"Yacoub stands beside Na'ama Dafni of Or Hadash, a Reform congregation, as she lights a blue-and-white braided candle and says a nondenominational prayer. "It is a great honor and privilege to be with you today, to kindle lights of hope, happiness, and with prayers for peaceful holidays, years of quiet and good neighborliness, that we may raise our boys and girls with safety and love," she tells the crowd."
"Despite strained relations between the Vatican and Israel during the war in Gaza with the late Pope Francis suggesting Israel may have committed genocide, something Israel vehemently denies Catholic and Jewish leaders in Haifa, a city along the Mediterranean Sea in northern Israel, are trying to build trust between their communities, which live largely siloed from each other. It's part of an effort to forge interreligious understanding in an ancient port city with a very diverse landscape:"
St. Louis the King Cathedral in Haifa hosts a crowded Christmas tree-lighting where a Maronite priest invites a rabbi to join the ceremony and participate in a nondenominational prayer. The rabbi lights a blue-and-white braided candle and invokes hopes for peaceful holidays, quiet years, and safety for children. The joint appearance demonstrates shared prayers for light, peace and happiness. Despite strained Vatican-Israel relations during the Gaza war, local Catholic and Jewish leaders are working to build trust among largely siloed communities. Haifa contains Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druze and Baha'i populations with long histories of persecution and remembered violence.
Read at www.npr.org
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