Source: The Jerusalem Post

On May 24, 2002 The Jerusalem Post featured an article on Orthodox Jews in Alaska. "Orthodox families get together in an informal cooperative to pool orders and exchange information about kosher food products that turn up in the city. Anything not available in Anchorage must be ordered and flown in by air freight... Living without easy access to kosher food is just one of the challenges to following Jewish law in this northernmost US state... Another popped up eight days before Passover. Jacob Tsatskis was born March 21, and...

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0523/p16s01-lire.html

On May 23, 2002 The Christian Science Monitor featured an article on the interfaith work of Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff. "After 28 years in the military - which took him from Vietnam to the top job of Command Chaplain for all US forces in Europe - the retired Navy captain is now working to increase understanding between faiths in the United States... Rabbi Resnicoff became national...

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On May 21, 2002 The Houston Chronicle reported that "a case involving a group of Brenham [TX] churches preaching that welfare recipients need a relationship with Jesus to prepare for work is heading back to court... The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals has sent the case back to federal district court to determine whether $ 8,000 awarded to the Jobs Partnership of Washington County must be repaid to taxpayers... At issue is whether the charitable choice program violated the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of separation of church and...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On May 19, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that "at least seven churches, synagogues and religious schools throughout the state [of California] have filed lawsuits against cities as part of a nationwide effort by religious groups to use a new federal law to overturn local zoning restrictions... The groups are invoking the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, passed in 2000, to gain leverage in states where they say churches are routinely denied building permits in favor of projects that bring in tax...

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

On May 18, 2002, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on the Pittsburgh, PA area's "second Celebrating Diversity Walk... Last year, some 400 people of all types from all over the region participated in the event, which promotes understanding and harmony between people of all races, religions, and national origins... This year's theme is, 'When you walk to celebrate diversity, you walk to celebrate America.'" Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist religious leaders will speak at the event which is organized...

Original Source: The Lawrence Journal-World. Jim Baker

http://bahai-library.com/newspapers/2002/020517-2.html

On May 18, 2002, The Lawrence Journal-World featured the article "World of Faith" on Baker University's World Religions Course taught by professor George Wiley. Wiley is a Pluralism Project affiliate in...

Source: The Boston Globe

On May 17, 2002, The Boston Globe featured a story on Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University in Waltham, MA, and his new program in conflict resolution. With this program, the university is "poised to become a world leader in teaching Israeli Arabs and Jews - and dozens of other warring peoples - to live together on the same land... Brandeis has begun building on its historically Jewish identity to create a new field it calls 'coexistence studies'... The school is now aggessively recruiting Jews and Arabs, Hindus and...

Source: The Boston Globe

On May 16, 2002, The Boston Globe featured an article on Anita Diamant and her newly formed organization, Mayyim Hayyim: Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center. Diamant, an author and resident of Newton, MA, wants to use her organization "to reinvent the ritual that has traditionally been used only by Orthodox Jews and to build a contemporary mikveh [pool used for ritual bathing] created with the needs of non-Orthodox Jews, men and women, in mind... Although Jews have been using the mikveh for more than 2,000 years...

Source: The Columbus Dispatch

On May 10, 2002, The Columbus Dispatch reported "Group Unites Eight Faiths for Mutual Enlightenment." It reported on the efforts of the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio: "Members of the 17-year-old association think that the community's religious tolerance, though a good start, isn't enough. 'We need to move beyond that to understanding and respect,' said Tarunjit Butalia, a spokesman for the association and representative of the Sikh community." The article noted that "The association also benefits from having been...

Source: Star Tribune

On May 9, 2002, the Star Tribune reported that in Minneapolis, MN, "leaders from 60 churches, synagogues, mosques and temples... are pairing up with individual schools to offer tutoring, building space and other support to improve student achievement." The Religious leaders and school officials will meet at a "summit, to take place at a Minneapolis church, the first between the city's school and faith leaders, and the kickoff to a long-term partnership."

Source: The Plain Dealer

On May 7, 2002, The Plain Dealer featured an article on "a College Board statistical finding that ranked the SAT scores of college-bound seniors by their religion. Unitarians finished first, averaging 1,209 on the college-entrance exam. Jews averaged 1,161 followed by Quakers at 1,153 and Hindus at 1,110. The average SAT score for college-bound seniors is 1,020."

Source: U.S. News...

Source: The Plain Dealer

On April 20, 2002, The Plain Dealer featured an article on Khenpo Tsewang Gyatso Rinpoche, "a renowned scholar and a senior Tibetan Buddhist monk... [from] the Namdroling Monastery in southern India." Gyatso was in Cleveland, OH for a week of teaching sponsored by the Palyul Changchub Dargyeling Ohio, a center for Tibetan Buddhist studies in Chagrin Falls, of which he is the spiritual director. "About 35 local clergy joined... [Gyatso] Wednesday for a vegetarian kosher lunch at Epworth-Euclid United Methodist Church. Afterward...

Source: The Houston Chronicle

On April 13, 2002, The Houston Chronicle reported that, according to two recent studies, "the number of people who say they don't belong to a religion has doubled over the last decade... For personal reasons, 29.4 million people said last year that they skip church, mosque and synagogue - up from 14.3 million in 1990, a rise from 8 percent to 14 percent of the U.S. population... That's the word from the American Religious Identification Survey, conducted in 2001... by the Graduate Center of City University of New York......

Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune

On April 12, 2002, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that "San Diegans are responding with prayers and rallies to the violence in the Holy Land that continues to rip apart a territory held sacred by Christians, Jews and Muslims... [Recently] people gathered in downtown San Diego for interfaith prayers calling for peace... Among the participants were Rabbi Martin Lawson, of Temple Emanu-El, Imam Sharif Battikhi, president of the Islamic Services Foundation, and the Rev. Art Cribbs, president of the Ecumenical...