Nes Amim, Jerusalem-  Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze came together for an interfaith encounter weekend retreat to learn more about environmental care in the four Abrahamic traditions in Jerusalem earlier this year.

This interfaith encounter took place on February 2^nd and 3^rd in Nes Amim and was the first time that many of those gathered had participated in an interfaith encounter.

The retreat started with brief introductions and a description of the story of the Nes Amim’s Center for Meeting and Dialogue, a Christian European moshav, where the retreat was taking place.

The larger group then broke into smaller groups of four where participants shared personal experiences of environmental care and appreciation.

Before sunset, the group gathered for a prayer session where the Jews present prayed the prayer of the Eve of Shabbat, the Muslims prayed the evening prayer and the Christians prayed the Lord’s Prayer in several different languages. Each of the prayers were performed as it normally would and was accompanied by explanations from observing members of the faith tradition.

The second day was full of small group conversation and study regarding environmental care and also included a speaker from the Druze tradition, Sheikh Nzem Sirhan. He spoke on a wide variety of themes from the Druze tradition, including environmental care to reincarnation to the equality of women in the Druze faith to its prophets.

Overall, according to Yehuda Stolov, Executive Director of Interfaith Encounter Association, participants learned a lot about other faiths’ views, overcome prejudices and experienced growing humanization of the other.