27.01.2023

Remembrance Must Lead Us to Action

A Jew, a Muslim and a Christian reading the Tora together: Religions meet at the JCM conference. Foto by: GKE

A community of many faiths: Participants of the JCM Conference in Manado. Foto by: GKE

"Commemorating the crimes of the Holocaust in the Republic of Indonesia is an experience across borders," says Volker Martin Dally, General Secretary of the UEM. He has travelled to Manado on Sulawesi for the "Interreligious Conference on the Dialogue of Jews, Christians and Muslims" (JCM).

The participants of the conference gathered in the Holocaust museum in Indonesia, which had opened last year, near the synagogue of Tondano to commemorate the six million Jewish people who were murdered. The synagogue "Sha'ar Hashamayim" (Gate of Heaven) with Rabbi Yaakov Baruch is currently the only one in Indonesia. It is in the Sephardic tradition of Spanish-Portuguese Judaism and was opened in 2003. Mukti Ali Qusyairi, member of the board of "Nahdlatul Ulama", the largest Muslim organisation in Indonesia, and high-ranking diplomatic representatives from Germany and Austria also spoke at the commemoration ceremony.

UEM General Secretary Dally continues: "Remembering must necessarily lead us to action. It is our common mission to protect the rights of every human being and to talk and act together in community for the good of the individual."

In addition to the meeting in Indonesia, a total of around 100 other representatives of the three religions will meet in Bukoba, Tanzania, and Vallendar, Germany, from 13 to 19 February, to strengthen interreligious relations and to visit their respective festivals together.