BEYOND BOUNDARIES

Rabbi Marc Schneier has been working tirelessly to champion the cause of interfaith relations and build bridges between the GCC and Israel. And slowly but surely, that journey has fructified

- Aarti Nagraj

When I interviewed Rabbi Marc Schneier in December last year, he made a prediction that the rift among the GCC states would be mended very soon. By the next time we spoke, in March, that prediction had borne fruit with Qatar normalising relations with the other Gulf states.

Resolving conflicts and promoting greater harmony is a subject close to the rabbi’s heart – whether that is across faiths or beyond borders. And that’s a journey he has been on for several years now.

A pioneer in building Jewish-Muslim relations, the rabbi started working on bridging ties between the two faiths way back in 2005. “My sole objective, since 2005, has been to find the path to narrow the divide – the chasm – between 1.6 billion Muslims and 16 million Jews. And thank God it’s been an extraordinary journey. I’m not going to represent that we have arrived at the final destination of Muslim-Jewish relations, but the good news is that the journey has begun, and we’ve had so many successes along the way,” he says.

A key element of spreading this message has been the book, Sons of Abraham, co-authored by Rabbi Schneier and Imam Shamsi Ali, which revolves around a candid conversation on the issues that divide and unite Jews and Muslims. The book, which features a foreword by former US President Bill Clinton, talks about how Rabbi Schneier, who grew up deeply suspicious of Muslims, and Imam Shamsi Ali, who believed that all Jews wanted to destroy Muslims, managed to overcome their prejudices and become friends.

“[The first time] we met I barely looked at him, you know, I had this certain hesitation when it came to Muslims. But we were on the set together [for a TV panel discussion] and then we decided to have lunch. And the rest is history,” the rabbi says.