When enumerating Judaism's gifts to the world at large there are various examples that come to mind.

There is of course the concept of monotheism, which counters the idolatry of paganism last seen as a political force with Hitler.

Then there are the Jewish ideas of past and future embodied in memory and in children – our heritage and our future.

Finally we have the idea of a special way of life often apart from the ways of the world, but not in parallel – rather in it but not of it, so to speak.

There is the emphasis on prayer, but far more on learning (studying Psalms for instance, which I do once a week with a friend – we have now reached the longest, Psalm 119), on joy, on giving, and on reaching out to the world.

All these attributes are encapsulated in the life of the State of Israel, the embodiment of Jewry's belated return to its rightful political space in the world – of which diaspora is merely a pale shadow.

But then there is something that - it seems to me at least – appears to be peculiarly Jewish and which other groups (whether religious or not) show no sign of having grasped at all and it would help them immensely if they did – and that is the concept of gratitude.

In Hebrew the word for 'gratitude' is related to the word for 'acknowledgement'. We acknowledge the presence of G_d in our lives through showing gratitude to others. And this is why, on the whole, Jews, although very aware that our lives are constantly at risk from alien outside forces bent on destroying us, are generally content with our lot and don't tend to go in for aggression, wallowing or violence.

This is of course where Jewish humour comes in – the displacement activity par excellence!

Rowan Williams' visit to our Broughton Park Jewish Christian Dialogue Group took place on Sunday June 22^nd 2014, and I would like to acknowledge the profound influence of this event and the ensuing dialogue of the last three years.

It is no exaggeration to say that Rowan's visit to the Broughton Park Jewish Christian Dialogue Group in Salford was a turning point.

I had first encountered Rowan Williams in 2002 at Liverpool University's Chaplaincy a couple of days before he was due to take office as Archbishop of Canterbury. My great friend, Rev Bob, the University Anglican chaplain, invited me over from Manchester to hear Rowan speak.

I remember two things – his speech wasn't easy to grasp but I gleaned that a) he obviously didn't like southern Baptists and b) he regarded the Holocaust as inputting on Christianity and the world in a way that I hadn't heard from others.

But it was afterwards that was extraordinary. As his Anglican flock gathered round to meet the great man, I simply had a chat with him for 20 minutes, during which I asked how he would engage as Archbishop with the Jewish community. He said, 'Through the Council of Christians and Jews I suppose', and my heart sank.

Here was someone for whom the Holocaust was not really a Jewish event but transcended race, religion and creed. However, as far as Jews on the ground were concerned, he was going to work through institutions rather than through individuals, a sure sign that the old prejudices would remain and that crises would not be averted.

And so it was to be. Since 2001 at least (but I would actually say from 20 years ago, 1997, and the advent of Blairism) the situation for Jews in this country has worsened and Rowan's rule as ABC between 2002 and 2012 was not exactly a time of understanding or reconciliation as far as most of us were concerned – far from it in fact.

How could this be?

Partly the timing was to blame and the rise of all things Muslim. The decision had been made much earlier in the 20^th century to start engaging with Islam in a way which excluded other considerations.

And gradually over 20 years the situation for Jews in this country deteriorated. And instead of being a source of comfort and assistance, a bulwark against anti-Semitism, the established Church of this country, with the Queen as Supreme Governor, simply refused to engage and proved itself time and time again to be part of the problem. 

So when in February 2006 Rowan agreed with Synod to disinvest from a company in Israel (but not from the same company operating under the Palestinian Authority), I wasn't even surprised any more. What did surprise me however, is that people in the Church of England had advised us that the motion to boycott (as we saw it) wouldn't even reach Synod let alone be passed.

Later that year I left this country (I thought for good) and moved to Haifa, Israel, whose university was being boycotted by Manchester University where a few years earlier I had established the new subject of Jewish history.

There, the new Anglican Bishop, Suheil, who was Palestinian, invited me to his office at St George's Cathedral, Jerusalem, and asked me to engage with him on a number of projects.

These included setting up a meeting between the Israelis and Hamas, which I did endeavour to do for him, but despite all the best efforts of the Israeli government, Hamas (whose main aim is the destruction of the Jewish people) simply wasn't playing ball, and in any case, more recently the Palestinians on the West Bank are in open war with their counterparts in Gaza, run by Hamas of course!

Another project was to offer Hebrew lessons to staff at St George's, which I did over a number of sessions and made a number of friends there.

Most people know that during the one and a half years that I lived in Haifa, I also advised the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, Shear Yashuv Cohen, about the pros and cons of establishing the Anglican Jewish Commission.

Whether or not to engage with the Church of England was a very difficult decision for Shear Yashuv to make, given the past history of the Church of England, the recent inexplicable vote at Synod and the fact that according to research done by the Israeli side, the Anglican Church was simply less open, less loving, less joyful and less grateful than the Catholic Church.

Shear Yashuv died last September and by this time I was back in England. As I write, antisemitism in this country is at crisis point. 

So, knowing all this, how does one survive as a Jew in England at the present time without completely retreating inside the ghetto?

One survives by knowing that enemies can become friends. Archbishop Rowan's relations with the Jewish community have been turned around and he has become an ally.

After the initial Liverpool meeting of 2002, when he downplayed future relations with the Jewish community, I wrote to him again in 2011 when he was thinking of giving up his role as Archbishop and told him about our Jewish Christian Dialogue Group which met fortnightly in my home in the Orthodox Jewish area of Broughton Park.

So during its 6^th year, 2014, Rowan turned up to meet us. My friend Sammy and I drove down to Piccadilly Station on a gloriously warm and sunny day – the train was early (a good omen, I thought) and once ensconced in the car, Rowan asked me about the health of the wife of the former Bishop of Manchester, who had retired to the Lake District.

This, I thought, was what the Queen must do all the time – find a point of common interest to break the ice.

Next we got onto the Israeli Ambassador and then came the meal. I had really panicked about this one and taken advice from a local rabbi. 'Give him soused herring' had been the rather ungenerous suggestion – 'you know he doesn't like us.'

So I went with my instincts and enlisted friends celebrated in our community for their expert culinary skills – one baked some challah, another (who also attended our group) made her special cake – and I did the in-between bits: chicken soup, chicken with special chestnut stuffing, roast potatoes, peas and corn.

Rowan loved the meal: he must have had five servings of potatoes. Another good omen was that a small boy who comes round weekly with the local Haredi rag gave it to Rowan rather than to me – the beard must have done it.

And then it was all the hard questions – in private of course (later I had to be host, adjudicator and one half of a piano and violin team, plus I had to be seen to be gracious in public):

Why did you ignore us during your time in office? Why did you privilege everyone else as if we didn't exist? Why did you appear to be boycotting us at Synod? Why did you work with outdated institutions instead of engaging with knowledgeable individuals? And most of all, why did you write hateful articles about Israel at the very time that I was a witness to Haifa's suffering in the middle of a war not of her own making, when at least a third of the city had had to be evacuated, and yet you thought you could then embark on a dialogue with the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, led by the Chief Rabbi of Haifa, as if nothing had happened – and he had already called me in for expert advice on your Church?

And then, having posed the questions, I realised that in a way this didn't really matter any more. Well it did and it didn't. Because if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have left at that time for Israel, would not have met the Chief Rabbi of Haifa who invited me round for guidance on the Church of England, and would not have subsequently been asked to translate his biography. And it was after the meeting with Rowan at our dialogue group here in Broughton Park that I had an epiphany which embraced all these players.

In June 2014, the time of Rowan's visit to our dialogue group in Broughton Park, I was coming towards the end of my translation of the Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen biography, which I wanted to entitle Between War and Peace, as this encapsulated the person he was. And I saw that the original Hebrew version ended with Pope Benedict's invitation to Shear Yashuv to become the first Jew in history to address the Vatican. This historic first took place in 2008.

Something in me said, hold on a minute, what about Shear Yashuv's engagement with the Church of England which, during his farewell gathering for Jews and Christians at Lambeth in December 2011, Rowan himself had mentioned as a highlight of his 10 years of office.

So I suggested adding an extra paragraph on relations with the Church of England to the chapter on relations with the Catholic Church (which I also had to correct for serious errors), as well as a final chapter which would discuss Shear Yashuv's influence on the English-speaking world, for which I managed to obtain wonderful contributions from Rowan, Canon Guy Wilkinson (his interfaith advisor) and Emeritus UK Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

But this is to run ahead of myself.

An epiphany is hard to explain but you know when you have one. I had one in Oslo 1991 for instance when the Dalai Lama bounded up to me at the Nobel Peace Prize for Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma (collected in absentia by her elder son) and begged me to help the Burmese people. Yes, just like that! And it was because he knew I was Jewish, he said. Extraordinary! You simply can't say 'No' at moments like this.

I had another epiphany in September 2006 at Chief Rabbi SY's home just one month after I had left England for Haifa, when he asked me what I knew about the Church of England and whether they were worth bothering with.

My head said 'How can you even think of dialoguing with a Church that has boycotted you such that the Government of the UK will also follow suit and Israel will become even more of a pariah than she is already?'

My heart said, 'I thought I was here as a new immigrant for a nice Friday night meal. How kind of the CR to ask me a question he knows I will be able to answer, just to put me at my ease.'

Put together, the epiphany had such an effect that I knew I had to say 'Yes'. Nothing surprises you in Israel – why shouldn't I advise on a subject I know about first hand, so I replied:

'The Church of England are not as open or warm in the espousal of their Jewish brothers and sisters as the Catholic Church has been, but if they want to make overtures after their dreadful mistake, we as Jews must not be the ones to decline.'

And so today I am writing this piece about the truly amazing and indescribable relationship I have enjoyed with Rowan for three years or more, especially since he accepted our invitation to be a guest at our group, to eat a kosher meal in my home, and to carry on the dialogue which has become both wider and deeper as a result.

This is a relationship like no other. Of course we don't agree on everything and sometimes the dialogue becomes quite emotional. But what I have always experienced from Rowan is total commitment, respect and generosity of spirit.

It is like diving into a stormy sea (as I used to do daily in Haifa first thing in the morning) and hoping that if you allow the tide to carry you along you will return to the shore rejuvenated and reinvigorated, ready to face the day ahead.

Which is why I compare dialogue to swimming.

No one says that the type of risk-taking that dialogue entails is easy though. After our meal in 2014, when group members arrived to meet the former Archbishop, we started off by playing him the Welsh national anthem. 

When he got back home to Cambridge, Rowan wrote to tell me that what had made the greatest impression on him was the warmth of our group. And this really was a compliment. The group may also be erudite, emotional, musical and northern – all things in its favour – and funny too. But warm is what being Jewish is all about and is also how you can describe many of the Christians who participate, once they realise that group work is a kind of therapy and that as long as we don't divulge the specifics of what goes on to the outside world, they can simply be themselves and learn how to let go.

From the Jewish point of view, however, the commitment which comes from dialogue also entails action. Most Anglicans one encounters seem simply uninterested or incapable of action – preferring a polite schmooze over smoked salmon and tea, or (in one case at least), scones and jam with coffee.

Rowan is different. In the last couple of years he has helped us to combat all types of antisemitism, especially of the academic and university variety of which he is very aware. And hasn't in the least minded going public on this.

For example, with regards to Manchester University, Rowan wrote to the Vice Chancellor, Nancy Rothwell, asking her, in line with the judgement on Irving made in a British court in 2000, to remove his books from the open shelves marked Modern History to reserve store. She has declined to do this and has also turned down a similar request from five national umbrella Jewish groups, led by the Jewish Leadership Council.

It is Rowan whose understanding of the threat posed to Jewish safety by the 'David Irving as real history' issue at Manchester University led to us obtain good coverage of this story in the Jewish, Christian and secular press.

Rowan is someone who understands, comprehends better than most rabbis what the Jewish community needs, and who is courteous enough to respond to e-mails and phone calls immediately. He is convinced that the small dialogue groups started in this area of Broughton Park are doing an immense amount of good and that Judaism as we live it has a positive role to play.

Rowan's contribution to the biography of Shear Yashuv Cohen included the following words about the former Chief Rabbi of Haifa:

We have been privileged to have so deep and serious a mind as part of our conversations. It has not meant that we have agreed about everything. Much more importantly, though, this has meant that we Anglicans ... have learned an intense respect for the lucidity and honesty, the care and devotion, out of which Rabbi Cohen's convictions come. It has been an enormously important experience.

The same could be said about Rowan. We do not agree on everything, but I have come to admire his qualities of caring, attentiveness and gratitude.

In February, my book launch was hosted and chaired by Rowan Williams at the Master's Lodge, Magdalene College Cambridge. 

After the party was over and all the guests had left, Rowan went off to his office to finish some paper work while I relaxed in his lounge, surrounded by two pianos and a harpsichord. Music by Mozart was lying around. I was tempted to play, but thought better of it!

When Rowan came back in, what did we talk about? Rowan plunged into the subject of Robert Browning, my favourite Victorian poet, who founded the English Church in Lucca, where ibn Ezra had written his monumental Commentary on the Torah (the subject of my PhD thesis and the basis for my first book). Browning wrote a poem about ibn Ezra, entitled 'Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be'.

John Lennon turned this poem into a song, which was published posthumously.

What an amazing subject to choose – what an out-of-the-box mode of thinking at the end of an exhausting afternoon and three years of concentrated endeavour on my part to bring the life and achievements of the greatest rabbi I've ever met into the homes of the English-speaking world. How grateful I felt in that moment for the life of Shear Yashuv and for the continuing dialogue with the Welshman I'd had to evaluate for him on the spot without prior notice when asked to do so at our very first meeting in Haifa.

How Israeli and how apt!

I for one very much hope that the dialogue continues.

Dr Irene Lancaster is chair of the Broughton Park Dialogue Group in Manchester and an author who has pioneered the teaching of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at a number of universities in the UK.