New York City Mayor Eric Adams began his three-day trip to Israel Monday in Jerusalem. There he met interfaith leaders, talking with them about issues related to anti-Semitism and tolerance.
The mayor, who has never made a secret of being a man of faith, told Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze representatives welcoming him to the holy city that rising tensions around the world were forcing believers to clearly enforce their religious principles in their daily actions.
“We are in a period right now where, I think, we have to transcend our desires and our faith and the believers that we are must also be in our practices,” he said. “What we learn in our churches, in our synagogues and in our mosques cannot stay in the sterile environment of our places of worship”.
New York boasts the largest metropolitan Jewish population in the world and Adams’ visit comes as anti-Semitic violence continues to persist in the city – with 100 anti-Jewish hate crimes committed over the course of the first six months of 2023. The mayor, a former police captain who campaigned on strengthening public safety, is known to have good relations with several Jewish communities in the Big Apple.
Some of these communities are worried about the tensions that are now tearing Israel apart as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition tries to weaken the power of the judicial system in favor of government might. The progressive group New York Jewish Agenda called on Adams to speak with protesters who oppose the plan to radically overhaul Israel’s justice system.
On Tuesday, the mayor is scheduled to meet Netanyahu and protest leaders separately, according to a schedule released by his office Monday evening.
While he avoided discussing the burning debate over the plan to radically overhaul the judicial system, Adams said that broader, global, sometimes catastrophic issues gave religious leaders and believers more generally “an enormous responsibility to heal our nations.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (left) with UJA-Federation of New York CEO Eric Goldstein in Jerusalem on August 21, 2023. (UJA-Federation of New York)
Sheikh Khalid Abu Ras, an interfaith leader of the Muslim religion, shared the same view, saying that “the plurality of visions that make up the Israeli mosaic is the challenge which, if handled carefully, can lead us into a larger, more beautiful space”.
Similarly, Father Aghan Gogchian, Chancellor of the Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, stressed the need to show tolerance.
“Returning hate to hate breeds hate,” he said. “Darkness cannot dispel darkness, only light has this power”.
Human rights defender and former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky also stressed the centrality of coexistence to the workings of life in Jerusalem, while Rabbi Avital Hochstein, a progressive Jewish leader who works in education, promotes religious pluralism.
This isn’t Adams’ first trip to Israel — but it’s the first time he’s visited the country since becoming mayor of New York City in 2022. In addition to discussing “the combined efforts to combat anti-Semitism,” his office noted that Adams planned to learn more about Israeli technologies during his trip.
On Monday evening, Adams was scheduled to meet Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, and on Wednesday he will meet with industry representatives high-tech in Tel Aviv. In addition to his meetings on Tuesday with the Prime Minister and with the organizers of the anti-government protests, the Mayor of the Big Apple will meet with Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. He will also visit the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem and the Western Wall. His full schedule for Wednesday has not yet been released.
Several New York mayors have made the trip to Israel in the past while in office – a trip that is almost considered a rite of passage for the city’s chief justice.
Adams’ visit is sponsored and funded by two Jewish organizations mainstreamla New York UJA-Federation et le groupe Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.
2023-08-22 09:51:29
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