Respect. Connect. Understand.

My Faith/Your Faith is a pilot-stage congregation-based high school interfaith program in Manhattan. The program brings together Jewish, Muslim, and Christian teens in a year-long effort to confron stereotypes, engage in dialogue, and learn how others live their faith.

My Faith/Your Faith was launched in 2008 by five East Side religious communities: Central Synagogue, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, Islamic Cultural Center, Marble Collegiate Church, and Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, in collaboration with the Center for Multifaith Education at Auburn Theological Seminary.

During the program, high school students from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities in the New York City area come together for 15 sessions over the course of a year. The sessions strive to increase religious understanding through dialogue, learning, and experiential programming. Participants teach each other about their traditions, observe religious services at houses of worship, observe home rituals at each other's homes, and undertake service service together. Participants engage in dialogue in order to confront stereotypes that exist about their own faiths and stereotypes that they hold regarding the faiths of others.

The program strives:

     •To encourage religious understanding through dialogue, learning and experiential programming.

     •To build friendship and understanding among the involved communities across lines of difference.

     •To experience other faiths as they live in community. To participate in service learning as a shared experience, exploring ways to put faith  into action. 

The second cohort of My Faith/Your Faith will complete the program in June 2010.  If you or your congregation would like to get involved, contact Rabbi Justus Baird.