The Festival hosted a house of prayer for all believers: ‘We proved the Holy City can be a global home for a new voice of tolerance, inclusivity and collaboration,’ say organizers.

Jerusalem—An unprecedented experimental festival, which ended today, in Jerusalem, harnessed the Holy City’s timeless energy to inspire artists and other participants to transcend cultural and spiritual borders and unite in these troubling times.

Presented by The Jerusalem Season of Culture (JSOC), the Mekudeshet Festival, which ran Sept. 4–23, and attracted more than 15,000 visitors, featured dozens of artists, actors, musicians, media figures and others from around the world. Mekudeshet, which is Hebrew for “holy” or “sanctified,” featured an eclectic array of events, including docu-theatrical immersive city tours, a night of alternative realities called “Recalibrating,” the Mideast’s largest-ever singing circle with surprise guests, underground sounds and voices in Jerusalem’s forest and people reading each other’s secret confessions aloud. A range of musicians hailing from England to Senegal mixed traditional and contemporary world music, and a famed ultra-Orthodox Jewish singer performed classical Arab music.

Mekudeshet hosted a gathering called “Amen—A House of Prayer for All Believers,” which successfully united Christians, Muslims and Jews under one roof for the week of Sept. 4–11 for prayer, sing study and debates.

“The power of Mekudeshet flows from the ancient depths of Jerusalem and returns back into the source,” said Mekudeshet Artistic Director Itay Mautner. “With the help of a collective sound and different languages, we proved that Jerusalem is, and not just fleetingly, the home of a unified voice that is calling for tolerance, inclusivity and collaboration. We will see if it is possible, despite all the corporeal difficulties and earthly obstacles, to create a new Jerusalem reality.”