The Latin American clergy mission that visited Syrian refugees being treated at the Ziv Medical Center in Tsfat, Israel. Photo: World Jewish Congress.

JNS.org – An interfaith Latin American clergy mission visited the Ziv Medical Center in Tsfat, Israel, donating supplies to refugees who had been wounded in the Syrian civil war and evacuated to the Israeli hospital.

More than 293 Syrian patients have been treated at Ziv Medical Center. The clergy mission came to the hospital as a sign of interfaith goodwill just prior to Pope Francis’s May 24-26 visit to the Jewish state.

“This mission is one of the reflections of Pope Francis’s spirit when coming to the Holy Land next week; it shows how religions can work together to repair a broken world,” said a statement by David Nekrutman, executive director of the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC), according to the World Jewish Congress (WJC).

The mission was sponsored by the WJC, the CJCUC, and the Latin American Jewish Congress (LAJC).

“The first day of our trip we met with Bishop William Shomali, the Auxiliary Catholic Bishop to Jerusalem, and in his conversation with us, he stressed the importance of bringing Jewish-Christian dialogue to the masses and demonstrating real cooperation,” said Rabbi Jonas Shalom, the WJC/LAJC mission representative.