“We’re not there to convert. We’re not there to create some hybrid religion,” said Schild of his 40-plus years of dialogue with Christians. “We’re linking arms with our companions. We shall work to make this wonderful country of Canada into an even better country and ultimately to make this world, the only one we have, into a better world.”

Schild, who is nearing 90, was rabbi of Adath Israel Congregation in Toronto from 1947 to 1989, building the tiny Romanian Synagogue up to an assembly of 1,900 families. He is the author of three books, a Member of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

However, Schild’s early experience in life was less ideal. At 18 he was imprisoned at Dachau. Allowed to escape to Britain on the condition he never return to Germany, Schild lost his parents and his entire family to the Holocaust. He was imprisoned in England as a possible German threat to national security, then shipped to Canada. In Canada he was again put behind barbed wire, until Rabbi Avraham Price took him on probation as a Yeshiva student in 1942.

“I want to thank you for building bridges of friendship with so many of us in this room,” said Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J., in a keynote address.

From the most recent papal encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, to the common elements in Advent and Chanukah, Christians and Jews share a destiny and a vocation in ethical living, said Prendergast.

“The world looks to us Jews and Christians for a message and for an example,” he said. “We have a common longing for the fruits of the messianic kingdom.”