proud to raise children in Lexington with religious leaders like these, namely:

The following statement was issued 9/28/06 by Lexington's Rabbi
Kline and Imam Bagby. Thank God for these good men!

Richard Mitchell
________________
Wow. I am so happy to live in Lexington and raise children here.

Kathy W. Stein_________________

"During this blessed season of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Ramadan,
we, as prominent members of the Lexington Jewish and Muslim
communities, call upon the members of our respective religious
communities to engage one another in dialogue and cooperative work
so that we might be an example to the peoples of the Middle East
that Jews and Muslims can live together with respect and
understanding.

We should start by affirming the many similarities between Judaism
and Islam. We start with what should be obvious. There is one God.
Allah is not a Muslim term, it is an Arabic one. Adonai is not a
Jewish term, it is a Hebrew one. And while these respective words
and languages are deeply connected to their respective religions and
cultures, we know this to be true: Allah, Adonai, and God are three
different linguistic ways of referring to the same entity. What
ever the language or culture, we are all the children of Adam and
Eve, and we share the home which God as made for all of us - this
earth.

Our two communities live under the dark shadow of the daily
suffering that takes place in Israel and Palestine. We believe that
the difficulty in achieving a just settlement between Israelis and
Arabs stems in part from the grossly unjust inability of the parties
to see each other as human beings. This is a transgression against
God that violates both the Jewish and Islamic religious faiths. The
time has come for our people to recognize each other's inalienable
rights to dignity, life and self determination-the very core values
that have kept both Judaism and Islam vibrant and faithful
religions. While we cannot change the history of estrangement and
violence, but if we hope to effect change on the current struggles
and create a future of hope, we must begin to change the way in
which we move forward, and we must use our respective faiths to help
us see more clearly than our brothers and sisters have in the past.
Until these parties recognize each other as human beings, each
imbued with God's dignity, the news from this region will ever be
difficult. They must accept that each has a right to be, and to
that end, come to terms with each others reality and human dignity.
They must begin with the commitment that Israel has a right to exist
with security for its citizens, and that Palestinians have a right
to a viable, independent, and secure state for its citizens.

The Lexington Muslim and Jewish communities must live up to the
ideals of their faith and do our part to help solve the problem in
the Middle East by demonstrating how Muslims and Jews can talk and
work together with respect, affirming one another's dignity as well
as acknowledging each other's pain.

Each of us have shared in building bridges in this community and on
national and international levels of dialogue and work. We know in
our hearts that this peace is real and is attainable where our
hearts would turn to one another and not to the alluring voices of
power that cause people to disregard the dignity of their brothers
and sisters. Our hope is that our two communities will come together
to engage in a series of candid and productive conversations and
organize some projects that will allow the two communities to work
together for a common good. Presbyterian Reverend Steve Pace of has
agreed to join us in serving as a moderator for the dialogue. May
God help us build a world that makes sense for all people.

Imam Ihsan A. Bagby, PhD
Lexington, Kentucky

Rabbi Marc A. Kline, JD
Lexington, Kentucky

September 28, 2006