The Interfaith Center of New York—an Investment in our Future
by Kevin Oro-Hahn, ICNY Treasurer
My training is as an investor in public equities, in the tradition known as value investing. For those unfamiliar, this is “value” in the sense of getting a bargain as opposed to “values” in the sense of following timeless principles. The discipline of investing involves measuring to determine if the price paid for your investment is going to yield greater value in the future.
The Interfaith Center of New York (ICNY) seeks to make NYC and the world safe for religious difference. It’s an ambitious and far reaching goal. But how do you know when you’ve done enough—when your city and your world are sufficiently safe for religious difference?
If we were to rank different times and places in human history in terms of safety for religious difference, NYC circa 2014 would overall score pretty well. There is amazing diversity, with significant levels of interaction, and it’s certainly relatively safer than many other times and places. But we can also easily recognize that it’s not safe enough… Simple misunderstandings or ignorance can create unintended consequences. Long held biases too often flare up into acts of violence, and saddened victims ask how this could have happened. Anger, fear and misunderstanding restrict the rights of groups of people to worship freely.
So how does ICNY move us further along?
Some of what ICNY does on the advocacy front is very public and visible. When hate speech pops up in the public transit system, ICNY is on the front lines organizing press conferences and proposing creative solutions. The recent coordinated interfaith public response to big issues such as climate change put ICNY again in the spotlight.
But much of the important work is much less visible. Classes and continuing education increase the understanding of key front line service professionals such as teachers and social workers about different religious traditions. Marshall Meyer Retreats bring together religious leaders to explore critical issues of common human experience.
And in between, ICNY staff are constantly building relationships to find ways to make our city and world a little smaller and less isolated. Maybe three different faith communities who all have food pantries in the same area can work together on a problem that is bigger than their individual resources? Perhaps the transition of parolees back into the community can be eased if a breadth of different faith communities have a defined and positive role with the Court system? And what if some of our brightest practitioners got together to reimagine the way that end of life care could be better designed to match the religious desires of those nearing the end of their life journey?
I am grateful for the talented staff and volunteers of ICNY. They do a lot, but they can’t do this alone. There are two ways you can help.
- Give financially. If you haven’t supported ICNY previously, a tax deductible gift of $50 or $100 could go a long way to keeping this important work going. If you have been a supporter, would you join us again this year end?
- Attend an event. There is a broad range of ICNY programming, so it’s not hard to find something that fits your particular interests. Sign up for ICNY’s monthly e-bulletins to get information on upcoming events.
Quantifying the contribution of this kind of work is difficult to do, although we continue trying. But the quality of the work is clearly visible. It’s not hard to imagine various situations in which the connections and understanding built over years through ICNY’s efforts make our city richer and more resilient.
Kevin Oro-Hahn joined the ICNY Board as Treasurer in 2014. He is an analyst and portfolio manager at Ingalls & Snyder. Previously he worked for Columbia Business School, where he continues to teach an investing class, and for 12 years he was a campus chaplain and pastor.