On Thursday 20 February 2025, the Secretary-General and the Second Secretary were honoured to be present at a very special meeting of the Belgian branch of Jewish-Christian Dialogue, which welcomed the President of the International Council of Christians and Jews, Rabbi David Fox Sandmel. Rabbi Sandmel gave an emotional plea to those in attendance for the continued relevance of Jewish-Christian dialogue in the 21st Century as well as encouraging the ‘radical idea’ of trilateral dialogue with Jews, Christians & Muslims.
The meeting also welcomed a new representative on behalf of the Conference of Roman Catholic bishops, Mgr. Jean Kockerels.
A lecture was delivered by Dr. Dennis Baert on the necessity of Jewish-Christian dialogue to confront the ‘ghosts’ of St. Paul’s theology of the Law to help us move beyond binary representations of these faiths in simplistic terms such as ‘Law vs. Love’. This began with references to the film ‘Ghostbusters’ and concluded with suggests for how both Jews and Christians in the 21st Century could best respond to Paul and his theology.
The President of the Jewish Consistoire, Philippe Markiewicz, welcomed the members to the synagogue and described its historical importance in the life of Brussels and the nation of Belgium.
You can read more about this thought-provoking meeting in this article by Ms. Kelly Keasberry, a columnist for the Nederlands Dagblad.