New Interfaith Chapel is Dedicated at Camp David Presidential Retreat

Representatives of five religious denominations on Sunday dedicated the newly completed chapel at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland at a ceremony attended by President and Barbara Bush.

The chapel, the first permanent site of worship at the 49-year-old Camp David, was constructed with private donations from Jews and Christians.

Rabbi A. James Rudin, director of interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, is the sole Jewish member of the 15-person chapel board of directors.

At the conclusion of the dedication ceremony, Rudin stood and recited the Birkat Cohanim, Judaism’s priestly benediction. Also attending the ceremony were Catholic, Episcopalian, Greek Orthodox and Methodist leaders.

All faiths are represented in the chapel, though not through the architecture or decoration of the building itself. Two stained-glass windows in the chapel depict the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, but there are no crosses or Stars of David, Rudin said in a telephone interview.

But the accoutrements of each faith will be kept on hand for use when needed.

A Torah scroll and Jewish prayerbooks have been donated by the Jewish Chaplains Council, a project of the Jewish Community Centers of North America. The ark, which was created by Rudin’s late father and his sister-in-law, is on permanent loan from Temple Rodef Shalom in Maclean, Va., Rudin’s parents’ hometown.

Camp David, which was first used by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1942 as a retreat from the summer heat of the capital, was the site of the historic 1978 meeting of President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

“I hope it will be the site of future peace meetings,” Rudin said after the dedication ceremony.

“This is a symbol of interreligious cooperation,” he said. “At a time when there is so much religious strife in the world, here is American pluralism working at its best.”