“I really have felt a calling to do everything I can to build bridges.” For Rabbi Mark Glickman, that calling extends from Calgary’s diverse faith communities to some of the most difficult divisions facing his own Jewish community. We spoke to Rabbi Glickman, who has served as a rabbi for 36 years, about interfaith relations in Calgary and two upcoming trips through which he hopes to introduce his congregants to both the richness and complexities of life in Israel.
For his entire career, Rabbi Glickman has dreamed of bringing members of his congregation to Israel. This October, he will finally have the opportunity to do so. Many participants will be visiting for the first time, experiencing sacred and historic sites such as the Western Wall and Masada as well as meeting with scholars and others representing various sectors of Israeli society. Rabbi Glickman, who lived in Israel for two years, hopes the trips will let people see behind the veil of Israel’s portrayal in the media. “There’s so much more to Israel,” he explained, pointing to its ancient history and “modern, vibrant life.”
A second and somewhat challenging trip is also taking shape. Next year, Rabbi Glickman hopes to lead what he calls a “Complexities of Zionism” tour. Participants would meet Palestinians living in the West Bank, encounter organizations working to bridge divides between Jews and Palestinians, and speak with young Reform Jews preparing to enter the Israeli military. Most strikingly, Rabbi Glickman hopes to offer an optional opportunity for participants to provide a “protective presence” alongside West Bank Palestinian farmers during their olive harvest. He explained that when Israeli or diaspora Jews stand beside Palestinian villagers facing harassment, “it has a way of de-escalating” a potentially violent situation. Participants would accompany farmers into their fields, help harvest their olives, and discourage violence from
Jewish extremists who vandalize farmers’ homes, destroy their crops, and sometimes violently attack the farmers and their families themselves. This act of service is not without danger, but he nevertheless considers it profoundly important. “As a liberal progressive Jew who loves Israel,” he told us, “I consider this to be sacred work.”
For Rabbi Glickman, this work emerges from both his love of Israel and his Jewish faith. While praising Canadian Jewish organizations for defending Jews against antisemitism and standing up for Israel when attacked, he believes they must also offer “loving criticism of Israel when Israel does things it shouldn’t do.” Rabbi Glickman sees this work to “create a more just world as part of his role as a rabbi as “an inheritor of a prophetic tradition.”
This commitment to bridge-building informs Rabbi Glickman’s interfaith work in Calgary as well. He alluded to religious leaders who will not speak with him because he is Jewish and Zionist, alongside others who will only do so privately. Yet he has also praised Muslim leaders who have reached out despite considerable pressure, participating in programming with his congregation. “Those people are my inspirations,” he told us.
Rabbi Glickman hopes to see these relationships expand, particularly with Muslim and evangelical Christian communities with which there has been less engagement within the CIC. Calgary’s remarkable diversity, he believes, makes the city “rife for this kind of bridge building.” What he sees as critical now is a willingness to engage despite disagreement. “We all need to stop yelling, and we need to sit and start talking,” he told us. For Rabbi Glickman, the goal is not uniformity, but a community capable of disagreeing without losing sight of its shared humanity.
