MINNEAPOLIS — This Thanksgiving, families across the country are keeping an eye on the Israel-Hamas war and the next steps in a hostage deal.
Here in the Twin Cities, communities are coming together in solidarity with everyone feeling the impact of the conflict.
For more than 50 years, Twin Cities religious leaders have held a unique kind of service on Thanksgiving that brings several faiths together in one place.
"Where you have Jews, Muslims, Christians and people of no faith, deciding that on Thanksgiving morning they are going to gather together,” DeWayne Davis says.
Davis is the lead minister at Plymouth Congregational Church, which is hosting the event this year.
Davis says the event is a symbol of unity in a complicated world that is determined to divide people.
"When you come to this event the only thing that is required of you is a heart of gratitude and probably some good food,” Davis laughs.
Leaders say this message of unity and understanding is especially important this year.
"We need this event this year,” Temple Israel Senior Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman tells the crowd. “I need this event this year.”
Rabbi Zimmerman says it's a difficult time for Jews given the ongoing conflict overseas, but she says it's important to remember so many others are hurting as well.
"We are suffering. We are in pain together, and we have recognized that we will not leave the table,” Zimmerman says.
In a symbolic gesture leaders say they organized the service this year so that Rabbi Zimmerman and Imam Hamdy El-Sawaf from the Islamic Community Center of Minnesota could both speak at the event to symbolize the two faiths involved in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.
"Why are we fighting each other? For a piece of land to live in? Or some resources to capture? To be dominant and the other to be totally oppressed? It is not in the teaching of Judaism. It is not in the teaching of Christianity. It is not in the teaching of Islam,” El-Sawaf said during the service.
Religious leaders at the event say they share a common bond of denouncing hate and violence and their goal is to replace those negative actions with patience and understanding.
"I want peace and I want people to figure out a way to get to that table and work it through,” Davis says.
"If we're talking more, we're trying to get there, than we can put those guns down."
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