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Community gathers for interfaith hope vigil in Bethlehem

August 16, 2019

Ending violence and hate was the theme of a community interfaith vigil Thursday at the Lehigh Dialogue Center in Bethlehem.

About 50 residents of diverse races and religions attended the "Vigil for Healing and Hope" organized by the center in response to the recent mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas.

After a moment of silence for the shooting victims, followed by an Islamic prayer for peace, speakers encouraged those present to embrace all races and religions.

"The attacks in Dayton and El Paso shatter our hearts, but should strengthen our resolve to live peacefully together with each other," M. Said Selmanlar, the center's president, said in his welcoming remarks.

Imam Beytullah Colak of Respect Graduate School, a private Islamic institution sharing the same building with the Lehigh Dialogue Center, called for educating children to lead the next generation in understanding and appreciating each other's differences.

"We live in a time when, from our country's highest elected office, people are being called invaders for coming here to escape persecution," said the Rev. Larry Pickens, ecumenical director for the Lehigh Conference of Churches. "We need to become proactive about how we make policies, about how we transform our communities, about how we teach our young people to find peaceful alternatives to violence."

Calling the vigil the beginning of "a time of purposeful wakefulness," Walter Wagner, Respect Graduate School president, urged people to remember each other's basic humanity. Wagner challenged those present to help change the mentality of hate that so often leads to violence.

"The only way to ever really end hatred is to change ourselves, then inspire change in our families, then in our neighborhoods and hope it keeps expanding," U.S. Rep. Susan Wild said. "Whatever our differences are, we need to be able to talk about them, to listen and understand viewpoints different from our own."

Wild also voiced disappointment at Israel's decision Thursday to bar U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota — the first Muslim women elected to Congress — from entering the country. (On Friday, Israel said Tlaib could enter on humanitarian grounds to see her grandmother if she promised not to promote a boycott of Israel.)

Other speakers included Lehigh County Executive Phil Armstrong, Dr. Hasshan Batts of Promise Neighborhoods of the Lehigh Valley, Aaron Gorodzinsky of the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley, the Rev. Maria Tjeltveit of Episcopal Church of the Mediator in Allentown and the Rev. Andrew Kruger of Trinity Episcopal Church in New Jersey.

In closing the ceremony, Rabbi Michael Singer of Brith Sholom in Bethlehem, prayed, "Give us the resolve to act now, to tolerate no more the desecration of life to the madness of hate."