Jewish official underlines role of promoting coexistence at inter-faith conference in Qatar

Claudio Epelman, executive director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, attended the 12th Doha Interfaith Dialogue Conference on behalf of the World Jewish Congress.

At the gathering of representatives from various faiths in Qatar, participants agreed on the importance of the role of religions at the present time for facing challenges in the field of security, peace and protection of societies from intellectual deviation and religious extremism as well as the spread of values of tolerance, respect and co-existence.

Epelman, who traveled to Doha together with fellow Argentines Rabbi Marcelo Polakoff and Omar Abboud, addressed the gathering of 400 Muslims, Christians and Jews in the Gulf emirate and highlighted how in Argentina the close cooperation between representatives of the three main religions made peaceful co-existence possible.

"If we can successfully spread the message in the Middle East that the inter-religious cooperation model that we have in Argentina helps to bring about peace, no doubt we'd live in a different world," Epelman said.

Omar Abboud, a leader of Argentina's Muslim community, said it was important that "the Islamic world continues to send out the signal that dialogue with other religions is necessary in order to isolate radical elements."