Hojjat al-Eslam Mohammad Mehdi Taskhiri, Head of the International Center for Dialogue of Religions and Civilizations of Islamic Culture and Relations Organization met with Hakham Yones Hamami Laleraz, the religious leader of Iranian Jews.

According to the Public Relations Office of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization (ICRO), at the meeting which was held on Monday December 18^th at the Tehran Jewish Committee center, Taskhiri referred to the status of the International Center of Dialogue of Religions and Civilizations as the only official center for religions dialogue in the Islamic Republic of Iran and emphasized on this centerʼs efforts to improve religious dialogue in Iran and other countries.

He also expressed his organizationʼs readiness to host a meeting on common grounds of followers of monotheistic religions next year and said: "we can choose social or oral matters on subjects that are acceptable by the two parties to discuss."

"Modern civilization does not take the role of religion in human salvation into account and puts forth modernity and freedom from religion while religion is the only way for human salvation.

Hakham Yones Hamami Lalezar cherished the dialogue between Islam and Judaism considering their common grounds and called these meeting a good way to educate country"s academic society and people.

He then presented a summary of Torah, Judaismʼs holy book. "Torah contains our religious orders and in order to abide by them we need to turn to Talmud where instructions are explained. For example Torah tells us to pray but we take instructions on how to do it from Talmud. The language of Talmud is Aramaic and is written in Hebrew.

The Jewish leader referred to the status of Jews in Iran and said: "Iranian Jewish students study their own books in religious education hours, also religious educations are taught in Synagogues in Hebrew and traditionally."