An interfaith group was among the voices condemning last week’s attack on a Jerusalem yeshiva.
“We – Muslim, Jewish, and Christian – decry the violent attack targeting the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva in Jerusalem this week,” read Saturday’s statement in part signed by Jordanian Prince el Hassan bin Talal, the president emeritus of Religions for Peace; Rabbi Walter Homolka, the principal of the Abraham Geiger College at the University of Potsdam in Germany; and Hans Kung, the president of the Swiss-based Global Ethic Foundation.
The statement called the March 6 killings of eight students by a lone gunman “a tragedy for all people of faith.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, along with condemning the attack in separate statements, urged Israel and the Palestinians not to allow it to derail the peace process.
United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Federations of North America also condemned the murders in a statement released Friday.
“The North American Jewish community mourns those lost in this tragic and senseless attack, and prays for the recovery of those who were injured, many of them critically,” said UJC chair Joe Kanfer. “Such premeditated and planned murders of innocent civilians, in this case those in a school, is nothing but inhumane and barbaric.
“Israelis desire to live in peace and security alongside their neighbors. As always, we stand with Israelis through this tragedy and we share their dream of peaceful coexistence.”
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