Building bonds between faiths with a trip to the Holy Land
December 12, 2024 at 1:14 a.m.
Congregation KTI Rabbi Ben Goldberg and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church Pastor Jim O’Hanlon treasure their working relationship.
“Investing in a community of other faiths and backgrounds is a way of fighting antisemitism and other forms of hatred,” Goldberg said. “But it’s also just a way to be good neighbors and celebrating what we share and what we don’t share.”
O’Hanlon said they also have a natural bond because of how closely related their faiths are.
“We’re two religions connected by a common scripture,” he said. “We’re intricately connected because of both our scripture and history. Sometimes that relationship can be complicated, but we’re always connected.”
It’s not uncommon to see the religious leaders together, either at a community event or in their houses of worship.
“Sometimes we run into each other four times in a month,” O’Hanlon said. “The rabbi has preached here and talked to our preschoolers about Hanukkah. But we’ll also attend the same events in Port Chester and Rye Brook.”
Their frequent cooperation is why when Goldberg was invited by the Westchester Jewish Council (WJC) to participate in an interfaith trip to Israel, he encouraged them to include O’Hanlon.
“Having worked together on so many things over the year, it was the obvious choice,” Goldberg said.
The trip, organized by the WJC and United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Federation of New York, brought six Jewish rabbis and six Christian ministers from across the county to Israel from Nov. 9-15.
“It was an interfaith trip to what may be the most interfaith setting in the world,” O’Hanlon said. “We got to see how that could certainly make things complicated, but we got to study that and see how to connect with one another and build relationships.”
Originally, the trip was slated to include a Muslim representative, but the group was unable to find anyone willing to join.
“It wasn’t for a lack of trying,” Goldberg said. “But there are a lot of reasons it was difficult to find a Muslim participant, unfortunately. As much as some Jewish-Christian relationships have been strained, Jewish-Muslim ones have really been strained.”
To keep in line with the interfaith theme, the trip’s itinerary saw the group split their time between Jewish and Christing holy sites.
“It was very deliberately put together,” Goldberg said. “It was a very mixed experience in terms of where we went. But we mostly stayed in Jerusalem.”
What they saw
Though Goldberg has visited Israel many times in his life, his most recent trip was unique for several reasons—starting with how he and his companions drew some attention.
“It was like we were an alien walking around,” he laughed. “It was such an unusual sight for people there. It’s kind of unusual for a Jewish and Christian group to go on this trip together.”
They stressed that they were never looked down upon or perceived negatively, but they certainly turned several heads.
Because of the significance the area holds for the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions, tensions can run high even at the best of times.
However, their intrinsic differences allowed for learning experiences on both sides.
“There were points where, because I was so familiar with Israel, I felt I was a guide,” Goldberg said.
He’d lived in the country for two nonconsecutive years and returned many times afterwards.
“At the Jewish sites, I had knowledge and expertise that was relevant to that environment,” Goldberg said. “But at the Christian sites, I suddenly didn’t. Having that role reversal was very striking to me and opened my eyes to the other side of this space that I wasn’t familiar with.”
He recounted their visit to the house of Simon the Tanner in Jaffa. It’s a building he’d walked past many times during his stays in Israel but hadn’t given much thought.
St. Paul’s Church Pastor Jim O’Hanlon (left) and Congregation KTI Rabbi Ben Goldberg pose for a photo at the Western Wall in Jerusalem during their interfaith trip to Israel.Courtesy of Pastor Jim O’Hanlon
“I’ve been to Jaffa a number of times over the years, but that was something that I had never interacted with,” he said. “So what made this trip very special was that because we’re all clergy, it was interesting to see whose expertise came to the fore in different moments.”
Though their trip saw them visit ancient holy sites, their itinerary also drew them to more contemporary locations of importance.
“We were able to visit Yad Vashem (Holocaust Remembrance Center) and the site of the Nova Music Festival,” Goldberg said, referring to the land adjacent to Gaza that saw heavy civilian casualties during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists. “And those were some very emotional moments for us.”
He said he was struck by the Christian delegations’ reactions to being in the museum.
“It’s a topic that I’m very familiar with. I teach seventh-graders about the Holocaust, but to see it through their eyes was actually moving,” he said. “I’m sure they all had some awareness of it, but to really go into detail and see it like this was something else.”
O’Hanlon was particularly struck by what he saw at the site of the Nova massacre.
“It’s where 300 people were killed and 50 people were taken hostage, but people were still pouring in there,” he said. “There was so much grief and people waiting to hear about the status of their loved ones.”
He equated the area, parts of which have been converted to a memorial for the victims, to a holy site.
“There are representations for those who were lost or missing placed to remember them,” he said. “So, we really visited ancient holy sites and these current, spontaneous holy sites. And you can see people focused on what they’re going through today and supporting each other.”
O’Hanlon recalled walking into a roadside bomb shelter set up by the Israeli government to protect civilians from bombardments.
“A siren went off and they went to these structures thinking they were safe, not knowing what was actually happening or who was coming for them,” he said. “It’s another place where there were pictures, flowers and candles. There were messages written on the walls. Visiting that was a standout moment, I think.”
Continuing to work together at home
Several weeks after their return, the two local religious leaders invited their respective congregations to St. Paul’s Church at 761 King St. on Sunday, Dec. 8, for an Israel Trip Debrief.
They presented highlights of their week-long trip, photos of the religious sites visited and their thoughts on the entire experience.
“It was a very intense trip with some very long days,” Goldberg said at the time. “But the goal of it was to kickstart interfaith relationships all across the county, which is very important today.”
While their connection was strong, he added that wasn’t necessarily the case with their traveling companions.
“We were exceptional in that we came into it with a longstanding relationship,” Goldberg said. “But even without that in the others, we all had at least two things in common: We live in Westchester and we’re all religious leaders.”
Some were even closer than they previously realized, O’Hanlon added.
“We all met again to talk over lunch, and a Jewish leader and Catholic leader from Mamaroneck realized that they’ve been walking on the same street every day without recognizing each other,” he said. “They might have seen each other before this, but it didn’t mean anything then. But this time, they recognized each other. They stopped, said hello and realized they’re closer neighbors than they thought.”
O’Hanlon said the trip gave them the opportunity to do something they don’t typically get the chance to do: bring their congregations together.
“The rabbi and I meet to do food packing, scripture studies and we do different things in the community, but seeing our communities together, in one place, reminded me of how connected we are,” he said. “That was another worthwhile thing that came out of our trip.”
Though the duo doesn’t expect to be invited on the next UJA trip, as it’s more likely that another region of the state will be selected, they found it to be satisfying and are eyeing what the future holds.
“I would say it was very successful in bringing a very diverse and different group of people together and focusing on the similarities we have,” O’Hanlon said.
Goldberg added it’s made him feel like his work with the Lutheran pastor has been in the best interest for all.
“I really feel like we have something good and want to keep doing all the things we’ve already been doing,” he said. “Hopefully the story of this trip will let us expand this partnership. We would love to join with anyone else in the area who’d like to be a part of this.”
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