St Kilda Shule hosted a special Interfaith gathering followed by a Kiddush after last week’s Shabbat prayer service.
In attendance were representatives from the Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Uniting Church and Baptist faith communities and the Victorian Council of Churches representatives.
Chair of the Victorian Multicultural Commission, Vivien Nguyen, was the guest speaker at the Kiddush.
In the week leading up to this event, the Shule hosted a special visit from Imam Wadood Janud from the Ahmadiyyan Muslim community, whose mosque was vandalised last month.
Following the attack, the Shule’s Senior Rabbi Yaakov Glasman attended a solidarity gathering at their mosque in Langwarrin. While there, he befriended Imam Janud and invited him for a reciprocal visit to the St Kilda Shule, which occurred on Wednesday. Rabbi Glasman also invited Catholic Archbishop Peter Comensoli to ensure representation of the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Additionally, the Shule was delighted to have been joined by State Liberal Leader Matthew Guy and the local member for Caulfield and Deputy Leader David Southwick, whose family has a long history with the St Kilda Shule.
Rabbi Glasman said: “The visit by the Imam and Archbishop, representing the two other Abrahamic faiths, was very well received and we as a Shule community are delighted to be so active in the space of building bridges with other faith communities.
It was also delightful to have welcomed our dedicated local member David Southwick and the Leader of the Opposition, Matthew Guy, a very dear friend of the Jewish community.
Matthew and I both attended the Ahmadiyya community’s solidarity gathering in Langwarrin last month so it was wonderful to have come full circle with Matthew’s visit last week to our Shule alongside Imam Janud who graciously hosted us both at his mosque.”