A heart that connects: Jerusalem, Acheinu, and the promise of Jewish–Muslim fraternity

by Rav Dr. Yakov Nagen

Jerusalem can be named in one word: connection. Stones reach for the sky. Pilgrims reach for one another. Prayers in many tongues rise through the same air and find their way to the One who hears them all. In a season of grief and fear, the city whispers the same invitation it has offered for generations. Come closer. First to God. Then to one another.

Interfaith in Jerusalem is beyond any public relations event, it is deep-reaching soul work. In this city, small gestures carry the weight of history. A rabbi and an imam sharing a text is never only two people around a table. A priest hosting a circle of learners is never only a hospitality moment. Each meeting echoes through memories of love and rivalry, heartbreak and hope. That echo can overwhelm or it can deepen.

What changes the experience is Kavanah (intention). When we step into encounter with an intention to recognize the image of God in the other, the echoes become a chamber where holiness gathers.

Acheinu, heard again

In crisis, we Jews recite Acheinu kol beit Yisrael (“Our brothers, the whole house of Israel”) . We draw our people under the shelter of prayer and ask for mercy. I do not set that aside, and I cannot. Acheinu is the cry of family. Yet this year I found the word widening, not because I wish to blur who we are, but because covenant pulls us outward. When Muslim, Christian, and Druze neighbors suffer with us and save with us, when their joy and grief mix with our own, the family language expands on its own. It becomes a promise, not only a boundary.

Two years ago, two cousins in the Bedouin city of Rahat taught many of us what that promise costs. Both were named Youssef. One drove toward the Nova massacre and pulled lives from the fire, while the other was taken hostage with his children. Two of them returned. Yet, Youssef and his teenage son were murdered. One family. Two fates. A single story that holds unbearable darkness and radiant courage. When I think of fraternity, I see their names. Acheinu can hold this, too. The prayer does not shrink when compassion grows.

Jerusalem’s sanctity is connection

The prophets (Isaiah 56:7) already gave us the map: “My house will be a house of prayer for all peoples.” The words are not a slogan for posters, but rather they are an assignment. Holiness in Jerusalem is a calling to gather holiness. When we host one another in our sanctuaries with reverence, when we study Torah beside Qur’an beside Gospel, when we stand together at places of pain and walk out with gentler hearts, the city breathes more easily. We do not erase difference. We learn how to hold it without fear.

Sukkot, in particular, always helps me remember the inner architecture of this work. Under a fragile roof we bring together the parts of the self. The private soul that longs for God. The people that give us memory and mission. The larger human family that asks for recognition and care. Joy arrives when the parts sing together and that same harmony guides interfaith life. If I show up only as a universalist, I have lost the song; yet, if I show up only as a tribal soul, I have lost it as well. Jerusalem invites a fuller voice.

What true dialogue looks like

Real dialogue is covenantal listening and begins with texts and faces. Bring your sources. Bring your story. Sit with mine. Stay through a difficult paragraph and through a difficult memory. The point is not to be clever but to become trustworthy. Trust grows where we refuse to caricature the other and where we let our own tradition speak in its strongest, kindest voice.

I have seen this trust form around tables where rabbis, imams, and priests follow the path of chavruta. We argue closely. We slow each other down. We push and then we pause. I have seen it on field days in Rahat and Nazareth, in the Old City and at Yad Vashem. Presence is a discipline, as is reverence. They are learned in practice, and, when they are learned together, theology turns into a hand extended, not a fist clenched.

Strength for the road

The work is demanding. Trauma is real and suspicion can be loud. Political winds can pull us into corners where conversation feels impossible and, on those days, I return to simple practices that do not fail. Study together. Sit in silence together for three breaths before speaking. Visit one another in joy and in grief. Bring young people together to create and to serve. These are not small things. They are the scaffolding of a shared future.

"Study together. Sit in silence together for three breaths before speaking. Visit one another in joy and in grief."

Recognition. Relationship. Responsibility. That is the ladder. Teach texts that authorize respect and partnership. Multiply regular circles of clergy and educators who meet even when headlines howl. Tie learning to action so that a page studied on a Tuesday becomes food delivered on a Friday and a visit made on a Sunday. Build alumni networks that last past one cohort or one year. Tell the stories honestly, including the ones that hurt.

The city will give us strength. The covenant of fraternity will give us direction. The neighbors who join us will give us courage. Jerusalem will remain a word for connection as long as we keep showing up at its gates with open souls and working hands. May the house grow wide enough for the prayers of all, and strong enough to carry us when we falter. May we widen Acheinu with wisdom. May we remember that family is never only blood. Family is covenant.

Article written by Rav Dr. Yakov Nagen

Executive Director of the Ohr Torah Interfaith Center and Blickle Institute (website)

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