We are here precisely because it is difficult’: hundreds join annual interfaith march in Jerusalem

The interfaith march on 18 May 2026.

Linda Dayan reports in Haaretz on 19 May 2026:

On the ornate stairway leading to the Jerusalem International YMCA is a mosaic mural with an inscription in Arabic, Hebrew and English: “Here is a place whose atmosphere is peace, where political and religious jealousies can be forgotten, and international unity be fostered and developed.”

The message, from a 1931 address by Lord Edmund Allenby for the building’s dedication, has largely gone unheeded in the holy city in the succeeding years. But on Monday, hundreds of people gathered in the courtyard, looking toward that inscription, hoping to come a step closer to making it a reality.

The crowd, which included Haredi Jews and secular peace activists; nuns and friars; Druze sheikhs and Muslim imams, had come for the fourth annual Interfaith March for Human Rights and Peace. The event, which preaches peace, equality and reconciliation among the faiths in Jerusalem and the holy land, was organized by a consortium of organizations, including Rabbis for Human Rights, the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development, Israel’s Reform Movement, ALLMEP, Women Wage Peace, Sulha, Ir Amim, Tag Meir, Hebrew Union College and others.

At the organizers’ request, the participants didn’t bring their own flags or posters. Instead, they collected signs in which Hebrew letters morphed into Arabic, reading “peace,” “justice” and “soul.”

Addressing the marchers were Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie, a New York-based activist and co-chair of the board for Rabbis for Human Rights, and Raefa Hakroush, social worker and director of shared society initiatives at Haifa’s Leo Baeck Education Center. They spoke each message in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and the event provided a book of each speech and prayer in all three languages, so the audience could follow along. The event, they said, is for “People of faith – and people who simply refuse to give up on our shared humanity.”

“We didn’t come here because the reality is easy. We are here precisely because it is difficult,” they said. “There is fear, there is terror, and there is pain. There’s great despair all around us. Every single day, we witness and suffer cruelty and injustice, violent attacks on the defenseless, the degradation and harming of clergy, here in the holy city, and throughout the Holy Land, shared by all of us, the systemic violation of human rights.”

They continued, “We choose to meet. We choose to listen. We choose to march together, not just today, hand in hand, for justice, towards peace.”

Before they set out on the route, which would take the marchers to the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, they joined together for prayers and speeches from faith leaders. Although they all conveyed broad messages of unity and compassion, they did not skirt difficult topics – Druze Sheikh Younes Amasha, the director of the Forum for Interfaith Leaders in Israel, said they had come together to “say with one voice: Human life is a sacred value, and there is no place for hatred, extremism and violence.” He continued by noting the plight of his Druze brothers and sisters in Syria, who face “massacres, kidnappings and severe harm to innocent people” at the hands of extremists.

In a later speech, secular humanist Rabbi Ruti Baidach, a protective presence activist in the West Bank, read out a poem by her friend, the poet Hanaa Fuqaha, who is “persecuted by the occupation and its emissaries.” We come from different places, she read from Fuqaha’s text, “We do not speak the same language, nor do we bear the same skin color, and our cultures are different, but we resemble the world when it becomes more merciful.”

In her prayer, activist Khawla Altory of Rahat stated in Arabic her belief that “humans were created to be a source of mercy and peace, and the sanctity of life begins when we look at each other with pure hearts full of love and humanity.”

Rabbi Michael Menkin, leader of Israel’s Smol Emuni movement, asked God in his prayer to make known that “we are ashamed to hear the shame of the oppressed, and that we have compassion when seeing suffering in our land.” Singer Achinoam Nini, a mainstay at protests, performed a trilingual rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

The first half of the event also included a touching send-off from the performance artist Officer Then-Maybe (Az-Oolay), a regular presence at anti-occupation protests known for dressing up as a police clown. Accompanied by fellow police clowns big and small, she led the crowd in her pledge in Hebrew, Arabic, English and Israeli sign language: “If we dare to see eye to eye, heart to heart, steady feet, a breath, a firm look, giving and receiving, receiving and giving love, then maybe things will get better.” People of all faiths – Jewish families, hijabi women, priests and nuns – signed along.

As the march set out, organizers reminded participants to stay on the sidewalks and not to block traffic. “You may meet voices different from ours along the way,” they warned, urging restraint and calm in the event of provocation.

But as they moved outward toward the Old City, no provocation seemed to come. There was curiosity, and some scoffed, but most people were simply curious. An Orthodox man on the street looked at the march with suspicion, but seemed to accept the premise. A couple of teenage Muslim girls froze upon seeing the group, perhaps wondering if it was part of Jerusalem Day festivities.

As the march passed a hotel and briefly blocked the exit of a taxi, its driver, who had a wooden rosary hanging from his mirror, asked what it’s for and how long it’ll go on. After it was explained to him, he paused. “Oh,” he said with newfound patience for the wait. “Way to go.”

Along the way, the police clowns handed out stickers of colorful hearts to participants and onlookers (the Orthodox man declined; “I know I have a heart,” he said. “I don’t need reminding”). Clergy of all faiths led the crowd in hymns and chants: the protest anthem “We Shall Overcome” in English, “Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” from the Book of Isaiah in Hebrew, “God of peace and justice, rain down upon us your peace,” in Arabic.

‘Moral and spiritual response’ to Flag March
Speaking to Haaretz, Father Alberto Joan Pari, a Franciscan monk belonging to the Custody of the Holy Land, noted that the march falls just before the Jewish festival of Shavuot and Christian Pentecost. But it also comes amid wars and conflict in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon that have further torn the region apart. “So to march together, Christians, Muslims, Jews and other religions, saying that we believe that it is possible to create and maintain something together, is very important,” he said.

As hostility in the Old City has ramped up against Christian clergy – culminating in the recent attack on a Jerusalem nun – this is all the more significant. “To have very close Muslim friends and Jewish friends supporting us and saying that this is not Judaism, this is not Islam, is very important,” he said.

Not only does the march fall before two religiously significant events, it comes just after a nationally unseemly one. It comes just days after Jerusalem Day, the Israeli holiday marking the liberation of Jerusalem from Jordan after the Six-Day War. One of the events marking the holiday is the Flag March, before and during which mobs of far-right Israeli youths harass and attack Arabs in the Old City.

At the Interfaith March for Human Rights and Peace in Jerusalem, Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze are walking side by side (The moment the camera drops a bit was when a child dressed as a clown offered me a heart sticker)

According to the organizers, this is no coincidence. The interfaith event is a “moral and spiritual response” to that march. “In the face of this reality, we seek to present a different voice: the voice of faith committed to the dignity of man, created in the image of God, and of religions acting as forces of connection, responsibility and solidarity.”

This is what brought Udi Baharav, from Ramat Gan, to the event. “I was at the Flag March last week, and I saw the loathing and hatred, the belligerence, and I have had it up to here with it,” he said. A friend had suggested he come to the march. “I believe that our souls are all united – it doesn’t matter what size or shape or race or color or religion, we’re all people.”

Ishmael Ben-Avraham, a French convert to Haredi Judaism, had also been at the Flag March, where he joined activists from the coexistence group Standing Together in protecting Arabs in the Old City.

The extremists “who go around in kippot and tzitzit are sullying our religion, sullying Judaism,” he said. “As in every lie, there’s a grain of truth. There’s a bit of truth to what they say – the sanctity of the land of Israel and the like. But they’ve lost their way.” Instead of giving a good name to the Jewish religion through their actions, they are doing the opposite.

Jared Goldfarb, a teacher from Jerusalem and a volunteer with Rabbis for Human Rights, said that even though he was happy with the hundreds of people who turned up on Tuesday, he hoped this year’s march leads to greater visibility.

“I would say one of the main reasons that people wouldn’t come isn’t because they don’t believe in interfaith events, or they don’t believe in encountering the other. They aren’t aware that it actually happens.” Simply walking down the street together and answering the questions of onlookers “is a great way to show the rest of Jerusalem, who may be less familiar, that this is something that does happen.”

As the march approached Jaffa Gate, they continued in speeches, songs and prayers. A small group of religious Jewish teenage girls watched from a distance, some leaving in a huff – put off either by the messaging, or the use of Arabic. But some people exiting the Old City came to listen for a bit.

Nearby, an older man and a border police officer watched quietly. “It’s an interfaith event, for Jews, Muslims and Christians together,” he explained to the curious man. “Will it help?” he asked the officer, who replied immediately: “Nope.”

Others disagreed. As the event came to an end with a final song from Achinoam Nini, Sheikh Hassan Abo Alian, an imam and mediator from the Bedouin city of Rahat, described the march and encounters like it as “the light at the end of the tunnel. We need more light like this in order to achieve peace.”

Father Piotr Zelazko, the patriarchal vicar for the Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel, agreed. He told Haaretz that he doesn’t believe that this is a lost cause – not even in conflict-ridden Jerusalem. “This city has seen so many crying people, so much desperation,” he said, adding that it helps to see people walking together, united in the wish for a better future.

“I’m sure most of the people would say that they have hope, even if it feels like sometimes, there’s no light in the darkness. But everyone here today lights a little candle of hope, and this should be a message for the entire city, and the entirety of Israel.”

This article is reproduced in its entirety