It’s easy to get depressed reading the news about escalating violence and campaigns of threats against Jews and Muslims alike — not to mention foreigners and other minorities. But amidst the hatred, there are gratifying signs of solidarity between Jews and Muslims that we haven’t seen in a while. Here are six examples: After a…
A mere thirteen days before the presidential election, the Interfaith Center of Philadelphia formally launched the first of its kind program entitled “Visionary Women: Rooted in Faith, Committed to Justice.” Associate Executive Director of the Interfaith Center, Nicole Diroff was concerned that at best, twenty women would sign on and she would feel compelled to…
Lauren Michele Jackson’s excellent Buzzfeed story, “Why A New Mixed Race Generation Will Not Solve Racism,” makes the following case: “[C]ontrary to popular narratives, interracial heterosexual relationships and their result, multiracial children, are not the antithesis of white supremacy, but can be easily co-opted as the glittery mask behind which racism and antiblackness continue to…
NEW YORK (JTA) — Leading up to their wedding in 2012, Julianne and Jason Kanter hadn’t really discussed how they would incorporate their respective religions into their home. Julianne was raised by Catholic and Presbyterian parents, while Jason grew up culturally Jewish. At first, it was simple to mark their different backgrounds. In December, the…
Early last Saturday morning—the Jewish Sabbath—someone smashed the windows of the Chicago Loop Synagogue and drew swastikas on the front of the building. Lee Zoldan, the synagogue’s president, got a phone call with the bad news at 1 a.m. An hour later, she found herself standing with her husband in the middle of Clark Street…
CHICAGO (JUF News via JTA) — Some 1,000 Jewish, Muslim and Christian Chicago residents came together in unity at a synagogue that was vandalized with swastikas four days earlier. The Wednesday event at the Chicago Loop Synagogue was sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish United Fund and billed as “an interfaith…
I just read with interest that Hebrew College, in Massachusetts, has introduced “the first-ever graduate school of Jewish Education to establish a specialization in our Master’s Degree program and a standalone graduate certificate in Interfaith Families Jewish Engagement.” IFJE’s director is Keren McGinity, who also — full if not especially scandalous disclosure — edited an…
At 1:30 p.m. on the day of the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., I huddled with my group of students from the University of Pennsylvania alongside thousands upon thousands of other protesters. Our group tried to find a route around the gridlock, to no avail, when a Muslim freshman realized that the time for afternoon…
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