Jerusalem: Where Our Religions Meet But Interfaith Dialogue Struggles
With each step, I immersed myself in the past and present of the diverse religious identities connected to this space. I observed the prayers at the Western Wall, a remnant of the Temple of Solomon and the Second Temple. I traced the 𝘝𝘪𝘢 𝘋𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘰𝘴𝘢, the path Jesus Christ walked before being laid to rest in what is now the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. I reflected on Prophet Muhammad’s ascension to Heaven from where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque now stand. I tried to internalise the hope and trauma of preserving the sacredness of this space.
Walking through Jerusalem in May 2024, against the backdrop of a devastating war in Gaza, I felt an overwhelming sense of connection intertwined with a deep feeling of division. It’s a shame that interfaith dialogue has faltered in this very place where religions meet and coexist, albeit with struggle. As I passed through the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian quarters of the Old City and spent time with Christians, Jews, and Muslims, I realised how religious history, which unites these communities through shared heritage and tradition, has become deeply entangled in narratives and politics driven by agendas of control and possession. I wonder why interfaith dialogues have not been able to triumph over the hate and hostility that fanatics and extremists on every side have used to brainwash people.
As I engaged with individuals from different backgrounds, I encountered personal stories of hope, pain, resilience, and struggle. These narratives illuminated the human aspect of religious and political identities, underscoring how deeply these identities influence people's lives and perspectives.
Life here seemingly goes on as usual, but a pervasive sense of despair is beneath the surface. A Jewish man bought me coffee from his Muslim friend's shop, and we sat outside the stall next to the stairs to the Al-Aqsa compound. They have been friends for some time and remain so, but now, their friendship is tinged with apprehension and worry about what might happen in the next hour. They wonder when this feeling of cordial friendship might break, as so many others have in recent months.
Here, where both of them are connected by birth and religious identity, interfaith dialogue has failed to create a shared sense of empathy, equality, and justice. They are caught in a web of propaganda where one’s identity must be dismissed and disregarded for another’s to survive. It is a shame that interfaith dialogue, which has enjoyed good days of mutual celebration, now fails to salvage these relationships. They merely want to exist together.
In this holy city, as I moved between the realms of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, I felt that the price paid for faith is identity. Strangely, this shared experience of pain isn’t uniting people; instead, it’s being used to fuel further polarization. What a shame that interfaith dialogue, often lauded as a solution for social unity, fails to bridge the gap between people here, who are all just trying to be closer to God. But that also gave me a reason to be hopeful.
Amidst all the pain and fading hope, there are people here who seek the Divine every day. This is the faith that people like me must hold on to, and we must continue to look for opportunities for interfaith connections, some of which I found for myself. Of course, not every moment is a fairy tale. I faced challenges in understanding, answering, and questioning. However, as I walked out of the Damascus Gate, admiring its beauty and remembering it as a symbol of struggle, I felt strengthened by the belief that we must keep striving to hold spaces for interfaith dialogue, big or small. It's a cyclical process of connecting and reconnecting, not a finite mission to solve problems that extremist politicians and religious leaders created.
