Last September, The Russell Berrie Foundation awarded a grant to Sue Gelsey, chief engagement officer at Kaplen JCC on the Palisades, to launch the Community Calls initiative. Designed to mobilize a coalition of faith and local organization leaders to strengthen community-wide relationships and disrupt tensions, Community Calls aims to drive greater social connectedness, awareness, and grassroots action across differences of faith tradition, race, and ethnicity among Bergen County residents.
Made just weeks before the October 7 massacre in Israel, this grant became illustrative of how much more crucial such bridge-building efforts would become in Northern New Jersey and across the globe.
Approximately 20 partners form the coalition’s core, ranging from Demarest’s Academy of the Holy Angels, Tenafly’s Temple Sinai, and the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh USA to the Fort Lee Chinese American Community Association, Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, and the YWCA of Northern New Jersey.
Public programming kicked off February 25 with an evening panel discussion, “Dialogue in Good Faith,” featuring speakers Imam Abdullah Antepli from Duke University, Rabbi Hilly Haber from Central Synagogue, and Dr. Terrence L. Johnson, an expert in African American religious studies at Harvard Divinity School. Panelists spoke candidly to approximately 150 attendees about how communities can build bridges across differences of faith, race, and ethnicity in a post-October 7th world. Acknowledging that engaging in these conversations is never easy, especially in recent months, speakers emphasized the importance of holding space for the pain you may be experiencing together with the pain of others, while still retaining one’s moral compass.
Program Officer Kaarin Varon attended the panel presentation and took part in small group conversations that tackled the challenge of dismantling religious bias and bigotry and viewing religious and cultural differences as a force for good, particularly at this painfully divisive time. Group members discussed the need to break out of social media bubbles, as the constant bombardment by messages circulating within echo chambers can close off one’s consideration of other perspectives and impede the ability to build connections. They also reinforced that for transformative change to happen, people must remain open, question their assumptions, and consider the lived experience of the other.
Acknowledging that engaging in these conversations is never easy, especially in recent months, speakers emphasized the importance of holding space for the pain you may be experiencing together with the pain of others, while still retaining one’s moral compass.
This event hearkens back to earlier work at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, supported by The Russell Berrie Foundation. Imam Antepli co-directs the Muslim Leadership Initiative, which we funded since 2013 to build relationships of understanding, respect, and trust between North American Muslim and Jewish communities. Similarly, Dr. Johnson was a consulting advisor, faculty member and facilitator for the Black/Jewish Leadership Initiative, funded in 2022 to convene cohorts of Jewish and Black leaders grounded in the history and context of each other's lived experience in America. Sue Gelsey of the Kaplen JCC was one of the participants in the inaugural cohort.
Community Calls events will continue throughout 2024 and 2025 – to stay informed on convenings and ways to take action to strengthen interpersonal relationships and community ties, complete this form.