"How old are you-" I ask the old soul across from me. "People always ask me in amazement, 'You're young-' People think I'm 90 years old," he responds. "Researchers wanted to study my Jerusalemite pronunciation of the [guttural Hebrew letters] chet and ayin. I was born old. I grew up in Nachlaot. The person who sat beside me in synagogue when I was 4 years old was 84. I could smell his tobacco." The chronological age of Hacham David Menachem, one of Jerusalem's most fascinating characters, is irrelevant. He is an ageless man who is also difficult to categorize: He is a rabbi at a synagogue in the Rassco neighborhood of Jerusalem; a musician and performer who shares the stage with popular musicians, including Shlomi Shaban, Kobi Oz and the Ariel Brothers; he teaches at a secular yeshiva; he belongs to a global interfaith coalition; he translates Umm Kulthum's songs from Arabic; he won the Jerusalem Unity Prize; he is a poet fighting to familiarize Sephardi Jews with their culture; a feminist; he was ordained at Mercaz Harav yeshiva; he plays the oud, the ney (a Persian flute) and is a percussionist; and starting this week, he is also among the leaders of a shared prayer center for Jews, Christians and Muslims. Menachem grew up in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem, alongside his grandparents, who emigrated from Iraq in the 1950s. He is the sixth of seven children. As a child, he sat on the lap of his maternal grandfather, Hacham Gorji Yair, a kabbalistic rabbi and poet. Just like his grandfather, Menachem was also given the title "Hacham" (rabbi, in Arabic), a custom among Sephardi Jews. He went to a haredi-Sephardi Talmud Torah elementary school; and in the eighth grade, he went to a Lithuanian yeshiva, but left for its lack of Zionism. He felt at home at Mercaz Harav yeshiva: At 15, he was admitted into the yeshiva to study at a level three years ahead of his age group, and he stayed there for two decades. "Today, when I teach Torah at the secular yeshiva in Jerusalem, I find myself opposite students with original, deep questions. Every phrase in Aramaic needs to be explained -- things that I am so used to hearing and saying are new to them. " Q: And it doesn't bother you that they are studying without the intention to observe religion- "Why no intention to observe? They will be better Israelis and better Jews. I do not teach them the laws of tefillin [phylacteries], but according to Maimonides' ethical writings, they would be righteous. [Musician] Kobi Oz asks me about Jewish law on neighbors. Does he not observe the Halachah? I learned from my rabbis that when a Jew performs a mitzvah, you should be very happy, and when you see him sin, speak well of him. "We must love [God's] creations, period -- not in order to bring them closer to the Torah, but to love them as they are. Every Jew that chooses to observe Shabbat and to follow the tradition of our forefathers fills my heart with joy, but if we just cloned 100,000 religious people, what have we really accomplished? I would rather we all worship God with love and reverence borne of knowledge. I am not here to make people religious, rather to open my world to them. This door is open to both sides. I never have an encounter without being truly open. If I only came to speak, it would be an unsuccessful meeting." Menachem is known for spreading the teachings of Manitou, or Rabbi Yehuda Leon Ashkenazi. "When the people of Israel dwelt in the land of Israel, they had 12 different identities, 12 tribes," he quotes from his teacher's philosophy. "When [the nation of Israel] went into exile, all the identities were concentrated under the tribe of Judah; we became Jews, and what held us together was our sameness. Now, we have returned to being Israelites, 12 tribes, 12 beautiful colors. There is no such thing as a melting pot. No color needs to give up its tradition. Creating a uniform prayer book would be arrogant." 'There is no option but to join hands' It has been a decade and a half since this wise Jerusalemite began building bridges with study and music. This week, as part of the Mekudeshet cultural festival in Jerusalem, he is leading the Jewish part of a project called "Amen," a joint house of worship for the three faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) at the a local music center. Muslim, Christian and Jewish community leaders will meet for study and dialogue workshops, for music and prayers. On one of the evenings of the festival, Menachem is expected to perform liturgical poetry alongside Kudsi, a Sufi Muslim ney player from Turkey. Q: What is a joint prayer service like- "It's a prayer service that does not take place in a synagogue, like that of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov," he explains. "I will sing with them ... [a number of songs, including] 'Adon Olam.' Together, we will set our intentions toward health, forgiveness and peace. The Christians were creative in choosing prayers that are not addressed to Jesus, but to the one God." It is not a common occurrence for a Jew dedicated to Halachah to pray in the same room as Christian priests, who are considered in Judaism to be idolaters. "We can all say that Judaism has a universal vocation, but how do we advance it? By withdrawing? A hundred years ago, it was forbidden for us to meet with a Christian. ... They were strong and we were weak. The wisdom of the poor is contemptible; their words go unheard. Now, we have sovereignty, and our religion is strong. We can meet with them for prayer to God, without any external symbols. "Our relationship to Christianity must be clarified. Christianity is Judaism that joined with the Greek spirit and created idols. If we remove the Greek mythological basis of Christianity, we can talk about Jesus as a wise scholar rather than as God. From the time of Maimonides until today, there have been new sects, like the Protestants, for example, that do not practice idolatry. Islam is also very sensitive to Christianity, but we have no other option but to join hands." Q: Where is this interfaith connection headed? In another 200 years, will everyone come together as part of the same religion- "Absolutely not. Whether we like it or not, we have a responsibility for Christianity and Islam, our little brothers. We have a shared role: to believe in one God and to share the unity of God -- everyone according to their own book. We cannot leave the Islamic State group any room to speak in God's name. Manitou's explanation for the blessing, 'For You chose us [and sanctified us] from all the nations,' is that God took a little bit from every nation to create the people of Israel so that we would have the ability to speak to all the nations. The racist foundation collapses under this interpretation. God gave us choice so that we would pass on His teachings, His messages of justice and morality, to others. "Maimonides wrote that Christianity and Islam pave the path to the Messiah, because, thanks to them, the entire world deals with the Torah: 'The world will already be filled with the idea of Messiah, and Torah, and commandments, even in far-off islands and in closed-hearted nations.'" Q: Is everything ideal in the relationship between religions? There is no bloodshed- "We cannot deny the bloodshed of the Muslims. I do not agree with the approach of the sugary sweet Anglo-Saxon rabbis that I meet at interfaith conferences, where there is good food and everyone embraces. I am Arab in my essence; I speak Arabic, and I do not sugarcoat anything. I tell the Muslims to their faces that they are responsible for the bloodshed. "At a conference in Antalya, after we sang and prayed together, I said that when Baruch Goldstein murdered [29 people] at the Cave of the Patriarchs, 100 rabbis issued 1,000 condemnations, but when a terrorist walked into my yeshiva and murdered eight boys, no Muslim religious figure condemned it, despite the fact that the Quran prohibits killing in a house of God. The sweet rabbis shuffled uncomfortably, but we cannot lie. Truth and peace must go together." Q: Have we exhausted all the missions within the Jewish people and must now put effort into Christianity and Islam- "We have a responsibility to fix the world, the kingdom of God. A rabbi who thinks that we do not need to pray for Syria now is not a rabbi, in my eyes. [Once] when Diaspora Jews said that something was known to the whole world, they were referring only to their entire study hall. That is the Judaism of exile. The Judaism of redemption asks us to step outside the study hall, to engage in reality in its entirety. Rabbi [Abraham Isaac] Kook also spoke about this. I studied Rabbi Kook's teaching a fair bit." Q: I do not remember being spoken to about the soul of the world, rather the soul of the nation. "They misled you," he tells me. From the bookshelf, he pulls out Kook's book "Orot" ("Lights"), opens the familiar white cover and reads from a passage that seems to be hidden: 'The narrow view which causes one to see in everything outside the perimeter of the special nation (of Israel) ... just ugliness and impurity, is one of terrible darkness which causes much general destruction.' "Rabbi Kook spoke about loving mankind, loving humanity; he wrote dozens of times that we need to respect the religions close to Judaism. He died in 1935, before the Holocaust. After the Holocaust, his son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda [Kook], emphasized the national instead of the universal. Some of the new generation is taking the idea of love for the nation and turning it into the slogans used by [far-right rapper] The Shadow. What kind of national love do they want? To scream, 'A Jew is a [kind] soul, and an Arab is a curse'? To define love for Israel as hatred for gentiles? Instead, we must teach that by loving one another, we can love everyone else." 'Have we run out of things to fight about-' Menachem takes his theological worldviews from Nazareth to Ramallah, to Jerusalem to capitals around the world. At the house of worship that is set to launch this week, he and Rabbi Dov Zinger, head of Makor Chaim yeshiva, will sit together with sheikhs, priests and nuns. One of the initiators of the project is Rabbi Tamar Elad-Appelbaum, head of Zion: An Eretz Israeli Congregation in Jerusalem, and a leader in the Masorti movement. "It is harder to sit among Jews," Menachem says when I ask him about partnering with a Conservative female rabbi. "They bless me when I go to make peace with gentiles, but raise an eyebrow when I meet with my brothers. Is it legitimate for me not to sit with my own people? Did we run out of things to fight about except for the fact that a woman put on tefillin at the Western Wall? Have we lost sight of proportion? Tamar is a good friend, and I see her as beyond the definitions of Orthodox, Reform or Conservative. It's important that her voice be heard." Menachem spent 19 years at the religious Zionist Mercaz Harav yeshiva, but he wears a black kippah (traditionally associated with the haredi sector). In his modest living room, where he hosts artists, the Ben Ish Chai (Jewish sage Yosef Chaim) looks on from one wall and Rabbi Kook from another. "The religious Zionist language suits me more than the haredi language, especially from the Zionist angle. But I don't understand the prolixity among the religious Zionists regarding the connection between the sacred and the profane. Among Sephardi Jews, the connection is natural. Cantors recite the kaddish prayer in the tune of Mohammed Abdel Wahab, and the big muezzin in Turkey would sit in the synagogue to learn tunes from the Jewish cantor. "Rabbis at my age who studied at highly regarded yeshivas think that we all came from the forests of Ukraine," he says, criticizing the frequent exclusion of Sephardi thinkers. "I know about Rabbi Kook, the Sefat Emet [Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter], Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, but they do not know the bright spiritual leaders of Middle Eastern Jewry. Not long ago, I attended a class in a nice religious community. A man of Moroccan descent told hassidic stories from the forests. Where are your grandparents from Casablanca, from Marrakesh? Are they not important? Where did that disappear to-" The rabbi of the singers After the saga with former soccer star Eli Ohana being chosen for a spot on the Habayit Hayehudi list and then pulling out amid criticism Menachem publicly protested Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett. "I was angry. Ohana was a decoration -- and not the right one. Bring someone who challenges religious Zionism, a Sephardi who is aware of his history. I said some harsh things and I feel there has been a correction with the Biton committee wherein they called on people who understand Mizrahi culture." Q: Does Culture Minister Miri Regev understand Mizrahi culture- "No. You do not suggest [singer] Eyal Golan as a counterpart to [Anton] Chekhov, rather Samir Naqqash, a Jewish Iraqi writer and thinker. You don't put Mizrahi pop music in the same category as classical music, rather Mohammed Abdel Wahab. We also have an elite. I translate [iconic Egyptian singer] Umm Kulthum. It's poetry." Q: Do you also listen to Umm Kulthum- "We are Sephardim. We don't have these problems [regarding religious prohibitions on listening to women sing]. Rabbi Joseph Caro ruled that when reciting the Shema prayer, one cannot listen to a woman's singing voice, but a voice that one is used to is not forbidden. I became the rabbi of the [female] singers. A song is forbidden or permitted not because of who sings it, but because of its content. If someone wants to sing a shameful song, it is prohibited, whether they are a man or a woman. "I will not get on stage with a woman because that is not my place, but modesty must accept a new set of tools. Rabbis' preoccupation with the length of women's clothing is not OK. We must create a reality wherein women can seek advice about niddah [family purity laws] from wise women. I have told rabbis to put themselves in the position of the women subject to their views and to see how they feel. Pray for one month in a crowded upstairs women's section [of a synagogue sanctuary] and let the women pray downstairs. My daughter changed my world when, at age 3, she looked at a picture of 30 Jewish sages and asked why there were no women among them." Regarding haredi society, Menachem said that the process of assimilation into Israeli society is moving in the right direction and at the right speed, and that we must not bother the ultra-Orthodox. "After 70 years of haredi community life, there have been no major works, no interesting theological commentary, nothing new. A 6-year-old boy studies the same Torah that his 80-year-old grandfather studied. But the new generation is fixing this. In another 30 years, there will be new Israeli haredim, who will merge the good Jewish spirit with the Israeli spirit. As long as they are not disturbed. The haredi standard setting is resistance. They band together against reforms. If we try to speed things up from the outside, the walls will go up." Q: I am sitting across from a learned man, who is undoubtedly committed to the Torah, but who has a very open mind. May there be more like you. "If everyone were like me, it would be boring," he says. I will return to the subject of the tribes. Everyone must safeguard their uniqueness. When we are good among our own camps, we will be able to create deep, shared good. I want secular wisemen. I see a former religious Zionist who left the yeshiva, where he studied Talmud, and in the end, he's a waiter sitting at the beach. Is that why you went off the [religious] path? God made you a former religious Zionist so that you could be the next Haim Nahman Bialik. I don't want everyone to be a rabbi. So Bialik wasn't a rabbi, so he was a poet -- but everyone should do something that will enrich us all."