Featuring SARAH WEIL, Jerusalem LGBTQ Activist RABBI AARON LEIBOWITZ, Jerusalem City Councilman Kosher refreshments will be served. Through mourning the loss of 16-year old Shira Banki, fatally attacked at the 2015 Jerusalem Pride March, the city’s LGBTQ community emerged as a thread to bring together a city divided at the seams. LGBTQ leaders took to Zion Square, the central plaza in the heart of Jerusalem, to hold open forums for unprecedented public discussion at the “נקודת מפגש - Meeting Place - نقطة الالتقاء.” All sectors of Jerusalem civil society, most notably the Ultra Orthodox population, continue to gather together in dialogue circles and heated encounters, many of which result in the opening of hearts and minds. LGBTQ activist Sarah Weil and Jerusalem City Councilman and Orthodox Rabbi Aaron Leibowitz (@ravaaron) join A Wider Bridge in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego to share the work of the Yerushalmit Movement (התנועה הירושלמית), which fosters Jerusalem to be a "community of communities," a pluralistic society that benefits all of its residents. Join us as we learn how the tragedy of Shira's death has become a catalyst to bring people from different backgrounds together to engage in “radical empathy,” offering an open, “brave” space for all people to discuss difficult and painful issues. Given the polarized and rancorous state of so much of our current political discourse here in the U.S., Rabbi Aaron and Sarah can teach us not only about Jerusalem, but offer us possibilities for how we might engage more constructively with each other here at home.