On Friday November 6th 2009, Hillel of the GTA along with the Toronto chapter Faiths Act Fellows hosted an exclusive meeting between thirty prominent institutional leaders and Dr. Eboo Patel.
Dr. Patel is the founder and Executive Director of the acclaimed Interfaith Youth Core based in Chicago and the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. Dr. Partel was recently appointed to President Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Dr. Patel was in Toronto to speak at the Union of Reform Judaism Biennial.
Dr. Patel also spoke with representatives from a range of institutions including university administrations, student organizations, school boards, provincial government, faith-based schools and organizations, as well as organizations focused on community cohesion. The meeting was highly relevant and informative, including an extensive Q & A session with attendees. The central ideas discussed were normalizing interfaith relations and leadership to the level of environmentalism or the civil rights movement, the balance between teaching practice and inspiring pluralistic interaction and social action in religious education, and overcoming the stagnation or conflict of interfaith relations resulting from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
The meeting was hosted by the Faiths Act Fellows, an initiative launched by the Tony Blair Faith Foundation in conjunction with the Interfaith Youth Core. The fellowship brings together 30 religiously diverse young people from across Canada, the US and the UK to mobilize faith communities towards the Millennium Development Goals, specifically the eradication of deaths from malaria.The event enjoyed the wonderful hospitality of Hillel of Greater Toronto.
zach on November 28, 2009
eboo patel = amazing. great job, hillel toronto!