Source: The Plain Dealer

On March 27, 2002, The Plain Dealer featured an article on a Cleveland area Seder, or Passover meal, at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Jewish temple which "fed almost 400 Christians eager to nibble and sing their way through an interfaith Seder. The Reform congregation... welcomed guests from 29 churches... Passover, the most widely observed Jewish holiday, marks the moment when believers say God freed the captive Jews from Pharaoh in Egypt... The Seder means 'order' for the traditional course of the meal's events... Rabbi Melinda Mersack...

Source: The Hartford Courant

On March 25, 2002, The Hartford Courant featured the story "Leaders Bridge Religious Divide." The article described the visit of Rabbi Stephen Fuchs to the Muhammad Islamic Center of Hartford. The article noted, "He gave a passionate, yet informal half-hour sermon, standing before more than 70 people -- including two-dozen visitors from his own ministry, Congregation Beth Israel in West Hartford. Fuchs spoke of the need for Jews and Muslims to maintain a dialogue to better understand each other. ... 'If we join hands I believe...

Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

On March 24, 2002 The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that at Marian Middle, a Catholic girls school in St. Louis, MO, a teacher "is using the book 'Farewell to Manzanar,' a first-person account of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II," to help teach eighth grade students about September 11. "Since the attacks of Sept. 11, Muslims in the United States have been under intense scrutiny and have faced widespread harassment. Hundreds of cases of threats, beatings and firebombings have been reported,...

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 23, 2002, The Boston Globe featured an article on "the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, a coalition of 98 churches, synogogues, unions, and community groups that ranks as one of the country's most successful grass-roots organizations... In its six-year history, the group has successfully lobbied the state" on a wide variety of issues including housing and education. "Since its founding in 1996, GBIO has stayed away from the pie-throwing, sit-in tactics favored by some activist groups, with an eye toward engaging an...

Source: Pew Charitable Trusts

http://www.pewtrusts.com/ideas/ideas_item.cfm?content_item_id=992&content_type_id=18&issue_name=Religion%20in%20public%20life&issue=17&page=18

On March 20, 2002, The Pew Charitable Trusts released the results of their recent poll entitled "Americans Struggle with Religion’s Role at Home and Abroad" from The Pew Research Center For The People and The...

Source: The Boston Herald

On March 20, 2002, The Boston Herald reported that "firefighters and police from throughout Massachusetts joined lawmakers and religious leaders yesterday in a State House tribute to the victims of Sept. 11...

At an interfaith service in the House chamber, Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Center of New England condemned the attacks... 'Those people do not represent the faith of Islam... They committed a murder against humanity,' Eid said."

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 18, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that "four years ago, a 'ground blessing' celebrated plans to build an interfaith chapel on the campus of Chapman University in Orange [CA]... The 1998 'ground blessing'... included Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Wiccans. The Juaneno Indians provided a tobacco blessing... After a long dispute,... the City Council in January approved another revised plan for the 12,000-square-foot Wallace All Faiths Chapel--the final chapter in a lesson on the difficulties of finding the nexus...

Source: The New York Times

On March 17, 2002, The New York Times reported that "from the 8th to the 14th centuries in Spain, Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted peacefully in an era that historians refer to as the "convivencia," or living together. On Thursday, the Newark Museum, [in Newark, NJ], will open a 'Garden of Remembrance: A Memorial to September 11,' inspired by the gardens of the convivencia. Baptist, Episcopal, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders will participate in the dedication... 'The garden was designed for...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 17, 2002, the Los Angeles Times featured an article on the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, CA. "Inside the mosque community... some object to non-Muslims visiting their sacred space; others warmly embrace them. Some women veil their entire bodies; others throw off such practices as outdated... The King Fahd Mosque's struggles to unite a people drawn from a broad range of ideologies, culture and race seem familiar and quintessentially American. The diversity belies the notion of an insular people in ideological...

Source: The New York Times

On March 17, 2002, The New York Times reported that Rev. Billy Graham's "sterling reputation as a healer and bridge-builder" was shattered when the tape of a 1972 conversation with former President Nixon in the Oval Office was made public by the National Archives. "Three decades after it was recorded, the North Carolina preacher's famous drawl is tinny but unmistakable on the tape, denigrating Jews... Mr. Graham, who is now 83 and in poor health, quickly issued a four-sentence apology, but he did not acknowledge making the...

Source: The Denver Post

On March 17, 2002, The Denver Post featured the editorial "Faith, Fear and Public Schools" by Lori Colvin-Hobbs, a parent and business director at The Odyssey School in Denver, CO where middle school students are engaged in an Asian Studies program, which includes studying Asian religions. "For many families, both Christian and non-Christian, this learning expedition was an exciting opportunity for their students... But some Christian families in our school community saw the Asian studies curriculum as a threat - crossing...

Source: India-West Newspaper

http://www.ncmonline.com/content/ncm/2002/mar/0315southasian.html

On March 15, 2002, India-West Newspaper reported "South Asians Main Targets of Sept. 11 Backlash." It noted that "The first major study of bias crimes in the U.S. after Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found that 96 percent of 243 incidents of violence that were documented targeted South Asians. In more than half of the incidents, the targets were Sikhs, whose men wear...

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 14, 2002, The Boston Globe featured an article on the four-part "Islam in the Modern World" series in Duxbury, MA. "Librarian Ellen Snoeyenbos said she was warned that some people would come with their own agendas to a discussion series on Islam. She said the series... has been a lightning rod for strong emotions, but has also revealed an openness to learning and surprising diversity here."

Source: The Plain Dealer

On March 13, 2002, The Plain Dealer reported that Islamic scholar Abdulaziz Sachedina, famous for his "interfaith work and advocacy for the rights of women,... packed local [Cleveland] mosques with eager listeners and attracted about 300 clergy to his lectures yesterday at Hiram College... Sachedina travels the West Bank and Israel, working for curriculum reform in Islamic and Jewish schools...But Sachedina's central endeavor, as a scholar at the University of Virginia and an adviser to the Center for Strategic and...

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 13, 2002, The Boston Globe reported that "last September, Mount Holyoke College held an opening ceremony for a new dining hall. Any other year, it would have been a festive occasion at the nation's oldest women's college... But when Wilder Hall was consecrated, it was two days after Sept. 11. The dining hall opened not merely to hungry students but to a sense of hope, prayer, and spiritual revolution... The kitchen at Wilder Hall, the first of its kind in an American university, serves meals that conform to...