Rabbi and Imam ‘brothers’ admit Oct 7 nearly drove them apart
A rabbi and an imam walk into a school. It has the makings of the start of a joke.
And in the current political climate, it is not the most likely of double acts.
Yet two religious leaders have dedicated themselves to repairing the rift between their two faiths, sharing their bond, banter and wisdom, and becoming unexpected podcast stars along the way.
Amid the global conflict and local turmoil, including the Yom Kippur terror attack on the Heaton Park synagogue, Greater Manchester-based Rabbi Dovid Lewis and Imam Dr Nasser Kurdy are determined to lead by example and show that people of different religions can treasure meaningful friendships that weather difficult conversations.
“The thing about this friendship is,” Imam Kurdy said, “it doesn’t take a lot to get a Jew and a Muslim to actually get chatting.”
Speaking to The Telegraph, the pair describe how they first met over a decade ago at a community dialogue group in south Manchester.
However, their friendship deepened after Imam Kurdy survived a stabbing in his neck outside his mosque in 2017. Rabbi Lewis was one of the first to reach out. Since then they have championed dozens of interfaith initiatives, touring schools and leading assemblies for around 10,000 children on navigating difficult conversations and modelling respectful disagreement about Israel-Palestine.
The pair nonetheless admit that since Oct 7, 2023, and the increasing tensions between Jews and Muslims, their friendship has been put to the test like never before.
This is why, they claim, it is so important to show that it is possible for people to hold different views without falling out. Not only has their success led to plans for their rabbi and imam pairing model to be rolled out across major UK cities, but it also sparked the launch of a podcast which has received thousands of downloads since launching earlier this year.
The Rabbi, The Imam and The Power of Dialogue is growing in popularity, with thousands of downloads, as people look to faith leaders for how to navigate difficult conversations.
It also comes amid rising incidents of anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic hate crimes.
‘We like to annoy each other’
The pair share the special understanding of the sometimes lonely role of being community leaders. In recent years, they have come to need and depend on each other so much that their friendship has morphed into “more than friends,” Imam Kurdy says, and more akin to “brothers.” “I think the common interest is we like to absolutely annoy each other,” he added, laughing.
They intersperse their chats to regularly tease each other, crack jokes and share the same sense of humour and bonds over food, Manchester United, coffee and family.
Yet in perhaps the most testing times for Jewish-Muslim relations, their podcast refuses to “dance around” the most difficult subjects, and tackles them head on.
Episode titles are as varied as: “Why the word Zionism connects some and divides us all,” “Is the digital world driving Jews and Muslims further apart?,” “Is true empathy between Jews and Muslims on Gaza possible?,” “Who are we? And how October 7th changed everything,” and “The Terror, The Tears and The Hope.”
Their commitment to dialogue has not just formed the basis of their new podcast, but it has also meant that they often turn to each other in dark times.
“Each of us is there for the other,” said Imam Kurdy, 66, who was awarded an MBE in the latest New Year Honours List for his work promoting peace and interfaith reconciliation.
“You know, something happens over there in Israel or in Gaza, and I get triggered. I get upset, and I find that my first thought of who to speak to to settle my mind, to settle my anxiety, is to reach out to Dovid... We’re there for each other…”
The pair have been there for each other through difficult and dark times as well as joyful life events.
Rabbi Lewis has hosted Iftar, the evening meal Muslims eat to break their daily fast at sunset during the holy month of Ramadan, for Imam Kurdy’s community at his synagogue.
When the rabbi’s father died, the imam attended shiva, the formal Jewish mourning processes and house of prayers to pay his respects in a room filled with Orthodox Jews. And in the wake of Oct 7, Rabbi Lewis held a vigil at his synagogue and Imam Kurdy came to pay his respects.
Rabbi Lewis and Imam Kurdy describe the Oct 7 attacks as a “turning point” and admit that the conflict has tested their friendship too. However, it also marked their renewed commitment to dialogue and them launching their podcast.
Conflict has raged in Gaza since Hamas-led militant groups launched the surprise attack on Israel.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
According to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, more than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed.
The conflict has had a ripple effect around the world. In October this year, two people were killed and three injured when a terrorist launched a car and knife attack on a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement.
In December, two terrorist gunmen killed 15 people – including a 10-year-old girl – and injured 38 during a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach, Sydney. The deadly attack claimed the life of Rabbi Lewis’s second cousin, Rabbi Eli Schlanger, and sparked international fury over rising anti-Semitism.
According to the latest available statistics published by the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity which provides security to the UK’s Jewish community, there were 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the first half of 2025.
This marked the second-highest total ever reported to the charity in the first six months of any year, and a 25 per cent decrease from the 2,019 anti-Semitic incidents recorded for the same period in 2024.
Cases of anti-Muslim hate are also on the rise. The latest available figures from Tell Mama, which measures anti-Muslim hate cases in the UK, showed there were 913 cases between June to September 2025. It also found that 17 mosques and Islamic institutions have been targeted.
Iman Atta, the director of Tell Mama, predicted that the full year’s numbers could end up surpassing a previous high of more than 6,000 cases in 2024.
Imam Kurdy said that in the wake of Oct 7, there was “a lot of grief and uncontrollable pain.” “So all my Jewish friends were absolutely hurting to the core. But then what happened after that? All my Muslim friends were hurting to the core.”
However, he criticised social media for feeding algorithms to him “that only a Muslim would get, and I would pass it on” and vice versa for Rabbi Lewis. “And it’s as if our posting were determining our personalities, or who we are, not realising that we’re actually in that same sort of inner turmoil.”
The pair have admitted to each other words or actions they have done that have upset one another. As a result, they have decided to post less on social media.
The idea for their podcast came about after Mark Schweiger, a 51-year-old businessman and member of Rabbi Lewis’s congregation, was keen for the rabbi and imam to expand their schools initiative.
The pair have visited dozens of schools and the academies at Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Everton football clubs sharing their message with more than 12,000 children and young people.
Mr Schweiger said his aim is to give people a “toolkit” to have difficult conversations “in a controlled way, where people can manage their emotions and talk sensibly as human beings with one another.”
Rabbi Lewis said: “Be curious about what the Jew is, what the Muslim is. Be curious about why you, as a pro-Palestinian, as to why an Israeli feels like they do. As Zionists, be curious as to why Palestinians feel the way they do. And get to learn. And anyone can do that.”
Imam Kurdy added: “You know how sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone, which is what both myself and Dovid had to do, but it seems that we went out of our comfort zone into a more comfortable one.”
