Chief Rabbi calls for Europe's 'fragmented societies' to unite

The Chief Rabbi of the UK and Commonwealth has made an impassioned plea for a “new covenant” to help unite Europe’s different “fragmented societies".

Addressing parliament in Strasbourg, Jonathan Sacks said this was all the more important at a time when Europe finds itself in the “midst of a financial crisis and economic recession.”

He said that a covenant does not mean a ‘contract” in the traditional sense but, rather, an “open-ended arena of cooperation” which he likened to a marriage.

“Covenant says to each of us: we must respect others, if we expect others to respect us; we must honour the freedom of others if they are to honour ours.

"Europe needs a new covenant and the time to begin it is now,” he said.

His speech to MEPs was one of the highlights of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, an event heavily promoted by president Hans-Gert Pöttering, who Sacks praised as a "visionary, wise and deeply humane."

Sacks, who was given a standing ovation, stressed that while dialogue between different cultural groups was important it was not always sufficient to bridge differences.

“Dialogue may not be quite enough. You see, between the late 18th century and 1933 there was dialogue between Jews and Germans, just as there was dialogue and even friendship between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, or between Serbs and Croats and Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo.

“Dialogue brings us together, but it cannot always keep us together when other forces are driving us apart.”

He went on, “Dialogue therefore testifies to the double aspect of all human relationships, whether they are between individuals or between countries or cultures or creeds.

“Our commonalities, on the one hand, and our differences on the other. What we hold in common and what is uniquely ours.

"Let me put it as simply as I can. If we were completely different we could not communicate, but if we were totally the same we would have nothing to say.”

He recalled how, last week, he spent a day in Auschwitz with other religious leaders.

“There we wept together, and there we prayed together, knowing what happens when we fail to honour the humanity of those not like us.”

In a speech interrupted several times by applause from MEPs, he said, “God has given us many languages and many cultures, but only one world in which to live together, and it is getting smaller every day.

“May we, the countries and the cultures of Europe, in all our glorious diversity, together write a new European covenant of hope."

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