Author: Staff Writer

Source: Muslim Public Affairs Council

http://www.mpac.org/article.php?id=775

Today, the Muslim Public Affairs Council joined more than a dozen advocacy groups across the nation in calling on President Barack Obama to adopt an even-handed policy that ensures sustainable peace in the Middle East. The groups' open letter to President Obama was published as a full-page advertisement in the New York Times inauguration edition.

The...

Author: Chris LaFortune

Source: OakPark-Leaves.com

http://www.pioneerlocal.com/oakpark/news/1388638,op-protest-012009-s1.article

Disappointed by the country's handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a group of about 65 people stood in silent protest in Oak Park Monday (Jan. 19).

Their backgrounds were varied, with representatives from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Jewish Voice for Peace and the...

Author: Amanda Ruggeri

Source: US News

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/obama/2009/01/21/for-president-obama-a-somber-inclusive-inaugural-prayer-service.html

President Barack Obama began his first full day on the job at the National Cathedral's inaugural prayer service. But although the service is part of a presidential tradition that dates back to George Washington, it had the...

Author: Diana L. Eck

Source: Tikkun

http://files.tikkun.org/current/article.php/Eck

Mr. President, you are the first-ever American president fully aware of the great diversity of America’s faiths. We are a nation of Christians and Jews—and Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists. You understand this and rightly see that this diversity is a source of our strength. Yet, this reality is a great challenge—especially for those who still...

Author: Kurt Kloblen

Source: Louisburg Herald

Author: Staff Writer

Source: SCTimes.com

http://www.sctimes.com/article/20090120/NEWS01/101190055/1009

An interfaith celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day focused on King's dream of equality but also on today's inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama.

Speakers included the Rev. Randy Johnson, president of the Great River Interfaith Partnership, the Rev. Majid Abel, Lahore Interfaith Peace Council, and the Rev. Willie...

Author: Diana L. Eck

Source: Politico

http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Diana_Eck_BF022A9C-D543-4407-B0DA-DA3E3103BB82.html

As a latecomer to this discussion, here is a word about Rick Warren's address to the annual meeting of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Long Beach on Saturday, December 20. When MPAC announced that Warren would speak at its annual conference, I found it even more astonishing than Obama's...

Author: Katrin Bennhold

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/world/europe/21france.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

On a giant flat-screen television, the Chabchoubs, a family of Tunisian immigrants, watched as veiled mothers wailed over the bodies of children and fathers cried silently. The piles of rubble, the squirming toddler covered in raw burns — all of this was coming straight from Gaza to...

Author: Rachel Zoll

Source: The Associated Press

Author: Diana L. Eck

Source: Politico

http://www.politico.com/arena/perm/Diana_Eck_ED627108-BA1B-4F66-ACB6-24AFC6D21D9A.html

The strength of our patchwork heritage. . .

The huge and diverse, cheering crowd on the Mall was a visual counterpart to a unique part of the inaugural address. Coming right after his powerful words to those "who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror," he spoke of the...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: One India

http://living.oneindia.in/insync/pulse/2009/makar-sankaranti-gujarat-kites-uttarayan-130109.html

With Makar Sankaranti in the corner and country to celebrate it in different ways, the Hindu festival is one of the biggest and popularly celebrated in Gujarat. Uttarayan is the phase when sun travels towards the north on the celestial sphere. The starting of Uttarayan is...

Author: Jennifer Bradshaw

Source: Asbury Park Press

http://www.app.com/article/20090119/NEWS03/901190325

Gov. Jon S. Corzine this month signed a bill permitting school board, general and primary election days to be moved if they conflict with religious observances.

The bill, introduced in September and sponsored by Assemblymen Gary S. Schaer, D-Passaic, and Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., D-Middlesex, was accepted by the Assembly around the same...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: MSNBC/WHO-TV

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28734500/

The immigration raids at the Postville Agriprocessors plant sparked an outcry among Iowa's religious leaders to end raids and deportation by the middle of this year. Federal authorities detained nearly 400 undocumented workers at Agriprocessors last May.

Now, some Jewish and Catholic leaders joined together to speak out against the practice, saying it's cruel and that...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: Times of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Indians_Abroad/Hindu_priest_in_Obamas_inauguration_prayer/articleshow/3996476.cms

The presidential inaugural committee has announced that a Hindu priest will be among the spiritual leaders who will participate in the national prayer service to be held on January 21, the day following the...

Author: James D. Davis

Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

http://www.bradenton.com/331/story/1161909.html

Sharifa Khan never imagined she’d be lighting Sabbath candles Friday night. But she did, after Rabbi Marc Labowitz picked her out of a crowd at an interfaith service.

“I felt honored,” Khan, who attends a mosque in Coral Springs, said of her part in the Night of Peace and Prayer at Temple Adath Or. “It felt nice to...