Why ICNY Gets My Support
by Ruth W. Messinger,
Global Ambassador, American Jewish World Service
Former Manhattan Borough President
And ICNY board member
One way of measuring an organization’s value is to imagine what life would be like without it.
As a New Yorker and the former Borough President of Manhattan, I can attest to how much poorer, more religiously-polarized, and less humane New York City would be without the Interfaith Center of New York.
One of the oldest interfaith organizations in the city, ICNY has been working with leaders of Sikh, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Afro Caribbean traditions for over two decades–since before it became popular to do so. ICNY has helped an entire generation of diverse New York Faith Leaders engage in the civic life of the city to their benefit and to the benefit of the entire city.
ICNY was the first place to hold an Interfaith press conference with Muslims and non-Muslims side by side after 9/11; it catalyzed the Cardinal’s first visit to a mosque ten years later; it pulled together a non-Abrahamic religious leader guest list for the Pope’s Interfaith Service at the 9/11 Museum; it started “religious leaders and the courts” roundtables, and it advised the NY Police Department’s clergy liaison program and then developed a religious diversity educational video for new cadet training. And all this while continuing to graduate cohorts of educators and social workers from religious diversity training programs.
There are urban centers across the world that rival New York in terms of diversity—Dubai, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro are among them. However, few of these places can boast the same vibrant civil society as New York City, informed as it is by its religious, racial, and cultural diversity. I serve as a board member of the Interfaith Center of New York and contribute my time and talent because the Interfaith Center of New York is one of the institutions that translates religious diversity into engaged democracy.
I hope you will join me in supporting this great organization.
– Ruth Messinger
