Big Hug of Jerusalem 2008

I was interviewed yesterday by someone doing her Ph.D. on Interfaith Dialogue groups. It's actually fun doing these interviews because while you're talking, the adrenaline flows and you get even more enlightened and strengthened in the work you are doing. So I'm talking to her about my work with Gypsies, Messianic Jews, Palestinians, etc., and I felt like the Patron Saint for Persecuted People or something like that.

We were also both so happy that Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah is initiating interfaith dialogue. He even invited Rabbi Rosen to a dialogue in Spain next week. Wherever did he get an idea that interfaith dialogue could work? Of course he wouldn't have such a thing, not yet anyways, in Saudi Arabia. Not in his backyard. It's too threatening to expose his people to different ways. For now. But I wonder how he got to this point. I believed the Big Old King just sat there in his long white robes and majestic head gear surfing the internet. Perhaps he perused Mideast Youth.com or got into some Israeli Peace blog. Who knows? But he spoke about it for a couple of months now, and now he's doing it. And I love him for it.

Along the same lines, I had never spoke about the Big Hug - where both Jews and Arabs "hugged" Jerusalem. This was at the end of June. These two videos tell it.



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