The Lucky Thirteenth Gala
by Ellen Greeley, ICNY Development Director
The James Parks Morton Interfaith Awards Dinner is celebrating its milestone 13th year. For many religions and traditions a 13th year (plus or minus a few years) represents a coming of age when a youth is recognized as an adult and is expected to assume larger responsibilities in their community. In Judaism it’s a B’nai Mitzvah, in Christianity a confirmation, the Apache Tribe holds a Sunrise Ceremony and the Nigerian Igbo Tribe conducts separate male and female initiation nights to name a few rituals.
To mark this significant moment, we are adding a new category to our awards ceremony. We are calling it the James Parks Morton Promise for the Future Award and bestowing it on visionaries who are in the process of bringing their brilliant ideas to fruition for the betterment of humanity. We believe it complements our traditional James Parks Morton Interfaith Award which pays tribute to deserving individuals who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to peace and harmony. For both types of honorees, they are welcomed into a community of respected and diverse religious and civic leaders who believe interfaith dialogue and shared community actions serve as countervailing forces that diminish religious prejudice and violence in civil society.
To date, The Interfaith Center of New York’s galas have feted 45 top leaders as well as unsung heroes representing the arts and culture, social and basic sciences, humanities, government, religion and other disciplines. Some of our recipients include President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Sister Pat Farrell, and Mata Amritanandamayi (Amma). Click here for a list of our honorees.
We have wisely chosen Bob Abernethy, Executive Editor and Host of PBS/Thirteen’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly as our honoree for our traditional award. Bob is a veteran television news correspondent who coincidentally launched his program the same year ICNY was founded. Growing up with grandfathers as Baptist ministers, his father as a religion teacher, and several uncles and cousins as pastors, Bob was keenly aware of the “growing breadth of religion news” and believed that “there was an important religion component to almost every major national and international story-about war, health care, environmental protection, and a host of other issues.”[1]
James Venturi, an urban strategist, has a big idea on how to modernize La Guardia Airport and our transit system. The project is picking up steam with it already featured in the New York Times[2] and blogged about in Gizmodo, an on-line tech publication.[3] We think his encouraging high tech approach in tackling complex urban problems is worthy of attention.
Expect plenty of laughter when breakthrough award-winning comedian Dean Obeidallah takes the stage as our Master of Ceremonies. Best known for entertaining and dispelling negative stereotypes of Arab-Americans and Muslims, Arab-American Dean Obeidallah has been humoring audiences and providing thought provoking commentary through his critically acclaimed Comedy Central’s Axis of Evil comedy special, NY Arab-American Comedy Festival, Stand Up for Peace tour, guest appearances on news and entertainment television programs, as a columnist for The Daily Beast, CNN.com and The Huffington Post and his blog The Dean Report.
Our gala takes place Monday, June 8th at Tribeca Rooftop beginning at 6:30 for cocktails and followed by a three-course dinner. Tickets range in price from $275 for nonprofit/religious organizations to $1,000 for premiere seating and can be purchased here. The net proceeds of the gala support ICNY’s purposeful educational programs, social service projects, and advocacy linking religious communities in meaningful engagement. For more information, kindly contact me at Ellen@interfaithcenter.org or by calling me at 212.870.3511.
[1] John M. Mulder, “Agent of the Audience: Bob Abernethy of Religion & Ethics Newsweekly,” 2010.
[2] John Leland, “Thinking Big. Then Thinking Bigger,” 2014.
[3] Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan, “A Radical Plan to Fix America’s Worst Airport,” 2014.
