43 Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders and politicians from Argentina are visiting the Middle East in the framework of a goodwill tour to the region to promote peace and mutual understanding organized by the Latin American Jewish Congress(LAJC), the regional chapter of the World Jewish Congress.
The group met on Thursday in Ramallah with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah who expressed his belief that peace between Israelis and Palestinians was possible.
In the coming days, meetings of the delegation with Israel’s President Shimon Peres, Latin Patriach Fouad Twal, senior officials in Amman, Jordan, and with Pope Francis at the Vatican are also planned.
Visits to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, the Western Wall, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, to Bethlehem and to Petra are also on the agenda.
“We are undertaking a similar journey as Pope Francis will do in May. We want to show that Argentina can export our model of coexistence and interreligious experience to this part of the world,” Claudio Epelman, the LAJC’s Executive Director, said.
Prior to his election as pope, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio as archbishop of Buenos Aires undertook great efforts to build better relations between the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities of his native Argentina.