplomats, he said, “the work of peacebuilding on the ground is the long-term spiritual, religious challenge for the future”.

“If we are going to live together in this part of the world—Jews Christians and Muslims, Palestinians and Israelis—we’re going to have to work at it… educationally, religiously,” he said.

And religious leaders can help by preaching and teaching what they know, which is peace, he added.

“If all the rabbis and imams and Christian leaders went back to their synagogues, churches and mosques and preached and taught peace and the value of peace for all of us together, maybe it would lead to a groundswell from the grassroots calling for peace and the end of violence.

“This is my hope for the future, that people will realize that war and violence are not the solution, and the solution is working together by preaching and teaching and acting for peace,” he said. “And it will take a long time but let’s get going now.”

Report and interview by Laura Ieraci