Just after Qatar and Iran pledged $100 million to aid the struggling Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, I was on a Qatar Airways flight, staring out into the Saudi Arabian sky. A Western rabbi traveling to Qatar is hardly news. What was making headline news in the Arab world this year was the fact that — due to the groundbreaking work of Congregation B’nai Jeshurun’s Rabbi Rolando Matalon, Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, the Jewish Theological Seminary’s Rabbi Burton Vizotsky and Mark Cohen from Princeton University — rabbis from Israel were asked to speak at the Conference on Religious Dialogue in Doha.

While I was flying over Mecca, Rabbi Yehuda Mirsky (Orthodox-Jerusalem) and Rabbi David Lazar (Conservative-Tel Aviv) were driving to Amman to catch a plane to Doha. Israeli rabbis headed for an inter-religious conference in a Wahabi Muslim land. That’s a first.

Wearing a yarmulke in Doha elicits a wide range of responses. As I walked through the airport, a man made the deep-throat rattling sounds that alerted me to a potential spit incident. I walked a bit faster.

But there were also surprises. A secretary from the Venezuelan embassy saw me in the hotel lobby and said, “I am so happy to see you! I have not seen a Jew in two years!” She told me that her mother now lives in Miami, and all her friends are Jewish. And a Palestinian man from Beirut greeted me in Hebrew with a “Shalom Alecheim. Hashem Sheli Ahmed” — words he had learned from his father, who had Jewish friends in Haifa before he fled.

What can be accomplished in a religious dialogue? Besides many dry speeches from some of the 130 Muslims, Christians and Jews, there were unexpected moments. First, the lead organizer from Qatar University, the dean of Islamic law, was a woman. Fully covered in a long-sleeved black dress and traditional headscarf, she moderated the opening panel with great civility and a touch of humor; it was refreshing to be in the Muslim world and see her face on the Jumbotron behind the dais.

Another highlight came during the session moderated by Rabbi Mirsky. Afterward, a Palestinian participant asked when the “genocide” against his people would end. Rabbi Mirsky tried to clarify the question, but the man yelled out, in English, “There is no Israel. It is Palestine! It has always been Palestine! Israel is the name of a prophet! The country is Palestine!” The rabbi tried to raise the fact that there were many names, “the Romans called it Terra Sancta,” he remarked, but he was interrupted again. “It is Palestine! There is no Israel!” A number of Palestinians and sympathizers erupted in applause.

It wasn’t until one of our Qatari hosts intervened that I could breathe again. “We are not here to discuss this matter,” he said. “This is a conference on religious dialogue.”

But other exchanges did help us to understand one another. Rabbi Matalon’s speech on the religious response to globalization was widely praised. I was asked to speak on environmental issues, and even the Palestinian who responded with a laundry list of Israel’s environmental crimes was willing to recognize that the only peaceful future for Israel and a potential Palestinian state is dependent on agreements on water and close cooperation on other environmental issues. In the hallway we shared a cup of coffee.

Rabbi Fuchs-Kreimer ended the conference with an inspiring conversation with a Saudi woman professor who directs a center for domestic violence. In these moments of authentic dialogue, we went beyond formalities and met one another with open hearts.

What did I learn from traveling to Qatar? It occurred to me that Doha may be the new Geneva. The emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, rules a country whose citizens are devout and conservative Muslims, but he has already shown an interest in opening up to the wider world and acting as a bridge builder between rivals. His interest in religious dialogue, supported by the foreign minister, and by the emir’s pioneering wife, Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, is part of a wider strategy of engagement with the outside world that includes investment in American universities and investment in environmentally friendly technology. These advances have garnered criticism from those in the Arab world that despise the West.

On the last day of my stay in Qatar, after a grueling squash match with a young Pakistani Muslim scholar, I ran down to the beach by our hotel and jumped into the Gulf. Looking out over the oil rigs in the distance, treading water, I felt that perhaps Qatar will not only be the place where liquefied natural gas is mined and major business deals are inked. Perhaps this may be the place where a wealth of natural resources will be translated into wealth of human advancement — educationally and environmentally. If the emir continues on his path to openness, there is hope that Qatar will be the place where enemies meet and peace treaties are signed. Inshallah. n

Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner directs the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary in Manhattan.

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