WJC’s Commissioner for Interreligious Dialogue and Executive Director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, Claudio Epelman and WJC’s Representative at UN Geneva and UNESCO and Coordinator on Countering Antisemitism, Leon Saltiel, participated in the 14th Doha International Conference for Interfaith Dialogue in Qatar. The gathering, held under the patronage of Prime Minister and Minister of Interior H.E. Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa bin Abdulaziz Al Thani, outlined how religious leaders could foster peace, dialogue, and coexistence.
Epelman was a panelist at a plenary session - together with speakers from Algeria, Bosnia, Croatia, India and Lebanon. During his intervention, he stressed the need to fight antisemitism and encouraged people to stand up against all forms of hatred. Moreover, Epelman stated that hate speech is one of the most damaging problems in society noting that “from its mildest to its most extreme forms, hate speech constitutes acts of violence in a society.”
Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik, who serves as the representative of interreligious dialogue in Central America and the Caribbean for the Latin American Jewish Congress, offered concrete examples of interfaith cooperation in Panama, to illustrate the promotion of dialogue and coexistence on the local level.
The conference, held periodically but postponed from 2020 due to COVID, brought together more than 300 representatives of the three monotheistic religions—religious leaders, scholars, academics, and policy-makers from some 70 countries.