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Israel's chief rabbi, David Lau, right, guest of honor at a lunch with Muslim and Jewish leaders in Manhattan on Thursday.Credit Bryan Thomas for The New York Times

All eyes were on the chief rabbi of Israel, David Lau, on Thursday when he was asked what should be done to stop the new wave of violence gripping his country.

The rabbi, the guest of honor at a lunch with Muslim and Jewish leaders at a kosher restaurant on the East Side of Manhattan, reached into the left breast pocket of his jacket and held up his cellphone. “It’s a very good machine,” Rabbi Lau said, “but please, I want you to help me to explain to people that not all the announcements they receive are true.”Palestinians as young as 13 are attacking Jews with knives on the streets because, he said, they have been told — falsely — that Israel intends to destroy Al Aqsa Mosque, part of a 37-acre compound in Jerusalem sacred to both Muslims and Jews.“It’s a lie. It’s not true. No one wants to do it, not the government of Israel, of course, not religious rabbis in Israel,” Rabbi Lau said at the lunch. “We need to explain to people, it’s a big mistake, a big lie.”Far from the violence in Israel, the chief rabbi was speaking to a largely friendly group — some of whom said they had received emails from other Muslims warning them not to attend.The dozen imams and Muslim leaders seated around a table in a small banquet room had been invited by Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which he founded 26 years ago with the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons to work on relations between blacks and Jews.The organization took up the challenge of Muslim-Jewish relations about eight years ago.Muslim leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, have claimed that the Israeli government plans to divide the sacred compound, something that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has consistently denied. Others claim that the Israelis want to destroy the mosque.Rabbi Schneir said that belief had spread like “a virus on the Muslim world.”He said it was “the No. 1 question” that he got from audiences last year when he and his friend Imam Shamsi Ali, a Muslim leader in New York, toured Indonesia to promote the book they had written together.Al Aqsa is the third-holiest site in Islam, revered as the place to which the Prophet Muhammad traveled from Mecca on his sacred “night journey.” The mosque is part of the site known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. It is administered by an Islamic religious trust known as the Waqf, under Jordanian supervision.At the lunch, Rabbi Lau was flanked by Rabbi Schneir on his left and Imam Ali on his right. Around the table were several Jewish supporters of the foundation, an evangelical Christian minister and Muslims from Africa, Asia and the Middle East who now live in the New York region. Many of them said they had visited Israel.Sheikh Musa Drammeh, a young Gambian who now leads a mosque in the Bronx where he also established a small synagogue for a group of older Jews, went to Israel last year, and he challenged the chief rabbi at the lunch.He described Israel as a “highly developed, beautiful place, holy land,” but said the situation with the Palestinians was “not sustainable.” Rabbi Lau listened, arms folded over his chest. He is the chief rabbi of the Ashkenazi Jews — those of European descent. His father, Yisrael Meir Lau, served as Ashkenazi chief rabbi from 1993 to 2003. David Lau was elected to a 10-year term in 2013 by 150 electors who were handpicked by Israeli politicians.The chief rabbinate, made up of Orthodox rabbis, has control over sensitive issues like conversions and supervision of kosher food.Pressed at the lunch by Rabbi Schneier to respond to Sheikh Drammeh, Rabbi Lau said that “education” was the answer to the conflict: “If we can explain to each other that we want to be together on the land. We have a place for all of us.”He said: “Today was in Israel quiet, quieter than yesterday, and yesterday was quieter than two days ago. So I hope that the storm is now, will be over.”