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After part of his film, "Three Faiths, One God," was screened at Monmouth University June 14, director Gerald Krell confessed that, "prior to making a documentary on the Abrahamic religions, I didn't know much about the three religions." For Jewish, Christian, and Islamic members of the audience, watching the documentary was only part of the process of learning about each other's faiths that day.

The Jewish Federation of Monmouth County organized the Monmouth County Three Faiths Event June 14. Participants toured three local houses of worship during the afternoon, including Islamic Society of Monmouth County in Middletown, Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls, and the United Methodist Church in Red Bank.

During the subsequent evening program at Anacon Hall on MU's campus in West Long Branch, a crowd of about 250 people heard musical performances from the different faiths as well as several addresses from public officials, including Rep. Rush Holt (D-12) and Joshua Dubois, head of President Barack Obama's Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

"The camaraderie and the interfaith connections that were made today, I believe will be lasting," event chair Toby Shylit Mack, chair of the federation's Jewish Community Relations Council, said.

Mack said that Holt contacted the federation about a year ago regarding the interfaith program, with the intention of making it an annual event in Monmouth County. In his welcome address, Holt asked the audience why a politician would bother with religious programming if faith is a matter of private individual practice. Holt answered that it is his role to engage in interfaith dialogue, because freedom of religion was a founding principle for the United States, yet bigotry still exists even in diverse and well-integrated areas like his congressional district -- which includes parts of Monmouth, Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon, and Mercer counties.

"It is our political system that makes possible the full expression of our faiths," Holt said.

Interfaith dialogue in the U.S. is not only about preventing bigotry, Holt said, but also about proactively creating a "more perfect union" through religious, social, and scholarly programming.

"We don't just cordon off safe zones," Holt said. "We seek a harmonious society."

Dubois, a former Holt aide who also served as director of religious affairs for Obama's presidential campaign, an aide devoted to faith outreach in Obama's U.S. Senate office, and an associate minister at a church in Massachusetts, began his remarks with the "technicality" of asking the audience to raise both of their hands in the air.

"I promised President Obama I would shake everyone's hand in New Jersey today," he joked.

Religion is the 21st-century force that will either draw society closer together or push people farther apart, Dubois said. There is no new "10-point plan" to deal with modern relationships between different religions, Dubois said, but rather the solution lies in local organizations like the Jewish federation partnering with government to initiate dialogue.

"President Obama knows the simple truth that if we are really going to change our country, we are not going to do it in the halls of Washington," Dubois said. "Change is going to start through simple conversations, neighborhood to neighborhood, heart to heart."

Dr. Saliba Sarsar, MU's associate vice president for academic program initiatives, explained that the school's curriculum places a strong emphasis on interfaith relations through initiatives such as the Institute for Global Understanding and the Monmouth Dialogue Project.

"We are morally bound to not only advance our own traditions, but to understand and respect other people's faiths as well," Sarsar said.

Howard Gases, the federation's executive director, said that the Three Faiths Event was particularly relevant in the wake of the shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum June 10 in Washington, D.C.

"We must bond together in joint dialogue to make sure that acts like that do not occur," Gases said.

Krell said that by making "Three Faiths, One God," he broadened his understanding of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam considerably by interviewing religious leaders from all three faiths and finding striking similarities between their observances. For example, both Muslim and Jewish wedding ceremonies include forms of marriage contracts, while the emphasis on the good deed of hospitality comes from studying the life of the patriarch Abraham in all three religions, Krell said. In order to motivate future dialogue and diversity programs, Krell said his goal is to make his documentary available to all schools nationwide as an educational resource.

In the musical portion of the program, Israeli opera singer Shiree Kidron sang three songs of peace, including "Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu," "Shir Hashalom," and "If You Believe". Wendy Gerbier sang "I Want Jesus to Walk With Me," followed by a performance from the Living World Christian Fellowship Gospel Choir, of Neptune.

The crowd then got the chance to mingle, sample international food, and view an Islamic art exhibit while listening to the music of Ed Goldberg and the Odessa Klezmer Band.

"It was all very informative, to see that we all have so much in common," Gale Oglesby, of South Belmar, said.

Richard Diamond, a Jewish resident of Long Branch, said he particularly enjoyed touring the three houses of worship earlier in the day.

"We learned a little bit about each [faith] that we didn't know," Diamond said.

Nirjis Sheikh, who lives in Freehold, said she was pleased to see Krell's film included in the program.

"I was already aware of the similarities and differences [between the three faiths] beforehand, but it was nice to see it on the screen for the whole public to see," Sheikh said.