Paolo Ferrara, a 76-year-old retired heart surgeon and Culture Councillor of the Jewish Community of Naples, is president of the newly reconstituted Naples and Campania chapter of the Jewish-Christian Friendship. The initiative is based on three fundamental principles, he explained: an absence of prejudice; a readiness to acknowledge and remain receptive to inspiration from the other; and a thorough examination of the facts, with the constant aim of finding common ground.
The Jewish Community and its president, Lydia Schapirer, launched the initiative with the “blessing” of Roberta Ascarelli, president of the Federation of Jewish-Christian Friendships in Italy and a Naples native.
Ferrara said the organization is being established “with a strong desire to take action and play a leading role in society, which is why it has been constituted as a Third Sector Entity.”
While there is considerable disappointment and a sense of isolation within the Jewish community, these feelings should not deter anyone. On the contrary, it should serve as an incentive to “seek different avenues for dialogue while selecting who should be involved in that dialogue,” he says.
Such selectivity is mainly necessary “to keep extremists at a distance because any effort to engage with an extremist, regardless of which side they are on, inevitably leads to the failure of the endeavor.”
What is the main objective? Building relationships and strengthening tikkun olam, or the repair of the world, which, according to Ferrara, brings Jews and Christians together “beyond insurmountable theological differences.”