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Eliyahu McLean's ancestors were Christian clergy on his father's side and Jewish chergy on his mother's, which lends some poetry to the interfaith activism that's kept him busy since his days as an undergrad at UC Berkeley. Co-founder and Co-director of the Jerusalem Peacemakers, McLean is also the interfaith coordinator at the annual Sulha gathering, and ranks among the leaders of the Lovers of Jerusalem, whose annual Big Hug for Jerusalem takes place this Sunday.

Please tell us a bit about your background and the various initiatives with which you are involved. I grew up in Hawaii, where I was involved with Young Judea, which brought me to Israel for the first time when I was 15. When I returned at 18 for Year Course, I met Rabbi Shlomo Carleabach and was influenced by his teachings. From there, I went to UC Berkeley, where I became a pro-Israel activist on campus. That got me interested in bridge-building work, and I began studying Middle Eastern Studies. I was back in Israel again for my junior year, though my program was canceled due to the Gulf War. Instead, I got involved with the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace – I traveled to Bethlehem that year and Egypt, where I studied Islam and Sufism. When I returned to Berkeley, I began leading interfaith projects but I was really drawn to doing that sort of work here in Israel.

In the case of The Big Hug and some of the other projects you're involved with, the message seems to be less about specific issues or solutions and more about just getting together to spread loving vibes. How much of a difference can loving vibes make? These projects are about more than just loving vibes: They're about rebuilding trust. In 2007, before the Big Hug, a Palestinian taxi driver was murdered by a French Jew and there was a lot of tension around the area of the Damascus Gate and only when the mother of the murderer called up the father of the victim, and went to meet with him, did it calm down the anger and the tension and we were able to hold that event, because trust had been rebuilt. There were about 2,000 people involved in that event - soldiers, settlers, Palestinians - all coming together, and the idea of it was not just positive, good vibes but specifically about finding a new way that we can all respect and honor Jerusalem, about showing our shared love for Jerusalem. I think on a small scale we succeeded, and we want to make it a more long-term type of thing.

Those who love and/or live in Jerusalem are usually considered to be somewhat right-wing politically. How do you go about packaging your message in such a way that they can hear it? People often ask me, "Are you left-wing because you work with the Arabs, or are you right-wing because you're religious and spend a lot of time in the territories?" - with my rabbi, Rav Froman in Tekoa, or in Bat Ayin? My response is that it takes two wings to fly.

I think my message is heard because I try not just to approach what's wrong, like some groups on the left that just criticize what's wrong with Israeli policy, or those on the right that just criticize the attacks against Jews etc. At the Jerusalem Peacemakers, we're taking a different approach, trying to show by positive example rather than negative. We show the example of the peace that we live and we hope can be lived on a larger scale. We live as a feeling of family. One of the projects of the Jerusalem Peacemakers is the Abrahamic reunion – we bring together Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze leaders, including the chief rabbi of Sdereot, Rabbi Zion Cohen, and the chief rabbi of Ramat Shlomo (an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem). All these different people get together to show publicly that people who believe strongly in their own faith can still collaborate and cooperate and create a vision of building a shared future in Jerusalem and the Holy Land.

Many people who strive to make a difference in the world get frustrated with their efforts and end up disillusioned and bitter. How do you make sure that doesn't happen to you? We create an alternative reality: We don't deal with this reality; we make a new one. For example, we are trying to empower moderate Islamic leaders. Especially in Jerusalem, you often hear people saying that all Muslims are extremist, and we are trying to help the moderates out there get their voices heard, both amongst Israel's Jewish population and in their own communities, through humanitarian projects. It's these types of projects that give Hamas their power, so if we have moderates running the same type of social welfare organizations, it will give them legitimacy in the eyes of their own community.

When we have 4,000 people coming to the Sulha or 70 people squeezing into my west Jerusalem apartment for my birthday - including Jews from Nachlaot and Bat Ayin, Christians from Ramallah and Moslems from Bethlehem - all gathering together, it's hard to be disillusioned.

Please share with us two or three of your favorite Jerusalem spots that to you sum up everything that is Jerusalem. The roof of David's Tomb on Mount Zion is one of my favorite spots because you can see the Mount of Olives and the edge of the Old City.

Nachlaot or Machane Yehuda is also a quintessential Jerusalem spot, because it has a mixture of hippie-Chassidic Jews, secular Israeli artists and musicians, ultra-Orthodox and Sephardim (Jews from Arab lands).

And of course, Har HaBayit (The Temple Mount) and the Kotel (Western Wall). Those are definite. I mean, the whole world is focused on those spots. I would like to see a Har Habayit where we could all come and pray and cooperate together. Jerusalem should not be a point of conflict, it should be a point of cooperation. We can build the concept of the Beit Hamikdash (The Holy Temple) by building a bridge of trust with our neighbors and not through force. According to our tradition, the Temple Mount will be a place where all nations can come together in prayer and cooperation.