I signed the Atlanta Interfaith Manifesto with mixed emotional feelings. This document is a powerful statement to encourage people of all faiths to stand together and speak out against the fears, hatred, and ignorance which are dividing our country. My feelings were mixed because once again, now sixty years later, there still exists a strong […]
by Audrey Galex, President of the Board for Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta and Program Content Manager at the AIB Network. “To understand other people, even your enemy, you must be willing to walk a mile in their moccasins.” It was Labor Day weekend, 1971. I was 12-years-old. I was standing on the pulpit at the Tri-City Jewish […]
by Judy Marx, Executive Director of the Interfaith Community Initiatives I am the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. My dad, who turned 90 just a few weeks ago, rarely spoke about his experiences during the war. My brothers and I knew the rough outline: he grew up in Frankfurt, Germany, stayed there until his deportation to […]
by Tom Glenn Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) always gives a great speech, but he made one the other night that was particularly powerful as some three hundred college students, along with supporting faculty and student affairs professionals from all over the United States, gathered at IFYC’s Interfaith Leadership Institute dinner […]
Thoughts from Dr. Derreck Kayongo, CEO of The Center for Civil and Human Rights. As a young boy growing up in Uganda under the reprobate leadership of Idi Amin in the seventies, I witnessed this leadership begin to develop a new form of authoritarianism, which took on a religious tone. In the summer of 1975 Idi […]
Thoughts from Hal Schlenger, Senior Vice President of Programming at Temple Kol Emeth and chairperson since 2007. You probably knew that Cobb County’s history of religious intolerance and bigotry was a legacy that couldn’t be ended soon enough. The story of Leo Frank, a Jewish business person, is one of the county’s low moments. As much as […]
Thoughts From Soumaya Khalifa, Executive Director and Founder of the Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta At the recent Atlanta film screening of “Newtown” at the Lovett school, an audience member made a comment that we need to build community and to care for each other if we are to stop gun violence. His statement made […]
Thoughts From Rabbi Peter S. Berg, Senior Rabbi at The Temple When I think about my predecessors, the rabbis who came before me at The Temple, I realize that I am standing on the shoulders of giants. In 1957, a year before our own Temple was bombed, eighty white ministers in Atlanta publicly endorsed what […]
Thoughts From Bill Clarkson, Atlanta Interfaith Manifesto steering committee member I have been a life-long Episcopalian, baptized as a child, confirmed at age 12, and ordained priest in 1973. My entire career has largely been in education—teacher, coach, chaplain, administrator, and then Headmaster of two independent schools. In the sacrament of Baptism (the Episcopal Book of […]