Students from different religious backgrounds and universities visited the Vatican last month as a part of an interfaith dialogue program, highlighted by an in-person meeting with Pope Leo XIV.
Rachel Milner Gillers, a Jewish Georgetown University associate professor who attended the program said, “It was a very meaningful conversation for us.”
Milner Gillers, an associate professor at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy and director of the school’s Conflict Transformation Lab, led the school’s contingent to Vatican City, with support from the Georgetown Dialogues Initiative.
“We happened to be there during the jubilee anniversary of Nostra Aetate, and it felt just extremely appropriate for us to be there at a time when the Vatican was celebrating how it rethought its relationship to religions like Judaism,” Milner Gillers told Washington Jewish Week.
One of the Jewish undergraduate students from Georgetown on the trip, Abigail Assadil, said the experience gave her optimism for the future. “People who [are] Israeli students, who are Jewish and who are Palestinian, being able to engage, and engage with Americans too, during a time when there’s so much division and polarization, was very hopeful for me,” she said.
The program was done in partnership with Middle Meets, a series founded by Hebrew University that facilitates dialogues between Jewish and Israeli Palestinian college students in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The students visiting Rome were Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze.
“As someone who strongly believes in inter-university partnerships, in particular in the dialogue space, I was eager to explore this,” Milner Gillers said.
She noted that students on campuses across the world find it “increasingly difficult” to navigate geopolitics and nuances of the Israel-Hamas war.
“I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to connect and explore and essentially see what would happen when we brought everyone together,” Milner Gillers added.
Assadil said that a moment from the trip that stood out to her was an activity the students from Georgetown University, Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University did together.
Everyone brought an object or a photo that represented them and shared about its significance. “I felt like that was something that allowed me to get closer with everyone on the trip,” she said.
Assadil shared a photo of herself with some friends for the exercise, one of whom a student from Tel Aviv University recognized.
“One of the girls from Tel Aviv University, who is Palestinian, knew one of my friends … and that moment was really special … the friend is from Gaza and is out now, but we were both very emotional about that connection, and developed a really nice friendship between the two of us after that,” Assadil said.
Georgetown’s participation in Middle Meets began when Professor Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal from Hebrew University approached Gillers after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, with the idea to bring together college students from Israeli universities — both Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel — with Georgetown students.
The students met virtually in the spring prior to the trip, discussing topics such as community building and specific issues pertaining to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Originally, the trip was planned for this past May, but Pope Francis died in late April, so the group had to wait.
After Pope Leo was selected, Israel’s brief war with Iran broke out, delaying the trip once more because Israeli airports were closed.
“A lot has happened in the time since we first started this program,” said Milner Gillers. “There was a cease-fire, and there wasn’t, and then there was again. There’s been a lot of pain, a lot of frustration, and ultimately, a lot of students were just trying to be students, and were struggling to do so.”
She said many students on campus have been reluctant to discuss the Israel-Hamas war, describing fear of peer judgment, shaming or even doxxing.
“My heart breaks for Jews and Muslims at university who don’t feel like they can authentically be themselves, people worried about others labeling them or making assumptions about them based on their religious tradition,” Milner Gillers said.
“I think it’s important to talk about the program, and those who are able to use their voice and speak up,” said Assadil. “I know there’s a lot of worries about censorship and being doxed and all these things, and so I want to be able to speak out on behalf of those who have those fears. And I think that publicizing the program is a really important model for future engagement and dialogue.”
The group was part of an audience with Pope Leo and got an opportunity to meet the Pope — who reiterated his support for building interfaith connections, particularly in the Middle East — as well as Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue.
“Pope Leo pledged to continue that bridge-building,” said Milner Gillers.
She added: “Without the relationships, there’s no trust. Without the trust, there won’t be enough comfort to share ideas, and without that comfort to share ideas, there won’t be solutions.”
