Port Resident Promotes Interfaith Understanding Through Music

Groups of cantors gathering to perform Jewish liturgical music in a synagogue is not at all uncommon. But through the initiative of a long-time Port Washington resident, one group of cantors had the most unusual opportunity to present a program of Jewish music in a church in Rome.

On Nov. 16, 20 cantors from across the United States sang Jewish prayers and sacred music in the basilica of Rome's Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. Called "Through God's Ears," this event was spearheaded by Port's Gunther Lawrence, the executive director of the Interreligious Information Center, a Port Washington organization founded in 1996 to advance understanding among different religions, particularly among Catholics and Jews. The center also seeks to raise awareness of the Holocaust among Catholics, Lawrence said.

The idea of presenting Jewish music in a Catholic church began to germinate for Lawrence about five years ago. Having participated in many talks on interfaith relations over the years, "I thought that music might reach people in other ways than were discussions," he said.

He reached out to an old friend and colleague, William Cardinal Keeler, emeritus archbishop of Baltimore, and, significantly, also the cardinal priest of the Roman church where the concert ultimately took place. Keeler had been instrumental in helping Lawrence place a Yom Hashoah menorah in the garden of North American College, a seminary in the Vatican (a Yom Hashoah menorah has six branches to commemorate the 6 million Jews lost in the Holocaust).

Lawrence then reached out a bit closer to home, to Cantor Claire Franco of Port Washington's . According to Lawrence "she loved the idea and poured her energies in the project, not only recruiting the cantors from congregations coast to coast, but helping to build financial support for the project." Franco planned the concert program in collaboration with her colleagues.

A San Francisco cantor involved a film crew from that city. So, footage now exists of the concert. The plan is to incorporate that footage into a film on Catholic-Jewish relations.

There may be more concerts in store for the Interreligious Information Center. Lawrence said that following the Nov. 16 concert, he's received inquiries from churches throughout the country that wish to bring Jewish music to their congregants. He's even heard from London's Westminster Abbey and has been in talks with Muslim leaders about bringing the cantors concerts to a mosque.

A brief video of the Nov. 16 concert is available online, and the link is courtesy of JTA, the Global News Service of the Jewish People.