The Montreal Dialogue Group was founded in January 2003 by Nada Sefian, a Palestinian Muslim born in Lebanon and Ronit Yarosky, a Canadian-Israeli Jew.
Around the same time, Sefian was involved in simulating conversation with Jews in a drama therapy conflict resolution workshop at Concordia University.
At the second meeting, Yarosky, some fellow Jewish friends as well as Sefian's and some of her Palestinian and Arabic participated; the Arabic-Jewish dialogue began.
Participants have common concern over the conflict effecting the Middle East and aim to overcome mistrust and divisiveness from the groups in Canada.
Themes from the past years cover media bias, the right of return, suicide bombing, the peace process, the one vs. two-state solution, two shared religious ceremonies/meals and a Passover Seder.
It was presented by comics of Middle Eastern backgrounds; Wafik Nasralla, Rasul Somji, Phil Shuchat, Ryan Wilner, and Dave Merheje.
It was mainly organized by Nada Sefian, Ronit Yarosky, Camela Aigen and Dina Saikali from the Group.
In this event, passages from the Torah, the Bible and the Koran was read in order to demonstrate that the three monotheistic religions share a lot in common.
Sheila McDonough, a professor of religious studies at Concordia University, was invited to the event as the guest speaker to discuss the rules of Moses and the pharaohs in the Koran.