​France’s ‘hip’ female rabbi draws Muslims, Christians and Jews in a time of crisis

Religious News Services (accessed June 30, 2020)
RNS) — On Tuesday nights at 8:30 p.m., tens of thousands of people throughout France — believers and non-believers, Jews, Muslims and Christians — log on to Facebook to hear the nation’s foremost female rabbi discuss the intersection of racism and anti-Semitism and help them make sense of a modern plague.
“We are in a moment of extreme vulnerability when life and death hold hands,” said Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, known for her original interpretations of Biblical texts, psychoanalytic thought, art and poetry. “Some people will use this moment to create a bubble of protection, to close borders and embrace ideologies of contamination that demonize people. But what is the meaning of my life if confinement makes me blind to the other?”
Horvilleur, 45, who has been called a rock star in a leather jacket, is a former model who has appeared on the cover of French Elle. The wild curls framing her face have been compared to the sidelocks of Hasidic Jews. She finds the descriptions amusing insofar as they counter stereotypes and help her reach audiences across cultures.
“I’m trying to create bridges between worlds that have stopped talking to each other,” she said. “I’m trying to create links between words and worlds.”
Horvilleur is also known as the rare public intellectual who has brought faith into the conversation in a country committed to laicité, or secularism. And though she is also one of the few progressive rabbis in France’s overwhelmingly Orthodox Jewish community, she has become a leader of a growing movement of Jews from all denominations. Less an activist who urges congregants to take to the streets to protest injustice, she is a purveyor of ideas and a presenter of possibilities in the tradition of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Coronaspection

 Elijah Institute’s “Coronaspection” initiative makes a contribution to this need by bringing together premier religious voices from around the world to engage in introspection in light of the Corona crisis. “Coronaspection” was created from interviews conducted with over 30 major faith leaders, as well as from some messages made by others for this project. In addition to the full interview, you can also watch shorter clips derived from them, gems of wisdom that appear on the leader’s personal page. Several composite clips draw multiple voices together on chosen topics. In addition to clicking on the image of each of the leaders above, you can also enter the project through the several gateways below.

We recommend watching the videos (especially full interviews) on Youtube itself (by pressing inside the video on “Youtube”, at bottom right). This will provide you with more information on each video, table of contents and useful links. For project credits and gratitude, press here. Pinpoint different faith traditions here.

Empty Spaces in a Pandemic

This Precious Moment: A Statement from the Religious Leaders and Communities on the Crisis of Racial Injustice and Inequity and the Current Protests

June 2, 2020

Religions for Peace International, Parliament of the World’s Religions, United Religions Initiative, and Interfaith Center for New York have collaborated with Religions for Peace USA in issuing the below statement.

We write together and in one voice, with urgency, as people of faith and as religious and spiritual leaders that represent the diverse faith traditions of United States of America. We are Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Humanist, Indigenous, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Taoist, Unitarian Universalist, Zoroastrian, and many others.
Our words come in an hour of peril informed by a sense of crisis. Racial injustice, deep inequities, hate speech, brutality, and authoritarian power converge in a vulnerable moment when millions are infected and affected by a global virus that we have yet to find either a vaccine for or any medication to deliver us from. This endangers the fabric of our society.
Recent recurrent violence against African Americans made inescapably public has brought to a head long-stewing, justified, and righteous anger.
Our wicked scourge of discrimination and racism is structural, systemic, systematic, and institutional. We live with its legacy daily in a myriad of forms, seen and unseen.
We soberly own up to the fact that our religious communities have been complicit for far too long. We have upheld in far too many ways the false tenets that enable racism to continue in our society.

Interfaith Prayer with the Islamic Masumeen of Hopkinton toward the Close of Ramadan

Holy Envy


The tensions of our time are well-known. But there are stories that are not being told, because they are not violent and not shouting to be heard. One of them is that all over this country, synagogues and mosques, Muslims and Jews, have been coming to know one another. There is friendship. There are initiatives that are patiently, and at human scale, planting the seeds for new realities across generational time. As part of the Civil Conversations Project, a live conversation at the Union for Reform Judaism’s General Assembly in Boston between Imam Abdullah Antepli and Rabbi Sarah Bassin.
ON BEING with Krista Tippet
Chag Pesach sameach, Happy Easter, and a happy preparation for Ramadan, too! Enjoy celebrating all the things that mark a holy springtime of Divine connection, rebirth, and hopefully soon greater freedom and redemption.

Our Interfaith Gathering at the Islamic Center of Boston 2020

On Sunday, February 29, friends of different faith traditions came together at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Massachusetts to talk and reflect together on our solidarity and commonality as peoples of different faiths, notwithstanding our important differences as well. Dr. Celine Ibrahim led the discussion through the book she edited, One Nation, Indivisible.  More than one hundred people gathered for this important event. For more information about interfaith opportunities at Islamic Center of Boston, contact Shaheen Akhtar.

Meeting God - Shaping Narratives

We introduce to you a special series of PBS entitled, MEETING GOD, CHANGING NARRATIVES. This particular episode is produced through the lens of the Sikh faith and explores our wonderful diverse richness in multiple faiths and cultures all around us. One of our dialogue partners, Siri Karm Singh, minister in our local Sikh Ashram in Millis, Massachusetts would love to answer your questions about the Sikh faith. You can ask questions here.

Interfaith Scripture Study I & II
More Coming in the Fall of 2020

Join us as Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and others come together for an opportunity to explore each other's scriptures around our accountability to the earth and humanity in a time of global climate change.  
Please register below

Prayer & Solidarity in the Face of Tragedy in New Zealand

 In light of the tragic killings in two mosques in New Zealand during jumma prayers, killing 49 and seriously wounding more than 20 others, we send our prayerful support and a bolder commitment to interfaith dialogue and collaboration.
​
May we all religious and nonreligious, heal our communities and nation of Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia, deep wounds we all carry.

​Read our letter of support to our Muslim Neighbors here.

From Our Latest Event

Here are some pics from our Winter Book Read and Pot Luck on February 24, 2019. We had a nice group of around 30 people join us for good food and good conversation.

Pictures of our October 2018 Event

Final Wrap Up Report by Larry Maloney
File Size: 24 kb
File Type: docx
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