Pueblo: Why We Went to Israel

This past spring my colleague and friend Steve Fuchs co-led a trip to Israel.  Steve is the rabbi of Bat Yam--Temple of the Islands, the Reform Jewish congregation that shares our building.  Steve and I decided sometime ago to invite our congregants to join us on this intentionally interfaith trip.  And they did.  Forty of them.  Twenty Jews, and twenty Christians.

Naturally we wanted to visit the various holy sites in that part of the world.  And we did.  And we wanted to meet some of the folks who live there--and we did, we met Jews, Christians and Muslims.  Ate with them, worshipped with them, learned from them.  We wanted to share prayers and meals and  meet new friends, and we did.

But more importantly, we wanted to witness to the reality that Christians and Jews can work, live and even travel together!  Because, as we were reminded once again by the arrest last night in Pueblo, Colorado of a white supremacist intent on blowing up a synagogue there, not all people believe that to be true.  Not all people believe God calls us to love one another.   "I hate [Jews] with a passion," the would be bomber told authorities, "They need to die."

We went to Israel together for all sorts of reasons, but one of them was because anti-Semitism is very much a real part of modern life in America.  And we just don't believe in it.  And neither does God.

(Photo:  Rabbi Stephen Fuchs and the Rev. Dr. John H. Danner, near the Mediterranean Sea in Israel.)