2025 Iftar Meal of Reconciliation
2025 Iftar Meal of Reconciliation
by Children of Abraham Project
Read reports of the event on Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, and Debate for Peace.
Haaretz (Hebrew): https://www.haaretz.co.il/food/2025-03-24/ty-article-magazine/.premium/00000195-b324-debb-a5b5-b37796fb0000?gift=f23ba5a7b8ec40e481126c3d50ab9216
Jerusalem Post (English): https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-848174
Debate for Peace (English): https://debateforpeace.org/2025/03/27/children-of-abraham-holds-largest-interfaith-iftar-in-the-holy-land-for-hundreds-of-israelis-and-palestinians-of-all-religious-backgrounds/
On March 25, 2025, over 900 Jews and Muslims came together in the midst of war to Palestine to hold an Iftar Meal of Reconciliation. The participants came to the event despite great dangers, - and especially great dangers to the Palestinians who hosted the event in Palestine. The spiritual leaders of the event were two former enemiesa Palestinian with blood on his hands who spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison, and a Jewish settlerboth of whom had a profound experience which transformed their consciousness. Both woke up and saw that hatred based on their respective narratives of oppression - the evil that one people had done to the otherwas a dead end and that the advocates of violence - both Hamas and the Jewish Settler movement - had no future to offer either Jews or Palestinians other than death and destruction.
The Iftar of Reconciliation was held in Palestine and not in Israel to show that there were Palestinians who were readydespite great pressure by the enemies of peace in Palestineto reach out the hand of peace to Jews. The dangers to the 900 Jewish and Palestinians who traveled to the venue of the Iftar were real. When the participants got on the bus at various pickup spots in Palestine and Israel to be transported to the Iftar, they were not informed of their exact destination. They were not informed of their destination because of a concern that if the destination were made public, the venue of the Iftar could be attacked by Hamas or Jewish Settlers.
The participants at the Iftar wanted to demonstrate to the Palestinian and Jewish peoples that it was possible for the two peoples to stop hating each other because the Jews and Palestiians at the Iftar had stopped hating each other. and that it was possible for the two peoples to transcend their two narratives of oppression - which was at the center of their 75-year-long conflictbecause the Jews and Palestinians present at the Iftar had themselves transcended the two narratives of oppression and were creating a third joint narrative based on mutual recognition, and a shared desire for peace. The participants wanted to demonstrate that a new world for the Holy Land was possible because they themselves, at the Iftar of Reconciliation, had created a living model of the new world which they wanted to see.
The following are speeches made at the event:
Mohamad Jamous, the head of Israel-Palestine branch of Children of Abraham Project:
On November 15, 1990, I was born.
But today, I am born again , I am reborn with all of you,
in this blessed gathering, where we come together at one table, beyond borders and
walls,
with open hearts and souls yearning for peace.
But as we sit here together in feeling of love and unity, we cannot ignore the
suffering around us.
At this very moment, while we share this meal, children are dying in Gaza.
Families are being torn apart, and dreams are buried beneath the rubble.
At the same time, hostages remain underground, deprived of light, of warmth, and
of the embrace of their loved ones.
This painful reality cannot be ignored, nor should it be forgotten.
Our presence here today is a testament to our belief that humanity is indivisible,
that suffering knows no borders or religions.
We gather not just to share a meal, but to reaffirm our commitment to justice, to
stand with the oppressed, and to work for a day when no child lives in fear, no
mother weeps, and no human is deprived of their freedom and dignity.
We are here because we believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides
us, and that this Holy Landwhere prophets once prayed and generations
dreamedmust be a land of hope and coexistence, not a battleground of division
and destruction.
Thank you to everyone who has come today to be part of this historic moment.
Thank you to those who believe that dialogue is stronger than barriers, and that a
person is defined by their heart, not by their passport or identity.
Let us eat together, talk together, and dream together of a world that is more
humane, more just, and more peaceful.
Welcome, everyone, and Ramadan Kareem!
Jerry Katz, the President of Children of Abraham Project:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Dear every Palestinian who is here today,
Dear every Jew who is here today,
We are all one family,
We are brothers and sisters.
My name is Jerry Katz. I am the president of the Children of Abraham Project. Today's Iftar of Reconciliation is sponsored by the Israel-Palestine branch of the Children of Abraham Project, which is led by Mohamad Jamous. Mohamad is my close friend and brother. I want to thank Mohamad from the bottom of my heart for everything he has done to make this event possible. It was an impossible job, and he did it. Mohamad, you are a true hero, and you will be honored by both the Palestinian and Jewish people for your devotion to ending hatred and bringing peace.
I also want to thank all of the other many organizations who made this event possible. We are part of a broad movement that are doing everything possible to bring Palestinians and Jews together. And to end a war that has lasted for 75 years, and to create a new Holy Land where both Palestinians and Jews can flourish and live in peace and prosperity.
I also want to thank our two special gueststwo former enemies who have a shared vision of a shared future which both Palestinians and Jews hope for and want and need. One is a Palestinian who spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison. The second is a Jewish settler. Both have had a deep and profound transformatory experience. They have both broken through hatred and both understand that we are at a crossroads and that the choice for the Jewish people and the Palestinian people is clear and that both peoples must reject hatred and must come together to seek peace.
Mohamad asked me to tell you about the Children of Abraham Project. The goal of the Children of Abraham project is to bring together people in conflictespecially Jews and Muslims. We began the project in 2018 when we arranged to send an Imam and an Orthodox Rabbi from Jerusalem to go to Ahmedabad, India to live together and work together in an area where 2,000 people had been murdered in communal violence (mostly Hindus murdering Muslims). We also tried to send Jews and Muslims to work together in the Rohingya Muslim refugees camp in Bangladesh for survivors of the mass murder of Muslim Rohingyas who lived in Myanmar. Since that time, we have sent Jews and Muslims to work together in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Our most recent focus has been in Ethiopiaa country whose tragedy is similar to the tragedy which exists here in the holy land.
In Ethiopia, the Oromo and Amhara tribes are in bitter conflict, and the role of the Children of Abraham Project has been to take in the orphan children of both the Amhara and Oromo tribes whose parents have been burned aliveyes, parents have been burned alive. leaving orphans living on the street.
When we ask one tribe why they are murdering people from another tribe, why they are killing unarmed people and burning them alive, they answer, "Because they did evil to us" When we speak to their enemy, the other tribe, and we ask them why they are killing unarmed people and burning them alive, they answer "Because they did evil to us".
The most important lesson we have learned at the Children of Abraham project is that murdering and burning people alive who have done evil to you will lead not to victory but to your own death and destruction. We have learned that evil only brings more evil. More evil brings a future of misery and unhappiness.
We are at a crossroads in Israel and Palestine
Our two peoplesthe Jews and the Palestinians - both of whom believe in and pray to the same God - and both of whom live in the Holy Landare at war, and have been at war for 75 years. Some Jews are waging war because they believe that they can drive out the Palestinians from the Holy Land so that the Holy Land will be all Jewish. At the same time, some Palestinians believe that they can drive out the Jews from the Holy Land so that the Holy Land will be all Palestinian. The reality isa reality which is hard for many Jews and many Palestinians to acceptis that, as Mohamad Jamous, the leader of our Project says: "The Palestinians are not going anywhere, and the Jews are not going anywhere. We have to learn to stop hating each other and learn to live in peace."
After 75 years of war, neither the Jewish people nor the Palestinian people have clean hands. Both sides have done evil to each other. But even though we have done evil and have been at war with each other for 75 years, there is another lesson to be learned: it is not inevitable that we must continue to do evil to each other and to be at war with each other for another 75 years.
But how is it possible for human beings - Jews and Palestinians - who have done evil not to continue to do evil but instead to do good?
Our sages, Imams and Rabbis, tell us that even though humans do evil, that there is something deeper than evil.
Ibn Arabi, perhaps the greatest Islamic Philosophera contemporary of Maimonidessays in the Meccan Revelations that our deepest nature is holiness. But if holiness is our deepest nature, why is it so difficult to stop doing evil to each other and stop hating each other?
The deepest reality is the reality of a common holiness that unites Jews and Muslims, and which unites all people everywhere. Every personand every Jew and Muslimknows this, but this deep knowledge is easily forgotten. Therefore, in Judaism Zachar and in Islam Zikhrto remember our deep holy natureis a central term. By remembering who we are, we can break through to see the holiness of the other.
When the disciples of Rabbi Wolfe of Zbarazh, a follower of the Maggid of Mesrich, came to him and asked the Rabbi to exclude all those who had done evil, he responded, "Do you think that I love them any less than I love you?"
The Jewish and Palestinian peoples are at a crossroads. We can continue to go into the direction of hatred and destroy ourselves or we can follow our Jewish and Islamic sages and try to break through to Holiness which is our true and deepest nature.
Both Palestinians and Jews have powerful narratives of oppression and of the evil that the other has done. The two narratives, even if both are completely true, can never on their own end hatred and bring the peace that both Palestinians and Jews want and need. Instead, our two narratives of oppression, even if true, lead only to more hatred and more war. And will ultimately result in the mutual destruction of both Jews and Palestinians.
Is there a way forward.? We believe that 1000 Jews and Palestinians here today1000 Jews and Palestinians led by two former enemiesby our coming togetherhas shown us that a way forward exists and is possible and is happening today right in front of us. The way forward is to end hatred, stop doing evil, begin doing good, seeing our common humanity and breaking through to a vision of the deep holiness which both Palestinians and Jews share.
There is no other way forward. The reality is that the advocates of violence (both in the Islamic and Jewish communities) have no future to offer either Jews or Palestinians. They bring only misery to both Jews and Palestinians and can never bring the peaceful future that both peoples want and need.
Let me say now a few final words:
Dear every Palestinian here today,
Dear every Jew here today,
You have accomplished what no one has accomplished:
You have given people hope.
You have shown us that peace is possible.
You have shown both the Palestinian and Jewish people that we are not slaves of the past,
That we are not slaves of the evil that our peoples have done to each other,
That we are not slaves of our narratives of oppression,
That we are not doomed to repeat 75 years of war,
But that we can break through evil and hatred and reach the deepest part of our heart,
That we can break through to our true self and on the basis of breaking through to our deepest self se can build a new world in the holy land for both peoples.
The thousand Jews and Palestinians who are here today are the symbol of all of the hopes and aspirations of all of the people of Palestine and Israel.
All of the people of Palestine and Israelthrough the newspapers and other mediawill soon know you were here. They will see a face-to-face meeting where 1000 people have renounced hatred and violence.
All of Israel and Palestine will see that it is possible to break through the cycle of war and hatred.
Because you have done this, all of Palestine and Israel will know that there is a vision of a new and better future which is possible for both peoples in the Holy Land.
And when they see this new vision, the people of Palestine and Israel will want to be part of this vision of a new holy land - a vision which they will now see as possible.
Today you have taught us that a good future, a good new holy land is possible and that we can put hatred and war behind us and enter a world of peace and prosperity in which both peopleour brothers and sisterscan flourish.
Read reports of the event on Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, and Debate for Peace.
Haaretz (Hebrew): https://www.haaretz.co.il/food/2025-03-24/ty-article-magazine/.premium/00000195-b324-debb-a5b5-b37796fb0000?gift=f23ba5a7b8ec40e481126c3d50ab9216
Jerusalem Post (English): https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-848174
Debate for Peace (English): https://debateforpeace.org/2025/03/27/children-of-abraham-holds-largest-interfaith-iftar-in-the-holy-land-for-hundreds-of-israelis-and-palestinians-of-all-religious-backgrounds/
On March 25, 2025, over 900 Jews and Muslims came together in the midst of war to Palestine to hold an Iftar Meal of Reconciliation. The participants came to the event despite great dangers, - and especially great dangers to the Palestinians who hosted the event in Palestine. The spiritual leaders of the event were two former enemiesa Palestinian with blood on his hands who spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison, and a Jewish settlerboth of whom had a profound experience which transformed their consciousness. Both woke up and saw that hatred based on their respective narratives of oppression - the evil that one people had done to the otherwas a dead end and that the advocates of violence - both Hamas and the Jewish Settler movement - had no future to offer either Jews or Palestinians other than death and destruction.
The Iftar of Reconciliation was held in Palestine and not in Israel to show that there were Palestinians who were readydespite great pressure by the enemies of peace in Palestineto reach out the hand of peace to Jews. The dangers to the 900 Jewish and Palestinians who traveled to the venue of the Iftar were real. When the participants got on the bus at various pickup spots in Palestine and Israel to be transported to the Iftar, they were not informed of their exact destination. They were not informed of their destination because of a concern that if the destination were made public, the venue of the Iftar could be attacked by Hamas or Jewish Settlers.
The participants at the Iftar wanted to demonstrate to the Palestinian and Jewish peoples that it was possible for the two peoples to stop hating each other because the Jews and Palestiians at the Iftar had stopped hating each other. and that it was possible for the two peoples to transcend their two narratives of oppression - which was at the center of their 75-year-long conflictbecause the Jews and Palestinians present at the Iftar had themselves transcended the two narratives of oppression and were creating a third joint narrative based on mutual recognition, and a shared desire for peace. The participants wanted to demonstrate that a new world for the Holy Land was possible because they themselves, at the Iftar of Reconciliation, had created a living model of the new world which they wanted to see.
The following are speeches made at the event:
Mohamad Jamous, the head of Israel-Palestine branch of Children of Abraham Project:
On November 15, 1990, I was born.
But today, I am born again , I am reborn with all of you,
in this blessed gathering, where we come together at one table, beyond borders and
walls,
with open hearts and souls yearning for peace.
But as we sit here together in feeling of love and unity, we cannot ignore the
suffering around us.
At this very moment, while we share this meal, children are dying in Gaza.
Families are being torn apart, and dreams are buried beneath the rubble.
At the same time, hostages remain underground, deprived of light, of warmth, and
of the embrace of their loved ones.
This painful reality cannot be ignored, nor should it be forgotten.
Our presence here today is a testament to our belief that humanity is indivisible,
that suffering knows no borders or religions.
We gather not just to share a meal, but to reaffirm our commitment to justice, to
stand with the oppressed, and to work for a day when no child lives in fear, no
mother weeps, and no human is deprived of their freedom and dignity.
We are here because we believe that what unites us is far greater than what divides
us, and that this Holy Landwhere prophets once prayed and generations
dreamedmust be a land of hope and coexistence, not a battleground of division
and destruction.
Thank you to everyone who has come today to be part of this historic moment.
Thank you to those who believe that dialogue is stronger than barriers, and that a
person is defined by their heart, not by their passport or identity.
Let us eat together, talk together, and dream together of a world that is more
humane, more just, and more peaceful.
Welcome, everyone, and Ramadan Kareem!
Jerry Katz, the President of Children of Abraham Project:
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Dear every Palestinian who is here today,
Dear every Jew who is here today,
We are all one family,
We are brothers and sisters.
My name is Jerry Katz. I am the president of the Children of Abraham Project. Today's Iftar of Reconciliation is sponsored by the Israel-Palestine branch of the Children of Abraham Project, which is led by Mohamad Jamous. Mohamad is my close friend and brother. I want to thank Mohamad from the bottom of my heart for everything he has done to make this event possible. It was an impossible job, and he did it. Mohamad, you are a true hero, and you will be honored by both the Palestinian and Jewish people for your devotion to ending hatred and bringing peace.
I also want to thank all of the other many organizations who made this event possible. We are part of a broad movement that are doing everything possible to bring Palestinians and Jews together. And to end a war that has lasted for 75 years, and to create a new Holy Land where both Palestinians and Jews can flourish and live in peace and prosperity.
I also want to thank our two special gueststwo former enemies who have a shared vision of a shared future which both Palestinians and Jews hope for and want and need. One is a Palestinian who spent more than a decade in an Israeli prison. The second is a Jewish settler. Both have had a deep and profound transformatory experience. They have both broken through hatred and both understand that we are at a crossroads and that the choice for the Jewish people and the Palestinian people is clear and that both peoples must reject hatred and must come together to seek peace.
Mohamad asked me to tell you about the Children of Abraham Project. The goal of the Children of Abraham project is to bring together people in conflictespecially Jews and Muslims. We began the project in 2018 when we arranged to send an Imam and an Orthodox Rabbi from Jerusalem to go to Ahmedabad, India to live together and work together in an area where 2,000 people had been murdered in communal violence (mostly Hindus murdering Muslims). We also tried to send Jews and Muslims to work together in the Rohingya Muslim refugees camp in Bangladesh for survivors of the mass murder of Muslim Rohingyas who lived in Myanmar. Since that time, we have sent Jews and Muslims to work together in Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia. Our most recent focus has been in Ethiopiaa country whose tragedy is similar to the tragedy which exists here in the holy land.
In Ethiopia, the Oromo and Amhara tribes are in bitter conflict, and the role of the Children of Abraham Project has been to take in the orphan children of both the Amhara and Oromo tribes whose parents have been burned aliveyes, parents have been burned alive. leaving orphans living on the street.
When we ask one tribe why they are murdering people from another tribe, why they are killing unarmed people and burning them alive, they answer, "Because they did evil to us" When we speak to their enemy, the other tribe, and we ask them why they are killing unarmed people and burning them alive, they answer "Because they did evil to us".
The most important lesson we have learned at the Children of Abraham project is that murdering and burning people alive who have done evil to you will lead not to victory but to your own death and destruction. We have learned that evil only brings more evil. More evil brings a future of misery and unhappiness.
We are at a crossroads in Israel and Palestine
Our two peoplesthe Jews and the Palestinians - both of whom believe in and pray to the same God - and both of whom live in the Holy Landare at war, and have been at war for 75 years. Some Jews are waging war because they believe that they can drive out the Palestinians from the Holy Land so that the Holy Land will be all Jewish. At the same time, some Palestinians believe that they can drive out the Jews from the Holy Land so that the Holy Land will be all Palestinian. The reality isa reality which is hard for many Jews and many Palestinians to acceptis that, as Mohamad Jamous, the leader of our Project says: "The Palestinians are not going anywhere, and the Jews are not going anywhere. We have to learn to stop hating each other and learn to live in peace."
After 75 years of war, neither the Jewish people nor the Palestinian people have clean hands. Both sides have done evil to each other. But even though we have done evil and have been at war with each other for 75 years, there is another lesson to be learned: it is not inevitable that we must continue to do evil to each other and to be at war with each other for another 75 years.
But how is it possible for human beings - Jews and Palestinians - who have done evil not to continue to do evil but instead to do good?
Our sages, Imams and Rabbis, tell us that even though humans do evil, that there is something deeper than evil.
Ibn Arabi, perhaps the greatest Islamic Philosophera contemporary of Maimonidessays in the Meccan Revelations that our deepest nature is holiness. But if holiness is our deepest nature, why is it so difficult to stop doing evil to each other and stop hating each other?
The deepest reality is the reality of a common holiness that unites Jews and Muslims, and which unites all people everywhere. Every personand every Jew and Muslimknows this, but this deep knowledge is easily forgotten. Therefore, in Judaism Zachar and in Islam Zikhrto remember our deep holy natureis a central term. By remembering who we are, we can break through to see the holiness of the other.
When the disciples of Rabbi Wolfe of Zbarazh, a follower of the Maggid of Mesrich, came to him and asked the Rabbi to exclude all those who had done evil, he responded, "Do you think that I love them any less than I love you?"
The Jewish and Palestinian peoples are at a crossroads. We can continue to go into the direction of hatred and destroy ourselves or we can follow our Jewish and Islamic sages and try to break through to Holiness which is our true and deepest nature.
Both Palestinians and Jews have powerful narratives of oppression and of the evil that the other has done. The two narratives, even if both are completely true, can never on their own end hatred and bring the peace that both Palestinians and Jews want and need. Instead, our two narratives of oppression, even if true, lead only to more hatred and more war. And will ultimately result in the mutual destruction of both Jews and Palestinians.
Is there a way forward.? We believe that 1000 Jews and Palestinians here today1000 Jews and Palestinians led by two former enemiesby our coming togetherhas shown us that a way forward exists and is possible and is happening today right in front of us. The way forward is to end hatred, stop doing evil, begin doing good, seeing our common humanity and breaking through to a vision of the deep holiness which both Palestinians and Jews share.
There is no other way forward. The reality is that the advocates of violence (both in the Islamic and Jewish communities) have no future to offer either Jews or Palestinians. They bring only misery to both Jews and Palestinians and can never bring the peaceful future that both peoples want and need.
Let me say now a few final words:
Dear every Palestinian here today,
Dear every Jew here today,
You have accomplished what no one has accomplished:
You have given people hope.
You have shown us that peace is possible.
You have shown both the Palestinian and Jewish people that we are not slaves of the past,
That we are not slaves of the evil that our peoples have done to each other,
That we are not slaves of our narratives of oppression,
That we are not doomed to repeat 75 years of war,
But that we can break through evil and hatred and reach the deepest part of our heart,
That we can break through to our true self and on the basis of breaking through to our deepest self se can build a new world in the holy land for both peoples.
The thousand Jews and Palestinians who are here today are the symbol of all of the hopes and aspirations of all of the people of Palestine and Israel.
All of the people of Palestine and Israelthrough the newspapers and other mediawill soon know you were here. They will see a face-to-face meeting where 1000 people have renounced hatred and violence.
All of Israel and Palestine will see that it is possible to break through the cycle of war and hatred.
Because you have done this, all of Palestine and Israel will know that there is a vision of a new and better future which is possible for both peoples in the Holy Land.
And when they see this new vision, the people of Palestine and Israel will want to be part of this vision of a new holy land - a vision which they will now see as possible.
Today you have taught us that a good future, a good new holy land is possible and that we can put hatred and war behind us and enter a world of peace and prosperity in which both peopleour brothers and sisterscan flourish.