The humble date (tamar / tamr) is a fruit from North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and represents so much to so many: agriculture, food, sharing, sweetness and friendship. In Islam, dates symbolize hospitality and peace – they were a favored food of the Prophet Muhammad, and are mentioned more than any other fruit in the Qur’an. In Judaism, dates represent peace and righteousness – as one of the “seven species” named in the Torah, they are understood to hold special medicinal and spiritual properties, and to bring blessing and healing.
House of Dates (bayt tamar / al-tamr) is an ongoing series presented by the Center for Multi-Religious Studies at Starr King School for the Ministry, co-sponsored by The Sarah and Hajar Series, and in partnership with Muslim and Jewish voices from diverse backgrounds and histories. The series offers opportunities for deep learning, multi-religious worship, and chaplaincy training, demonstrating a commitment by Jews, Muslims, and allies to counter Islamophobia and anti-Semitism and advocate for peace and justice in Palestine / Israel.
Our bodies, hearts and minds are managing a lot in these times of tumult, uncertainty, and increased vulnerability. And, people are continuing to rise up, taking action around everything from Palestine/Israel to climate catastrophe. Those working in movement spaces need support and care to support them in their resilience. In this session we’ll explore the role movement chaplaincy can play in sustaining the work for justice, the dynamic intersection between activism and spirituality, and specific tools for nurturing regulation and connection to the sacred within justice communities.
Claudia Horwitz serves on the Leadership Development Faculty for the Annie E. Casey Foundation and supports justice movements in a range of ways. She has 25 years of experience in nonprofit leadership, community organizing and movement-building. She founded and directed stone circles and The Stone House, an organization and retreat center that worked to sustain activists and the work for justice through spiritual practice across all traditions. In 2019, she founded and ran Rise Up in collaboration with the Nathan Cummings Foundation to nurture the soul of Jewish social justice. Rise Up provides grants, resourcing the emerging ecosystem and building community among leaders and practitioners.
Claudia is the author of The Spiritual Activist: Practices to Transform Your Life, Your Work and Your World (Penguin Compass 2002) and numerous articles. She has a master’s degree in Public Policy from Duke University and is a trained yoga teacher. Claudia serves as board chair for Open Dharma, on the advisory group (“Mary’s Table”) for the Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause, and as a movement chaplain with Tzedek Lab. She is passionate about helping people integrate a results-focused approach with thoughtful process, racial justice and the sacred. Claudia lives on a small island off the North Carolina coast.
The first House of Dates program was a multi-religious Jum’ah/Shabbat worship service in coordination with Makam Shekhina multi-religious Muslim & Jewish community held on Friday, December 15, at 11 am PT / 2 pm ET. The service was followed by a discussion on weaving multi-religious worship and community.
Our second meeting was an intimate conversation with renowned Sufi author and spiritual teacher Omid Safi and Arab Jewish mystic, scholar, and artist Hadar Cohen. In conversation with House of Dates conveners Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh and Taya Mâ Shere, our speakers explored what guides their leadership at this time of crisis in Palestine / Israel, and considered what is distinct about spiritual practice, leadership and community in times of crisis.
We gathered this Ramadan to steep in sacred conversation, prayer reflection and renewal. Sufi poet and devotional artist Sukina Noor guided us toward honing and honoring our particular ways of showing up in this revolutionary moment.
For the third annual Center for Multi-Religious Studies Lecture, we were joined by ethnobotanist and cultural worker Layla Feghali and explored themes of her new book The Land In Our Bones: Plantcestral Herbalism and Healing Cultures from Syria to Sinai, exploring earth-based pathways to ancestral stewardship and belonging in diaspora. We also learned about the Gaza Mutual Aid Network which Layla co-founded.
With special guest Rabbi Lynn Gottleib. Presented in collaboration with From the Deep. On the first day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, we joined multifaith movement elder Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb in the House of Dates for a conversation on transformational solidarity, woven song, story and prayer.
As part of the Becoming the Medicine series, the Center for Multi-Religious Studies is proud to sponsor Threads of Liberation, a panel discussion between Israelis and Palestinians about how their relationships to God, themselves, and each other shape the communities they create.
Hadar Cohen is an Arab Jewish scholar, mystic and artist. She is the founder of Malchut, a spiritual skill building school teaching Jewish mysticism and direct experience of God. She is a 10th-generation Jerusalemite with lineage roots also in Syria, Kurdistan, Iraq and Iran. Hadar weaves the spiritual with the political through performance art, writing, music and ritual. Her podcast, Hadar’s Web, features community conversations on spirituality, healing, justice, and art.
To learn more, visit hadarcohen.me or malchut.one and on Instagram.
Omid Safi is a Sufi teacher, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Duke University, a columnist for On Being, and a leading Muslim public intellectual appearing often on news outlets including PBS, BBC and CNN. He guides journeys in Turkey, Morocco and beyond and offers online courses open to spiritual seekers of all backgrounds. Hehas a podcast called Sufi Heart, and his books include Memories of Muhammad and Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition.
To learn more, please visit illuminatedcourses.com and on Instagram.
Sukina Noor is an internationally renowned poet, playwright, workshop facilitator and educator who plays an intrinsic role within the British Muslim creative community. Sukina facilitates in-person and online writing workshops toward awakening the voice of the heart. Her new book of poetry is Love and Longing: Yearning for the Face of God. Sukina’s academic focus is on Sufi mystic poets from West Africa, and she serves as a muqedma, a spiritual guide and teacher in the Tijani Sufi lineage.
Layla K. Feghali is an ethnobotanist, cultural worker, and author who lives between her ancestral village in Lebanon and her diasporic home in California, where she was born and raised. Her dedication is the stewardship of our earth’s eco-cultural integrity and the many layers of relational restoration, systemic reckoning, and healing that entails. Feghali offers a line of plantcestral medicine and other culturally-rooted offerings, with an emphasis on Southwest Asia and its diasporas. Her recent book, The Land in Our Bones, documents cultural herbal and healing knowledge from Syria to the Sinai, while interrogating colonialism and its lingering wounds on the culture of our displaced world.
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is in her 50th year as a rabbi, and was one of the first women to become a rabbi in Jewish history. She is a human rights activist, pathfinding Jewish feminist, artist, educator and storyteller and engages in multifaith, intergenerational and multicultural organizing in solidarity with racial, indigenous, gender justice and Palestinian liberation struggles. Rabbi Lynn sits on the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace and is board chair of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. Her books include Peace Primer II and She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of Renewed Judaism and Trail Guide to the Torah of Nonviolence.
Taya Mâ Shere plays passionately in the realm of transformative ritual, embodied vocalization and ancestor reverence, and is Assistant Professor of the Practice of Organic Multireligious Ritual at Starr King School for the Ministry. She is co-founder and Rav Kohenet of Kohenet Hebrew Priestess Institute and co-author of The Hebrew Priestess: Ancient and New Visions of Jewish Women’s Spiritual Leadership and Siddur HaKohanot: A Hebrew Priestess Prayerbook. Taya Mâ hosts the acclaimed Jewish Ancestral Healing podcast and offers online courses in Embodied Presence, Jewish Ancestral Healing, Pleasure as Prayer and the Path of Practice. Taya Mâ is the creator of the Liberate Your Seder Haggadeck, co-creator of The Omer Oracle and Divining Pleasure decks, and her Hebrew Goddess chant albums — This Bliss, Wild Earth Shebrew, Halleluyah All Night and Torah Tantrika — have been heralded as “cutting-edge mystic medicine music.” With Sheikh Dr. Ibrahim Baba Farajaje, SKSM provost of blessed memory, Taya Mâ co-founded a multireligious Jewish and Sufi Muslim spiritual community committed to counter-oppressive devotion – their new album Makam Shekhina is a weaving of Ibrahim Baba’s teachings with their pulsing Hebrew & Arabic prayer. www.taya.ma | @tayatransforms
Dr. Som Pourfarzaneh is the Assistant Professor of Islamic and Digital Media Studies and Director of the Center for Multi-Religious Studies at Starr King School for the Ministry. He holds a Ph.D. in Cultural and Historical Studies of Religions from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, and was part of the first cohort to graduate from Starr King’s Master of Arts in Social Change (MASC) program in its inaugural year. He also holds a B.A. in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Pourfarzaneh’s academic work focuses on Islam and Media, Muslims in America, Anthropology of Islam, Digital and Social Media, Social Justice, Cultural Production, Interreligious Dialogue, and Multi-Religious Identity. Outside of the academy, he has also written and worked for high-profile entertainment companies and editorial websites such as Electronic Arts, Perfect World Entertainment, Modus Games, and MMORPG.com, and is the author of four books and seven games.
In addition to tuning into the House of Dates series, we encourage you to take action and to contribute to those working toward immediate humanitarian relief. Helpful resources / links include:
