The intrafaith conversation is not a necessity for Christians alone. Divisiveness occurs in most, if not all, all religions. I once asked a Jewish friend to name the biggest issue that divides Jews, and she immediately replied, “Israel.”
So I was intrigued by the title of this article on the GetReligion website: “American and Israeli Religious Infighting: Could It Destroy the World’s Lone Jewish State?”
Surveys contrasting the political and religious views of American and Israeli Jews are produced with such frequency as to make them a polling industry staple. In recent years – meaning the past decade or so – the surveys have generally shared the same oy vey iz mir (Yiddish for “woe is me”) attitude toward their findings, which consistently show widening differences between the world’s two largest Jewish communities.
Compare, for example, the vast differences on moral and cultural issues between the institutionally liberal American Episcopal Church and the traditionalist Nigerian Anglican church leadership. That, despite both national churches belonging (at this moment in time) to the same worldwide Anglican Communion.
Why should the Jewish world be any different? It’s like the old real estate cliche, location – meaning local history and circumstances – is everything.
Religion is just not the broad intra-faith connector some would like it to be. Often, if fact, it serves to fuel intra-faith rivalries rooted in strongly held theological differences.
Judaism even has a term for it; sinat chinam, Hebrew for, translating loosely, a “senseless hatred” that divides Jews and can even lead to their self-destruction. Intra-faith Jewish differences, however, take on an added layer of global importance because of the possible geopolitical consequences they hold for the always percolating Middle East.
You can read the rest of the article here.
that on MSNBC’s The Last Word, 
issues of racism, misogyny, treatment of the most vulnerable, authoritarian political leadership, and the “regular purveying of falsehoods and consistent lying by the nation’s highest leaders,” I was struck by what was not included. There was no mention of respect and support for members of the LGBTQ community. I suspect that it was a line that some signatories could not cross. I did hear that some of the speakers at the worship service before the vigil did affirm our LGBTQ neighbors and denounced homophobia from the pulpit. 
The Interfaith Pastor 