In Brooklyn, we get along.
Jews, Christians and Muslims joined Buddhists, Rastafarians, atheists and agnostics for a peace march in Park Slope, making stops at an Islamic school, a church and a temple to spread the good word.
The Sixth Annual Children of Abraham Peace Walk – sponsored by a large bloc of local religious institutions – drew a cavalcade of pacifists of all ages, who pounded the pavement with homemade banners in an effort to enlighten, and be enlightened, in the world’s greatest metropolis.
Before beginning their trek, the group viewed a screening of the film, “Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain” at Al−Noor School, 675 4th Avenue. The movie depicts an era in Spain, about a 1,000 years ago, when Jews, Muslims and Christians lived in harmony.
The group continued to Church of Gethsemane, 1012 8th Avenue, a Presbyterian congregation founded by former prisoners, which shares the space with the progressive Jewish synagogue Kolot Chayeinu and a Vietnamese Buddhist assembly, where walkers participated in a chanting session.
Next on the tour was a stop at Congregation Beth Elohim⁄Garfield Temple, 8th Avenue and Garfield Place, built at the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, where Rabbi Andy Bachman acquainted marchers with Jewish rites and offered them food for thought by, reportedly, asking, “Could the people praying here, then, have imagined our president today?”
