A recent interfaith panel at St George’s Leeds brought together people from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths to speak about their own experiences of faith and what their faith means to them.
Some 30 people gathered at the church to hear from the Revd Eve Ridgeway, Clergy Lead at St George’s; Anna Dyson, Student Rabbi in Leeds; and Adam Aslam, a Muslim Youth and Community Worker in the Harehills area.
Particularly poignant were the panel’s heartfelt responses to a question about the difficulties being experienced by members of their faith communities.
Anna spoke about the difficult times being experienced by the Jewish community, particularly since the killings by Hamas in October 2023.
She spoke not only about the difficulties experienced by Jews over recent months, but also about how not everyone in the Jewish community felt that the response offered by Netanyahu and his government in Israel was a Jewish response.
Adam spoke about the vilification of the British Muslim community over a number of years.
Revd Eve reminded attendees that Christians around the globe are being persecuted too.
David Kibble, Licensed Lay Minister at St George’s, said: “At the end of the panel conversations people were asked whether anything had hit them.
“One Muslim student who had joined us for the occasion responded that she had not realised that Jews, Christians and Muslims had so much in common.”
“One student commented afterwards that she had never considered interfaith dialogue as important: now she had changed her mind.
“Our student worker suggested that we should end with our panel members giving a prayer of blessing in their own liturgical language: Hebrew, English and Arabic with translations.
“This was something incredibly powerful.”