Tuesday, June 30, 2009

UPDATE TIME

Friends,

I am sorry that I forget to write on my blog. I actually have a fair amount of news:

Our Interfaith Community For Middle East Peace became real in May 2009 by bringing Rabbi Menachem Froman from Tekoa and Sheikh Ghassan Manasra from Nazereth and organizing a Conference on The Role of Faith in Middle East Peace at Temple University with the Dialogue Institute as our Co-Sponsor. We managed to set up meetings for our visiting peacemakers at the State Department on May 1st and in the office of NJ Congressman Rush Holt on May 5th with representatives from PA Senator Bob Casey and a number of Middle East peace organizations in the room. We met in June to begin to review what we had accomplished, what we hadn't and what comes next.... It was a pretty intense period of work in which a few members of our evolving organization managed to put together additional speaking engagements for our Sheikh who ultimately managed on his own to get a meeting in the White House.
So we will work to open a dialogue in the Philadelphia area involving the three Abrahamic faiths as well as others to promote understanding between them and cooperation in working toward lasting peace in the Holy Land.

Blessings,

Larry Snider