King's College University in London, Ontario hosts a center for interfaith dialogue.

In April 2010, the college council unanimously decided to officially establish a Jewish-Catholic-Islamic study center.

In February 2022, to embody its goal of promoting "interreligious acquaintance" through dialogue, the center was renamed the Centre for Interreligious Learning and Dialogue.

In press statements, Dr. Julius K. Kato, director of the center and associate professor in the Department of Religious Studies at King's College University, said: "We believe that one of the best ways to promote 'interreligious learning' is through genuine dialogue."

In the past, the center was known as the Jewish-Catholic-Islamic study center. When I became its director, I made it more inclusive and not limited only to the three Abrahamic religions.

According to Dr. Kato, the phrase "interfaith dialogue" also indicates that the center will not only seek to study religious traditions alone, but will also explore theoretical and practical ways through which various religious traditions (and even philosophies) can "learn how to live together to build a truly just and fair community and a peaceful world."

He explained that the center's mission involves multiple goals.

The first is to educate people about religions and spirituality. "This activity will be specifically directed at students, leaders, and teachers, inside and outside the university community."

The center aims "to promote religious culture and knowledge to enable more people to gain a correct, deeper understanding and true appreciation of our rich religious heritage," according to its director.

To continue introducing different religious traditions, the center seeks to create places where followers of these religions can "represent themselves to others, thereby reducing the feeling of alienation that followers of different religious traditions often feel."

The center encourages more research on "our different religious traditions and provides venues to display the fruits of this research. Members of the Religious Studies Department at King's will play a pivotal role in this," he added.

Moreover, "we are proud sponsors of the London Peace Camp and lectures aimed at building bridges between the descendants of Abraham," he said.

London Interfaith Peace Camp
is a community cooperative project that promotes understanding and cooperation between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religious groups. It is organized for children during the summer vacation.

He added that through this daily camp experience, children and supervisors build friendships and understanding with peers from other local Abrahamic religious traditions.

The camp's informal social environment, along with deliberate presentations on Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, "allows for lasting lessons on building peace across all three Abrahamic religious traditions."

It is worth noting that the city of London in Ontario witnessed an Islamophobic terrorist attack that resulted in the death of four members of a Muslim family in June 2021.

Recently, after the outbreak of war between the Palestinian Hamas movement and Israel, more than 60 religious leaders across the city wrote a letter emphasizing the necessity of peaceful dialogue.

Religious leaders in London, Ontario met to encourage the city's residents to stand against the increasing hate crimes targeting Jewish and Muslim communities in the context of the ongoing war in the Middle East.

In their letter, religious leaders called for empathy and peace and an end to hatred, asking people to acknowledge the pain and loss felt by many communities.

Imam Abdelfattah Tawakkol, head of the London Imams Council, said: "Each of us has his sense of pain and suffering that we are going through, and we want to come together to send a message that we do not accept the violence occurring where innocent lives are taken."

Rabbi Debra Dresler from the Israel Temple in London said that "the rise in anti-Semitic acts has been frustrating, but it highlights the importance of empathy despite differing viewpoints."

She added that "what we were trying to achieve with this letter is to give people a different way of dealing and that we have common ground on peace. At a time when it is very easy to see only the negative aspects, it was important for us to say that we can still bear each other's pain."