ZICHRON YAAKOV, ISRAEL — The image of Israel’s Haredim has taken a public battering over the past few months, particularly over the issue of discriminatory conduct toward women, which even a few Haredi groups have disavowed. But in an unusual act of outreach, some of these ultra-Orthodox Jews have recently found an original way of engaging with people outside their own closed religious world: cooperating to save lives. Leaders of ZAKA, an Israeli medical and rescue organization best known for its work in the aftermath of suicide bombings, has launched a program that seeks to work with Muslim and Christian counterparts on emergency rescues. In January, ZAKA announced its own interfaith platform. It came just as tensions between religious and secular society were boiling over the issue of gender segregation. At the tensions’ peak, some Haredim rioted in the town of Beit Shemesh. Some even donning death camp outfits to dramatize their own sense of victimhood at a ... 
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TEL AVIV — Put an Israeli Jew, an Australian Christian and a Turkish Muslim together in a recording studio (or more accurately alone next to their own computers with file-sharing capabilities), and it may sound something like Three Waves Under the Bridge, the group effort of Ittai Shaked, Andy Bussuttil and Umit Ceyhan. The bridge of a musical composition often connects disparate sections or id
LONDON — A clash between Muslims and Christians in the Middle East is not inevitable, because of the “ample” examples of interfaith co-operation and the shared duty “to do good”. This was the message delivered by Princess Badiya bint El Hassan of Jordan, in her Friends of BibleLands annual lecture on Wednesday of last week. She is the first Muslim to give the lecture. “It is not correct to think of Judaeo-Christian values as distinct from Islamic values,” she said. “Yes, just as children from the same parents differ, we do differ . . . over certain doctrinal points and ritual practices. But we share what is most important — the belief in an all-powerful God, and, flowing from that, belief in the values of equality and practical compassion.” Given the instruction to “do good” as stewards of the world, it was “much more efficient” if members of the Abrahamic faiths “co-operate and strive to do so to-gether”. Princess Badiya described the “dwindling” number of Christians in the Middle East as “a tragedy for the region as a whole”. Many Christians in the region had come to fear
BEIRUT — Muslims and Christian leaders from across the Middle East and Denmark wrapped up a three-day conference on religious understanding Thursday in Beirut by highlighting values, such as mercy, respect and caring for the weak, which both faiths share. The conference, entitled “Building Greater Understanding between Christians and Muslims,” was organized by the Muslim-Christian Contact Group of the National Council of Churches in Denmark and the Arab Group for Muslim-Christian Dialogue. It was supported by
When I moved to Egypt to study Arabic in 2004, I was amazed how often Muslims there said alhamdulillah (i.e., praise God). When I asked friends “How are you?”, they replied alhamdulillah (praise God). When I congratulated Mahmoud’s children for their high marks in school, they replied alhamdulillah. Even when Haala cut her hand deeply with a sharp kitchen knife, she repeated steadily alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, as we worked to stop the bleeding. To my amazement, she was genuinely thankful, mindful her
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