As Jewish spiritual leaders and members of the NCS, we join together to express our outrage at the unremitting violence, including mass murder and ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Christians and various other faith groups throughout the world.
While we deplore all acts of religious persecution, including the murder of Jews, most tragically in Paris, as partners in dialogue, we note in particular the recent rise of anti-Christian actions in the Middle East and Africa by extremist Muslims, where Christian communities have been subject to persecution, attack, expulsion and murder. Many churches and sacred sites have been vandalized, attacked, or destroyed. There has been a notable decline in and dislocation of Christian populations in communities where they have resided for centuries. We reach out in solidarity to our Christian brothers and sisters who are the targets of these attacks and to all those concerned for their wellbeing. And we are equally saddened by the loss of Muslim life at the hands of these extremists.
We urge world political and religious leaders and all people of conscience to join us in condemning unequivocally acts of aggression, terror, intolerance, and violence against religious communities and their sacred sites. We applaud the multinational coalition that has intervened with force to deter acts of aggression directed at Christians and people of all faiths and others.
No matter how long it takes, we pledge our collective efforts to bring about better understanding and respect among the faith communities of the world so that religious extremism in all of its forms is eradicated.
We pray that we may contribute to the realization of the universal teaching to love our neighbor as ourselves, a teaching shared in Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred texts (Lev. 19:18; Mark 12:31; Sahih Muslim, The Book of Faith, vol.1, Hadith #94). If there is to be peace among nations, the promoting of peace among the spiritual communities of the world is surely an imperative to which we fervently commit ourselves.