June 25 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm

A Part of World Unity Week

With Archimandrite Abdullah Julilie, Anat Lev Or, Sheikh Zuhair Dabei, and Sheikh Hassan Tarif, Hosted by Sheikh Ghassan Manasra & David Less

June’s second Unity Prayer was a featured presentation as part of World Unity Week, a week of online events held by Unity Earth, UNIFY, UPLIFT, and many other interfaith and peace nonprofits. Video from the many programs are available on their Facebook Page.  Big thanks to World Unity Week for all their work!

The Abrahamic Reunion’s Sheikh Ghassan Manasra and David Less were joined by Anat Lev Or in Tel Aviv, Archimandrite Julilie in Ramallah, Sheikh Hasan Tarif the son of Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, and Sheikh Zuhair Dabei in Rafidia, Palestine for 40 minutes of prayer.

Here are some quotes from the leader’s prayers, click here to watch the full video on our website.

“The pandemic tries to change all our cultures, the pandemic reminds us that we are still human beings and still people and we need to be very humble and honest and great people to remember who we are…this small virus reminds us that we are still a small creation in this great universe! We pray for God to send us healing and to heal all of us, all the countries all around the world without border or barriers between us because in the end we are all still human beings, Amen.” 

– Sheikh Hassan Tarif

“I think just to add to what Sheikh Hassan just said, many people have spoken to me about a feeling of helplessness, “what can we do?”, and there even is a creeping doubt about the effectiveness of prayer. But prayer really means connection, connection with God, connection with human beings, and as we go deeper into the heart we realize connecting with human beings in kindness, in tolerance, is connecting with God. There is no separation in reality, it’s a veil that exists within our minds and covers our heart.

So here we are today, able to do something that makes us really aware of being a human being. And what is this word human? Human or HU, the first part of the word is a keyword that means what? It means God. And Manus is from the Sanskrit word manus it means mind so we are the God-mind. And we need to connect we need to pray we need to remember we need to be tolerant and that will really elevate not just our own heart and soul but all those to whom we meet and come in contact with.  

The Abrahamic Reunion was founded just for that very reason, to bring people together. Here we are, in Israel, in Palestine, with wonderful speakers of all the faiths coming together with a common cause and the cause as Sheikh Hassan said is love and is harmony and is peace and is beauty.”  

– David Less

“This very serious pandemic gathers all of us together because we all need to be one unity to fight this pandemic. We suffer from this pandemic as Palestinians and as part of the Arab nation and we are the Arab nation don’t’ feel any hate or fear from other nations, it’s not true, we need to be one nation, the children of God, and it’s very important for us to tell you about our situation, we suffer from many dimensions, occupation especially and other things, and we pray that we will be free and the pandemic will go.

We pray for God to bring the independent autonomous state, we don’t need this occupation, because we believe in peace we need to live in peace with all the countries around us.”

– Archimandrite Julilie

“Very important as human being, brothers and sisters, for us to come to be with another, understand each other, and work from the depth of our heart, not from the external side. If we look for our heart, the internal heart and external heart, we can bring all the people to be together, and we can be one family, we can feel it, and we can live the peace and harmony and beauty and taste and feel the beauty in all of this world.”

– Anat Lev Or

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“It’s not an interfaith meeting, it’s a family meeting, because we are all branches from this big tree. We look at the human being as a human being even if he belongs to the national side, the political side, we came to be in very good connection with the people and with God.”

“It’s not only to come to pray together and to say we need to be together, we need to act and to bring all these things and to be true and to be very strong as one family. Like I believe in peace, I also need to believe when you need pills or medicine I will give you and food and everything.”

“I hope the Abrahamic Reunion will create more branches and more chapters in every place all around the world to help the people to come to be together and to know one another, and really I am proud of the AR.”

– Sheikh Zuhair Dabei

David Less invited everyone to share a minute of wishing each other peace by scrolling through and sending peace to each person they saw on Zoom.

“What I’d like to do is just take 60 seconds and look at each other with prayer. Prayer for healing, prayer for protection, just for 60 seconds part of World Unity Week we’re creating a connection and that means that we really need to look at each other connect with each other and pray for each other whether you know this person or not this is what we can do.”

“What’s really contagious is love and peace, if we let it be, it’s much stronger than any virus. As we are loving, as we are peaceful, the atmosphere spreads to those around us, and spreads to those around them.”

– David Less

“Your prayers entered to our hearts, and entered to us, your prayers are us! You and we—the prayer is here with us, and we need all the world to be together, to understand, and to love. Thank you – salaam, shalom, peace, pace.”

– Sheikh Ghassan Manasra

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Bios

Archimandrite Abdullah Julilie

Archimandrite Julilie was born in Italy and grew up in the Arab world, doing is undergraduate in Lebanon where he joined the Arab-identity Greek Melkite Catholic Church based in Damascus. He worked with the Palestinian Students’ Union in Italy, continuing to work under the Palestinian umbrella, before moving to Jordan, then to Italy as spokesmerson for the Palestinian community in the province of Tuscany. Six years ago he returned to Palestine and is currently the head of the Greek Catholic Patriacrhate of Jerusalem.

Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif

Shaykh Mowafaq Tarīf is the current spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel. Tarif was born in 1963 in the city of Julis. Since 1753, his family has been leading the Druze community in Mandatory Palestine and then Israel. In 1993, he inherited the position of spiritual leader from his grandfather, Shaykh Amin Tarif.

Anat Lev Or

Anat Lev Or from Israel, is a mother and spiritual teacher and companion for over 30 years. Anat accompanies people in the process of growth and change, as well as businessmen through spiritual, practical, and business aspects.  Anat has been Ghassan Manasra’s partner for 25 years in building projects that are shared by all religions, working as peacemakers and establishing study groups such as a program for teachers and school executives from all religions, Muslims, Christians, and Jews. She helps organized also family encounters so different religious groups can recognize one another and that their children will meet and recognize a different culture. She has taught groups the Sufi way through peace and love including poetry, philosophy, etc.

Rabbi Dr. Doron Donino

Rabbi Dr. Doron Danino, 50, is married to Hila and has four children. Born in Jaffa, now a resident of the Galilee, he is a researcher of Sephardic identity and North African Jewry. Rabbi Danino is a member of Rabbinical Council of Tzohar, a Member of the Committee, on behalf of Oxford Research, to examine the state of equality in Israeli society and is currently Senior Advisor for Herbert C Kelman Ins groups in the CAF.

Sheikh Zuhair Dabei

Sheikh Dabei is the Imam of Qawthar Mosque in Rafidia, Palestine. He’s a figure of enlightened thought, originality, and tradition who is an authentic cultural pillar with revolutionary thought and rhetoric. He is one of the greatest advocates of coexistence and peace, and has many articles and books on the topic.

David Less

Abrahamic Reunion US Board Chair

David Less is a global teacher of meditation and interfaith dialog of over forty years. For over a decade he was the Global Dean of the Universal Worship, an organization in over thirty countries,that honors the commonality in all religions and appreciates and respects the differences. He started promoting understanding rather than blame as a path to peace in the Holy Land in 2000 and was one of the founders of the Abrahamic Reunion shortly thereafter.  To contact, reach out to info@abrahamicreunion.org

Sheikh Ghassan Manasra

Abrahamic Reunion International Director

Sheikh Ghassan Manasra was one of the Abrahamic Reunion’s Co-Coordinators in the Holy Land until moving to the US in 2015, and has been an active contributing Peacemaker with the AR for more than a decade. He is an ordained Sheikh in the Qadiri Sufi Order in the Holy Land, and son of Sheikh Abdel Salaam Manasra – head of the Qadiri Sufi Order in the Holy Land. He is the founder of Anwar-Il-Salaam, the Lights of Peace Center in Nazareth, and  is Director, Islamic Cultural Center in Nazareth. Ghassan is an expert and lectures in Islam, Islamic history, Sufism, and contemporary Muslim issues  in the Middle East, Europe, and the USA. Ghassan@abrahamicreunion.org