Interfaith

Annual Interfaith luncheon brings community together to spread love

February 1, 2023

At the end of every year, faith leaders, local organizations and officials gather together to break bread at the Muslim Center of Greater Princeton and further build relationships with one another.

The Muslim Center of Greater Princeton in West Windsor brought local officials, faith leaders, residents and organizations together in the large multi-purpose room at the mosque to learn more about one another in December before the start of this new year.

“If we know each other, we love each other. When we don’t know each other there is the fear of the unknown,” said...

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Historic church being housed by a synagogue gets green light for restoration

January 11, 2023

When a fire devastated the Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village two years ago, East End Temple, a nearby Reform synagogue, welcomed church-goers to worship in their sanctuary.

Since then, a relationship has blossomed between the synagogue and the church, which has remained homeless due to the six-alarm fire that  destroyed most of the historic building in 2020.  

But this weekend, when the congregations get together...

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This Advent, churches urged to assess worship for inadvertent antisemitism

December 14, 2022

This December, Christian congregations will belt “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and priests will wax poetic about Old Testament prophecies. As they do so, a group of Jewish, Christian and Muslim educators is calling on them to examine where antisemitic ideas might be lurking undetected. 

On Wednesday (Dec. 14), the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations — a group of roughly ...

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Veterans, Muslim and Jewish groups file support for Sikh recruits suing Marine Corps

November 16, 2022

Muslim, Jewish and interfaith groups, as well as U.S. veterans, are rallying behind three prospective Sikh recruits who earlier this year sued the United States Marine Corps in their push to attend training while maintaining their turbans and beards.

Sikhs who serve in the Marine Corps can keep their beards and unshorn hair — which are articles of their faith — under a turban while on duty, according to the service’s grooming regulations, but are forbidden from doing so during combat deployment and in the course of recruit trainings.

Jaskirat Singh, Aekash Singh and...

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As a rabbi, he worked on Jewish-Catholic relations. Now the pope is knighting him.

November 1, 2022

Rabbi A. James Rudin, the longtime interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish Committee, will be conferred the prestigious Papal Knight of St. Gregory for his work on Catholic-Jewish relations, one of the few non-Catholics to receive the honor.

Only eight other Jews have been knighted by the order, established in 1831, that recognizes personal service or unusual labor in support of the Catholic Church. Among them are three other rabbis, David Rosen and the late Mordecai Waxman and Leon Klenicki.

A Reform rabbi and also a writer who has contributed...

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How faith groups helped pass the climate law

September 7, 2022

Hours into last month’s debate over one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation ever passed, Maryland’s senior senator turned his remarks to Jewish tradition.

Sen. Ben Cardin, who is Jewish, noted that discussion of the Inflation Reduction Act, with $369 billion in funding for climate and energy at stake, coincided with Tisha B’Av, a time of Jewish collective mourning over historic tragedies.

The Democrat’s comments stemmed from Dahlia Rockowitz, a leader for the group Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, who had reached out to Cardin’s office over...

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A religiously diverse Edmonton hosts Pope Francis' visit

July 26, 2022

As Pope Francis pays a historic visit to Canada, he is encountering a country that is less Catholic, more secular and more religiously diverse than the last time it hosted a pontiff two decades ago.

And the city where he landed on Sunday — Edmonton — reflects that diversity more than outsiders might expect from a provincial capital in Canada’s prairie heartland.

Edmonton and its province of Alberta do have a large, long-settled population of Christians of European descent.

Source:...

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An interfaith group in Oregon is behind one of nation's strictest gun control measures

July 26, 2022

Oregonians will be voting on one of America’s strictest gun control measures on the ballot this November.

If passed by voters, the gun safety initiative would ban the sale of magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds and would require permits and firearm safety courses to purchase any gun. Applicants would have...

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Boise High grad brings community together to counter local Baptist pastor

June 28, 2022

Lizzy Duke-Moe, a Boise High School graduate who is attending Brown University in the fall, was spurred into action last week to counter a local Baptist pastor who called for the death of all gay people.

Duke-Moe said in an email that her mom, Keely Duke, and stepmom, Sarah Seidl are married — “they got married in Idaho,” Duke-Moe said, and her mother had shown her an article about the pastor’s sermons. “And...

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LGBTQ youth of faith retell their stories to inspire others

June 27, 2022

Sabrina Hodak grew up in a Modern Jewish Orthodox family but only truly embraced Judaism at age 16, around the same time she understood she was bisexual.

It was an upsetting and confusing time, because the same religious mentors who helped her strengthen her beliefs kept saying her sexuality would conflict with her faith.

“That was very frustrating, because I also knew that a lot of other religious people believed that,” said Hodak, now a 19-year-old psychology major at Florida International University. In her journal, she kept asking, “Can I please just find...

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Is Intermarriage Good for the Jews?

June 23, 2022

In 1990, American Jews decided they had no future.

That was the year the National Jewish Population Survey—then the most comprehensive study of American Jewry ever undertaken—revealed that more than half of America’s Jews, 52%, were intermarried. Though the report itself was even-keeled in its analysis, the reaction among many Jews veered toward panic.

Intermarried couples weren’t raising their...

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Louisville Tibetan Buddhist monastery holds interfaith memorial for lives lost in combat and mass shootings

May 30, 2022

A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery held a Memorial Day service to honor the lives lost in combat and recent mass shootings.

Believers of different faiths joined hands on Monday at the Drepung Gomang Institute on Hubbards Lane.

Twenty-one candles were lit throughout the ceremony to represent a pillar of light in the darkness.

Source:...

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Religious leaders, community members come together after Chabad House fire

May 23, 2022

Religious leaders, elected officials among others attended a ceremony at the Jewish Community Center on Sunday to show unity after a fire destroyed the Chabad of Kentucky back in April.

On April 23, firefighters were called around 4 a.m. to respond to the headquarters for Chabad of Kentucky in Almara Circle after a grease fire broke out, spokesperson for the Saint Matthews Fire Department Rick Tonini said.

Firefighters were able...

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Buffalo church holds interfaith service to lament massacre

May 16, 2022

Hundreds of people brought their pain to the altar Sunday in remembrance of the 10 lives lost and three injured in a mass shooting in Buffalo on Saturday.

Macedonia Baptist Church, just minutes away from the Tops Supermarket where the tragedy took place, held an interfaith service that called for healing and action. Senior Pastor Julian Cook said planning a service that would bring people from all walks of life together was necessary, as the hate crime that took place affects everyone.

“Part of the lie of racism is that it only impacts minorities, right? Part of the...

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