Rabbi Ron Kronish is a writer, educator and the founder and director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council of Israel (ICCI), a department of the group Rabbis for Human Rights.
The ICCI’s mission is to harness the common values of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and transform religion from a force of division and extremism into one of reconciliation and coexistence. It works with about 60 Jewish, Muslim and Christian organizations within Israel, as well as with some international groups.
Rabbi Kronish visited Toronto in early October to participate in the two-part Ralph & Roslyn Halbert Visiting Scholars lecture series, presented by Beth Tzedec Congregation, Canadian Friends of Hebrew University, the Multi-Faith Centre for Spiritual Study and Practice and the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies.
Along with Sheikh Gassan Manasra, a writer, scholar and director of the Islamic Cultural Center in Nazareth, Rabbi Kronish addressed interreligious dialogue in Israel and the West Bank, and Arab-Jewish coexistence in Israel, at the Multi-Faith Centre and at Beth Tzedec.
The CJN spoke to Rabbi Kronish about the ICCI’s work and his vision for peace-building.
Where are you from originally and how did you end up living in Israel?
I’m from New York City and I grew up in Miami. After rabbinical school and after I got an education doctorate, I moved to Israel.
Describe the circumstances that led to you founding the ICCI in 1991.
Another interfaith organization in Israel had fallen on hard times and many people left it and came to me – I was working in a Jewish communal organization at that time – and four or five of us there said, “We need to found something new, but let’s start a council of organizations instead of just one.” So we founded a council for institutions and started with about 70 member organizations. We grew up alongside the peace process of the 1990s. We came onto the scene as an organization that did interreligious dialogue as a form of peace-building.
What are the ICCI’s main activities?
We organize dialogue groups with religious leaders, young adults and educators; we do public education via lectures and symposia in North America, Europe and other places; we do social networking via Facebook and blogging; and we co-ordinate interreligious activism with the Tag Meir Forum to combat Jewish and Muslim hate crimes.
The online description of the lectures you and Sheikh Manasra gave in Toronto says you present an alternative vision of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – one based not on peace treaties or other political mechanisms, but on interreligious dialogue and interaction. Do you believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved through interfaith dialogue alone?
Not quite. I would say there are two parts to the conflict. One is political: we’ll need a political solution that will be done by the people who do politics. But we’ll also need a peace-building solution that’s not a piece of paper but a set of guidelines and ways to live together as people, as communities with different religions. That’s the part I’m working on.
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I don’t believe my work will replace the peace process of the politicians, but rather it will supplement it.
The role of interreligious dialogue in times of conflict, when the peace talks have broken down, is to keep the dream alive and hope alive. We continue now to meet Jews, Muslims and Christians inside Israel despite all the difficulties, with the hope that, when the politicians one day reach a solution, we’ll be able to do our work in comprehensive ways. We’ve seen from conflicts in places like northern Ireland and South Africa that when a conflict is solved, people in civil society who’d previously played a quiet role become much more active in helping to cement the peace.
In Israel, after a peace treaty is made, those of us who are religious leaders, educators, youth leaders, etc. will have to help people on both sides learn to live in peace. In the ’90s, when the peace process in Israel was strong and agreements were being signed, many people turned to interreligious dialogue because they wanted to know, “With whom am I going to live in peace?” We can’t have one part of the process without the other.
The ICCI has worked for the past several years to quash acts of domestic violence such as the so-called “Tag Mechir” or “price tag” violent acts done by extreme right-wing Jewish settlers. What does the organization’s work around this look like?
We’ve been involved in the “Tag Meir” or “light tag” coalition of Jewish and other religious groups fighting against hate crimes and extremist violence. So, whenever Muslims, Christians or Jews in Israel are hurt by religious violence, we express empathy and are involved in educational programs to counter this.
Israel has a lot on its plate, to put it mildly. But one of the issues that has come to the fore in the past three or four years is the rise of Jewish religious extremism. Most of this has been vandalism, but recently there’s also been the killing of innocent Palestinians.
We’re pushing against this on three fronts: the law enforcement front – advocating to bring these criminals to trial; the educational front – we lobby the Knesset education committee to create education around this violence; and public sympathy demonstrations, to call attention to these acts. It’s a problem that the Israeli prime minister hasn’t acknowledged the Jewish extremist violence. There’s been some progress in this area, but not enough.
Do you advocate for a two-state solution?
The ICCI doesn’t get involved in politics in that way, so we have no explicit stance on a two-state solution.
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I would say it’s fairly implicit there should be a negotiated two-state solution and that both sides will have to make painful strides for peace, but the ICCI doesn’t make statements about that per se. We say peace is our goal and that dialogue, plus education, is our method. I personally don’t place all blame for the conflict on one side or the other. A two-state solution isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the alternatives, and if it does happen, then we still have a long road to go down to truly achieve peace after all these years of conflict.
Even if there is a peaceful resolution tomorrow, our work won’t be done. There’s the real long-term work to be done around Jews, Christians and Muslims learning to live together. That’s a challenge that will take several decades. n
This interview has been edited and condensed for style and clarity.