printed 10 June 2024
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Church of Scotland ministers participate in a cross-religious solidarity march in Jerusalem towards the struggle on Gaza.
Rev Dr Stuart Gillan and Rev Muriel Pearson, who’re companions within the mission to Israel, took to the streets with round 200 individuals within the title of peace, justice and equality.
Reflecting on the incident, they wrote:-
“Two very completely different marches started on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem within the shadow of the Gaza struggle.
An interfaith march for human rights and peace is adopted two days by the annual Jerusalem Day march, often known as Flag Day.
Whereas the peace march, led by the group Rabbis for Human Rights, testified to an inclusive imaginative and prescient of a metropolis the place Israelis and Palestinians have been revered equally, the Flag Day march emphasised the settler motion’s exclusionary nationalism and its violence.
It is time for an Interfaith March or Peace and Human Rights Flag Day to confront excessive nationalism and condemn the usage of faith to gas division.
The phrases of former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, taken from his forceful argument in Not in God’s Identify, serve to summarize the place.
He writes: ‘Typically within the historical past of faith have males killed within the title of the God of life, fought within the title of the God of peace, hated within the title of the God of affection, and practiced cruelty within the title. God of mercy.
‘When this occurs, God speaks, generally in a nonetheless, small voice virtually inaudible beneath the clamor of those that declare to talk for him. What God says at this level is: Not in my title.’
The planning course of for the Interfaith March for Peace and Human Rights started in January and was a journey in the direction of mutual care and belief between and amongst individuals from Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist and human rights and peace organizations.
Equal numbers of ladies and men who excel in justice and peace work.
Muslim and Palestinian Christian contributors reported that they have been extremely suspicious of the Israelis’ accusations of ‘regular’ occupation with a view to interact them in discussions.
Israeli contributors have been topic to comparable suspicions working in the other way.
A senior Christian activist requested, ‘Do we’ve the braveness to march for the underprivileged?’
That day, Avi Dabush, government director of Rabbis for Human Rights, and a survivor of the October 7 Hamas annexation together with his household, paid tribute to the march’s co-sponsor, Vivian Silver, founding father of Ladies’s Peace.
He was on the inauguration final 12 months and was murdered on October 7.
‘He all the time taught us,’ stated Abhi, ‘there isn’t a option to peace, peace is the best way.’
The march was led by two ladies, peace activist Gadil Hani, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and Rabbi Segal Asher of Rabbis for Human Rights, who chaired our planning assembly.
As we collect, the microphone passing forwards and backwards between them symbolizes our collective voice.
We have been happy to be taught from Radil that he led an iftar at St Andrew’s just a few years in the past, the meal that breaks the quick throughout Ramadan.
As we crossed Jaffa Road and met with Muslim and Palestinian Christian buddies on the New Gate, we modeled a distinct method to distinction – kids of God, bearing the picture of God, of equal inherent value and dignity, equal rights to reside and be revered. Working for justice, peace and therapeutic.
On the finish of the march on the Jaffa Gate we have been immersed in prayer and teachings from Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Buddhist and peace leaders.
Attempting to deliver and embody holiness within the holy metropolis.”
The Interfaith March for Human Rights and Peace takes place on June 3.
Learn extra in regards to the Church in Israel and Palestine.
