Who helps us become ourselves?
Some people change our lives through a single invitation. Others stay with us through stories we return to as we grow older. On 18 October 2026, Fraternity Circles gathered in Warsaw to ask a question that belongs to every life: who has helped us become the people we are? Organised by Dunaj Instytut Dialogu, People Who Shape Us brought Muslim, Jewish, and Christian perspectives into conversation through personal accounts, sacred texts, and shared reflection.
The starting point was experience rather than an abstract account of religion. Anar Ibrahimov spoke about virtues whose importance had changed with age. Kaja Siczek described a mentor who helped her find a home in Jewish community life. Irmina Śliwińska explored how the example of a Christian monastic community had accompanied her through grief. Each story offered a distinct path into the question of how we learn to live.
Islamic perspective
Anar Ibrahimov
Courage, justice, and faithfulness
“Dialogue is not a one-way message. Dialogue is, above all, a conversation.”
Anar Ibrahimov · translated from Polish
Anar described role models as companions whose meaning can deepen over a lifetime. In his youth, Ali ibn Abi Talib embodied courage: the readiness to face physical danger, but also the moral strength to defend truth under pressure and the spiritual steadiness to trust God in adversity. Courage, in this account, involved both what others could see and the choices made within.
As professional and social responsibilities grew, Umar ibn al-Khattab became an important example of justice. Later, Anar found himself increasingly drawn to Abu Bakr as-Siddiq and the virtue of faithfulness. Keeping promises, telling the truth, remaining loyal to principles, and being faithful to God and family were no longer secondary qualities. They were the foundations on which a responsible life could rest.
His reflection also made room for difference. Religious and cultural diversity could enrich a shared world, provided people approached one another with curiosity. Dialogue required an exchange in which each person could speak and listen.
An editorial reflectionThe qualities we admire can change as life asks different things of us.
Jewish perspective
Kaja Siczek
Mentorship, identity, and community
“In Israel, I am too Polish, and in Poland, I am too Jewish.”
Agata Rakowiecka, quoted by Kaja Siczek · translated from Polish
For Kaja, the question of influence led to Agata Rakowiecka. Having learned about her family's Jewish heritage as a child, Kaja needed opportunities to discover what belonging might mean in practice. Agata's encouragement to attend Jewish summer camps in Poland opened that possibility. Learning, friendship, culture, and religious life became experiences she could share with others.
That invitation grew into a continuing relationship with Jewish informal education. Kaja moved from participant to counsellor, then camp director and educator. She now sees young people she once supported becoming counsellors themselves. Mentorship had become a chain of responsibility: what one person offered could be passed on, adapted, and made available to another generation.
Her account honoured the diversity within Jewish community life and the contribution of women in leadership. It also allowed identity to remain complex. Kaja recalled Agata's words about feeling too Polish in Israel and too Jewish in Poland. The words belonged to Agata; in Kaja's story, they expressed the difficulty of fitting a life into a single category.
An editorial reflectionOne person's invitation can become another generation's sense of belonging.
Christian perspective
Irmina Śliwińska
Love beyond religious boundaries
“They loved us.”
Muslim neighbours remembering the monks, as recounted by Irmina Śliwińska · translated from Polish
Irmina turned to the seven Trappist monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, who were killed during the civil war in 1996. She encountered their story while grieving her father's death. Their lives helped her reflect on acceptance, inner freedom, and a faith expressed through compassion rather than achievement.
The monks' relationships with Muslim neighbours took shape in ordinary life. Work, practical help, and friendship made dialogue tangible. Brother Luc offered medical care without making a person's religion or social position a condition of receiving it. Christian de Chergé, the community's prior, understood encounter as something built through real relationships. Distinct religious commitments remained part of those relationships.
As violence increased, the monks repeatedly considered leaving Algeria, yet chose to stay. Irmina also reflected on Christian de Chergé's spiritual testament and its forgiveness towards a possible murderer. Remembering the monks, she explained, Muslim neighbours said that they had loved them. Her closing wish brought that legacy close to home: to be remembered as someone who knew how to love.
An editorial reflectionLove becomes visible in the care we offer, day after day.
From listening to conversation
After the presentations, participants read selected religious texts in smaller groups. In the recorded discussion following Anar's contribution, reflections from Islamic and Christian traditions opened questions about courage, conscience, responsibility before God, mortality, and eternal life. Listening made it possible to notice shared moral concerns while attending to the different beliefs through which people understood them.
Not every group was recorded, so this account cannot speak for every conversation. Nor does it turn private experiences into public testimony. What it can describe is the approach: read attentively, allow time for reflection, and make space for a response that may differ from your own.
What we carry forward
Courage, justice, faithfulness, mentorship, identity, compassion, and love emerged through these particular lives. Naming them together does not mean that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam teach identical doctrines. It offers a starting point for asking how each tradition shapes the people who practise it, and what we might learn by listening carefully.
The gathering left an invitation rather than a final answer. Remember someone who has shaped you. Consider what you have received from them, and what you might pass on. Whether through another circle, a shared text, or a conversation with a neighbour, there is always room to continue.
An editorial account based on the organisers' brief and four recorded contributions. English quotations are translations from Polish. The short reflections are editorial summaries, not speaker quotations. Only one small-group discussion was recorded.