Articles by David Rosen

The United Arab Emirates has been pioneering interfaith work in the Arab world for almost a decade, and it has been my privilege to have been involved over the years in the different initiatives, in particular the Abu Dhabi Forum for Peace and, more recently, the activities of the UAE Ministry of Tolerance.
However, the most dramatic of these initiatives reached an historic milestone last week with the launch of the Abrahamic Family House, an exquisitely beautiful complex of three separate religious buildings – a mosque, a church and a synagogue, connected by a common space, including areas for conferences and exhibitions as well as the administration of the center.

I was first introduced to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI, in the late 1980s when he was visiting Jerusalem. Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem, was eager for me to meet with the cardinal, telling me that I would discover a very different person from the image portrayed in the general media. He was so correct.

Pope Benedict XVI was deeply committed to advancing relations with the Jewish People. He was the first Pope ever to invite Jewish leaders both to the funeral of a pontiff and, above all, to the celebration of his own coronation. Very early in his pontificate Benedict received a leadership delegation of my organization, American Jewish Committee.

Until recently the recognition of any religion other than Islam in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was rare, and anyone practicing another faith was “vulnerable to detention, harassment and, for noncitizens, deportation,” according to the U.S. Office of International Religious Freedom. But earlier this month, I attended a multifaith conference in the country’s capital, Riyadh, on “Common Values Among the Followers of Religions.” The forum, which brought together leaders and representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism from around the world, was an exciting breakthrough that reflects some remarkable changes.

President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Blinken have expressed their support for the Abraham Accords, their predecessors’ Middle East peace-building achievement, and have committed to continue the U.S. effort to expand the circle of Arab-Israeli peace. To do so, it will be important not only to advance normalization as a strategic objective, but to bolster interreligious bonds in the specific and deeply significant name of Abraham.

Educational changes reflect recognition of the necessity to effect a positive change in the mindsets of young people in the Arab world in particular, and in the Muslim world as a whole, in order to promote peace and advance wellbeing in their own countries and their place in the commonwealth of nations. They reflect the exciting growing appreciation of the remarkable legacy of Jews in Arab lands and of the unique connections and parallels between Islam and Judaism, as integral to the heritage of Abraham.

The recent explosions of resentment around the world against racist behavior must galvanize the Jewish community to be even more in the forefront of the struggle against racism. This is our duty to our own historical experience of bigotry and racism; to our own heritage; and above all to the Lord of Creation Himself who created every human person in the Divine Image with inalienable dignity.

Rabbinic directives for social distancing and curtailing prayer gatherings and other religious social meetings are not new. Indeed, dealing with contagious disease has been a Jewish preoccupation since ancient times.

The first Jewish faith-leader received by a Saudi Arabian monarch recounts his visit with King Salman bin Abdul Aziz.

The Abu Dhabi conference was surely a significant indicator of an increasingly positive view on engagement with Jewry on the part of religious and political authorities in the region.