Israeli Sephardic Chief Rabbi Rav Dovid Yosef met with leading figures from Israel’s major faith communities at the Druze “Emergency Center” established by Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif in the village of Julis in the Galilee, a spokesperson for the Chief Rabbinate said.
“We have a blood covenant with the Druze community, and the state must do everything to protect the Druze wherever they are,” Rav Yosef said.
Reports indicate that roughly 780,000 Druze live in Syria’s Sweida province, which has been the scene of severe violence over the past two months. About 1,800 Druze have been killed there, including some by forces loyal to the Syrian government, according to those accounts.
“Here sit the leaders of religions from around the world, and every religion worthy of this name is obligated to sanctify life,” Rav Yosef also said. “We must raise a clear and unequivocal voice: we choose life.”
He also called on fellow religious leaders to speak out for the release of the hostages held in Gaza.
The gathering drew several Muslim clerics and Christian leaders, among them Greek Orthodox Patriarch Theophilus III.
“The visit of Rishon LeZion Rabbi Dovid Yosef, together with the heads of the Christian communities and Muslim religious leaders, and their solidarity with the Druze community, is an explicit statement of light against darkness, of good against evil,” Tarif said according to the Chief Rabbinate statement.
“This solidarity is encouraging and serves as a light at the end of the tunnel in the face of the evil and inhumanity that our Druze brothers in Syria have experienced during attempts at annihilation,” he adds.
{Matzav.com Israel}
