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Members of the Miller Center staff gathering for our first in-person dinner since the start of COVID.
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The Power of Partnerships in a Time of Need: COVID-19 Youth & Young Adult Initiatives
The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light and in many ways exacerbated longstanding justice issues in the city of Boston, across the nation, and throughout the world. In response to the crisis, the Miller Center partnered with the Center for Teen Empowerment to create the COVID-19 Boston Youth Commission, a diverse cohort of 26 youth charged with addressing various needs in their communities. "We can’t stand by idly,” said Miller Center director Rabbi Or Rose, “We have to respond to the moment with care and creativity. Who better to step forward than teens, with their energy, idealism, and fresh thinking?” By the close of the initiative in late June 2021, the group had used their collective wisdom and power to create and distribute over 200 COVID kits to area homeless shelters; to organize a volunteer day at the Bread of Life Food Pantry in Malden; to create an information campaign to destigmatize the use of food pantries; and to provide accurate and timely COVID resources both digitally and at local events.
Picking up where the COVID commission left off, in June 2021 the Miller Center teamed up with Interfaith Youth Core, which launched the national “Faith in the Vaccine Ambassador” program. The goal of the program was to train 2,000 people from civic organizations, colleges and universities, and high schools to engage in vaccine outreach efforts through December 31, 2021. Hebrew College organized the Greater Boston effort, partnering with local groups, including Turn In Reach Out, We Got Us, and Black Boston COVID Coalition. The 30 Boston area Vaccine Ambassadors, ranging from high school (including a number of the original COVID-19 youth Commissioners) through graduate school, have engaged in canvassing, social media campaigns, COVID kit-making, and facilitation of information sessions.
We are excited to announce the next phase of the work—The COVID Chronicles—a national writing fellowship. Hebrew College is partnering with Massachusetts Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL), Bridge-Builders Charlotte, and We Got Us, to sponsor the fellowship with funding and logistical support from IFYC. The fellowship will consist of ten youth and young adults (ages 14-21) who are passionate about sharing the impact of COVID-19 in their communities. Their work will be shared with a broad audience of youth and other leaders looking for inspiration and insight during this challenging time. The fellows will receive expert coaching to support the publication of their work and a stipend.
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BILI Expands Beyond New England
Change is afoot for what we affectionately refer to as BILI—our fellowship for undergraduate student leaders currently in its fifth year! Up until this year, BILI has stood for the Boston Interfaith Leadership Initiative. But starting this past August, we made a slight adjustment to the name to reflect BILI’s expansion beyond New England: The Building Interfaith Leadership Initiative. We are pleased to share the news of our partnership with Bridge Builders Charlotte (BBC), led by Rev. Dr. Suzanne Henderson, Dean of Belk Chapel and a professor in the Philosophy & Religion Department at Queens University in Charlotte, NC. BBC is a network of interreligious undergraduate students engaged in dialogue and service work in their community. The two regional cohorts meet monthly for study, professional development, and dialogue. Additionally, they will travel to Washington, D.C. in January to meet in-person and to learn about faith and public life in our nation’s capital. The students will also be working on projects with their respective campuses (or across local campuses) to apply their learning in community.
This expansion of the BILI program has been made possible by a grant from the Gottesman Fund. The grant also enables us to engage in exploratory discussions with colleagues in other parts of the country about bringing the BILI Fellowship to these locations. Finally, to contribute further to the development of the field of interreligious leadership, the Gottesman grant provides funding to develop an open-source website featuring best practices in undergraduate educational efforts—classroom-based and co-curricular—from practitioners and scholars across the United States and Canada.
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Mazel Tov
Reverend Tom Reid!
We wish to congratulate Rev. Tom Reid, Associate Director of the Miller Center, who was ordained by the Presbytery of Boston as a minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on January 31, 2021. We are delighted that the presbytery took the unique step to approve his role with the Miller Center as a validated ministry and look forward to continuing our work together! As of July 1, 2021, in addition to Tom’s role with the Miller Center, he is serving as pastor of Newton Presbyterian Church.
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Staff:
- Grace Harrington (left picture) joined the Miller Center in Fall 2021 as the administrative assistant. Her role is key to keeping the many Miller Center initiatives on track and well organized. Grace is in her first year at Boston University School of Theology, working toward her Master's degree in Theological Studies. Her scholarship is dedicated to Interreligious Studies and the intersection of politics and religion. Prior to moving to Boston, she grew up and lived in Miami, Florida, attending the University of Miami. Grace graduated from UM in the spring of 2021 with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Religious Studies.
- Batya Ellinoy (middle picture) is in her final year of rabbinical school at Hebrew College. While she previously served as an intern for the Miller Center, this year Batya is serving as the assistant director of the Dignity Project. Working closely with the teen fellows and their mentors, Batya’s responsibilities include curriculum development, group facilitation, and program evaluation. Before arriving in Boston, Batya worked as associate faculty in Integrated Arts/Dance at Prescott College in Arizona, and as a group psycho-education facilitator for clients recovering from addiction. She graduated from Prescott College with self-designed majors in Studies in Diversity & Social Sustainability and in Dance & Transformation. In addition to her rabbinic studies, she is concurrently training to be certified as a practitioner in Somatic Experiencing, a psycho-biological approach to help resolve trauma and stress disorders.
- Imam Taymullah Abdur-Rahman (right picture), who after many years of teaching for and collaborating with the Miller Center, has joined the Miller Center team as senior educator in Islamic & Interreligious Studies. Imam Tay will focus on teaching; planning, convening, and facilitating an interreligious working group on race and religion; and development of a new pilot podcast. Imam Tay is a faith leader, educator and activist. He has served as Muslim chaplain for the Massachusetts Department of Correction, Northeastern University and Harvard University over the past two decades. He holds a degree in Islamic studies from Al Baseerah International Institute, a Masters in Global Interreligious Leadership from Andover Newton Theological School and is a candidate for Doctorate of Ministry in Transformational Leadership at Boston University School of Theology.
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Contextual Education Student:
- Anine De Good (left picture) is an M.Div. student at Boston University School of Theology who is working with us this year as a contextual education student. Originally from the Netherlands, she has been living in the US for many years now with her husband and two children. She is classically trained in Bharat Natyam (a classical South Indian dance tradition) and teaches dance and piano in her spare time.
BILI Alumni Liaisons:
We are pleased to have two BILI Alumni serving in the role of BILI Alumni Liaison this year:
- John Cioci Lazur (middle picture) is currently a senior at Tufts University majoring in anthropology with a focus on religious pluralism, multifaith sacred spaces, and Universalist history at Tufts. They served as a BILI fellow in 2019-2020 and are committed to interfaith leadership as a young, queer, white, UU Humanist
- Simran Singh (right picture) is a senior at Boston University studying Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures with a minor in psychology. She served as a BILI fellow during the 2020-2021 academic year and is grateful to work with wonderful 2021-2022 cohort of student leaders
We are grateful to all of our new colleagues for their outstanding contributions to the work of the Miller Center.
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Journal of Interreligious Studies
Over the past few years the Journal of Interreligious Studies (JIRS) has grown into an internationally regarded platform for scholarly reflection on the theory and practice of Interreligious Studies. This has included a more robust set of annual journal issues (see below), a new podcast—Inter/Sections—and the publication of a volume celebrating a decade of JIRS scholarship entitled Deep Understanding for Divisive Times: Essays Marking a Decade of the Journal of Interreligious Studies, edited by Lucinda Mosher, Axel Takács, Or Rose, and Mary Elizabeth Moore. Our next volume will be an edited volume tentatively entitled Living in a Religiously Plural World: Voices from Secondary Education and Community Youth Organizations on Interreligious Engagement. Both of these anthologies are published under our new imprint, Interreligious Studies Press.
Since our last update JIRS has also published two new issues with four exciting special issues expected in the coming months.
Issue 32 (March 2021) is a rolling submissions issue and features articles on Christian-Muslim relations; Hindu and Rastafari divine metaphysics; George Floyd; and female wisdom figures in Tibetan Buddhism and apocryphal texts. The issue also includes a review of several publications that can be read here.
Issue 33 (August 2021) is another rolling submissions issue featuring five articles; four are part of our regular rolling submissions and one is the edited transcript of a discussion among editors of different journals whose purviews are ecumenical or interreligious studies. The issue also includes a review of several publications which can be read here.
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State of Formation
State of Formation has stayed very busy since our last update, publishing sixteen pieces by fellows and mentors involved in our fellowships, as well as staff members. Here are links to a few of these pieces
To read more posts from our State of Formation fellows click here.
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Dignity Project
The Dignity Project Fellowship includes 21 teens and 4 mentors from Sikh; Hindu; Buddhist; Christian; Muslim; Agnostic; Jewish and secular communities. We have been meeting bi-monthly—in person and online—and the community being built is deepening with each gathering. The cohort is engaging in exploring various leadership values, including hospitality, humility, authenticity, and interconnection, as well as learning about such leadership skills as engaging and in difficult conversations, using our public voices for positive change, and self-care and resilience. Fellows are also working in smaller project groups exploring music, photography, service projects, and dialogue facilitation. They will be sharing the fruits of their labor with the full cohort and other youth at upcoming sessions and special programs. We have been blessed to learn from various local artists, organizers, and leaders on all of these important topics. Finally, fellows and mentors are practicing interreligious hospitality by hosting/visiting one another’s religious/cultural homes, sharing the practices, teachings, and communities that support and guide their work in the wider world.
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Boston Bridges
This year’s Boston Bridges cohort once again includes a diverse and talented group of emerging religious and cultural leaders (15 total). A major highlight has been the ability to meet, once again, in person. While we are grateful to live in an age in which technology affords us the opportunity to stay connected even when physically apart, it has been renewing to be able to share meals and engage in learning and dialogue in ways we may have taken for granted prior to the pandemic. Our first meeting was focused on the power of personal narratives to help build community. Participants read and discussed a story by Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi entitled “What I found in the Chapel”, an account of his first meeting with his beloved mentor, Reverend Howard Thurman. The story can be found in the anthology My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation. In our November meeting, the cohort had the privilege to learn from a panel of three outstanding spiritual and professional leaders: Petrina Martin Cherry, Dr. Katherine Gergen-Barnett, and Reverend Dr. Irene Monroe. The panelists discussed the relationship between spirituality and wellness, including their own personal practices throughout the pandemic. The panel gave way to passionate, personal, and informative dialogue among all present.
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The Book of Psalms: An Interdisciplinary Exploration for Jewish and Christian Professionals
Rabbi Or Rose and Dr. Andrew Davis of Boston College have once again teamed up to offer their popular course, “Calling Out from the Depths: Jewish & Christian Interpretations of the Book of Psalms.” This iteration is sponsored jointly by Hebrew College and the Center for Continuing Education of Boston College. The four-part course provides a unique opportunity for Jewish and Christian religious professionals to explore the many uses of the Psalms in their communities, past and present. The 22 participants including rabbis, ministers, cantors, nuns, priests, and religious educators Zoom in from several different locations around the world. Each session includes discussion of textual, historical, spiritual, and vocational matters. Special attention is given to strategies for teaching and sharing the materials we study in our respective communities, including interreligious settings. Miller Center contextual education student Anine de Grood from the Boston University School of Theology is serving as the course fellow, organizing materials and assisting students through the learning journey. The course dovetails with and helps to inform a concurrent digital project in which Rabbi Rose and Dr. Davis are creating an open-source curriculum and resource bank on the Psalms for houses of worship and other educational contexts. Curriculum specialist Dr. Daniel Osborn and Hebrew College rabbinical student Rafi Ellenson (class of 2025) are assisting with the project. We also wish to thank Hebrew College’s Marketing Director, Wendy Linden, for her expert guidance. The project was made possible by a generous grant from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
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God(s) of Judaism Course
Judaism is widely regarded as the world’s first great monotheistic tradition. What is not widely known is that Jewish thinkers throughout the ages have held very different views of God. In this Hebrew College Open Circle’s Jewish Learning course, Rabbi Or Rose is leading the group through a historical and theological journey, exploring writings from different time periods and genres of Jewish thought, including art, music and poetry. Teaching fellow Grace Harrington commented on the unique learning experience saying, “This wonderful course challenges students to expand their understanding of God in the Jewish tradition. Jewish thinkers throughout the ages articulate a surprisingly wide range of characterizations of the Divine and invite us to further explore our own understandings and experiences. Together, this multi-generational group of students from different walks of life are discovering new ideas and perspectives.”
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New Adult Education Course Coming this January...
“Abraham Joshua Heschel: Spirituality & Social Justice with Rabbi Or Rose” - In this six-week course offered by Hebrew College’s Me’ah Select Adult Learning program, Rabbi Rose will explore the legacy of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (d. 1972), a unique twentieth-century religious figure. How did Heschel, originally from Poland, arrive in the United States? How did he seek to present the teachings of Eastern European Hasidism (on which he was raised) to a North American audience after the Holocaust? What were the circumstances that led this rabbi and scholar to engage in the Civil Rights Movement and forge a friendship with MLK? What might we learn about the interconnected realms of spirituality and social justice from Heschel’s life and work?
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Podcast Appearance
Earlier this fall, Rabbi Rose was interviewed on the podcast "In Conversation with . . . Frank Schaeffer." The podcast engages artists, activists, and change-makers who are shaping our world today. To listen to the conversation click here or visit wherever you download your favorite podcasts.
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The Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership of Hebrew College
The Miller Center was established in 2016 in honor of Betty Ann Greenbaum Miller (of blessed memory), MAJS’05. Our mission is to provide current and future religious and ethical leaders with the knowledge and skills to serve in a religiously diverse society.
Please consider supporting this important work with a financial gift. Thank you!
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