Marshaling Love for International UnderstandingMarshaling Love for International Understanding

May 17, 6:30 - 8:30 pm, Grace Cathedral, Dining Room
Organized by Harvard Club of San Francisco

These days racist and nationalist voices speak loudly and horrific hate crimes are too often in the news. Less well known are efforts underway around the world to promote cooperation, respect, and understanding among religions.

Harvard Club of San Francisco invites you to join us for a discussion among faith-based and Interfaith leaders hosted by The Rev. Victor H. Kazanjian Jr., Executive Director, United Religions Initiative at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco. URI (www.uri.org) is an Interfaith organization working on humanitarian issues with programs in more than one hundred countries. The event will feature a reception and moderated discussion with Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Jewish leaders celebrating people crossing religious chasms to work together for good. Who is working on this and where is it happening? What models are succeeding? What obstacles persist? Light refreshments will be served. This is not a fundraiser. Your $20 ticket price goes to cover event costs.

Our distinguished speakers:

Rev. Victor Kazanjian, Executive Director of United Religions Initiative: www.uri.org
Victor Kazanjian comes to URI as a lifelong peacebuilder dedicated to interfaith and intercultural understanding. For the past two decades, he has served as Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, Dean of Intercultural Education, Co-Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Program, and Director of the India Program at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA. Victor’s work at Wellesley College is widely acknowledged as the catalyst in the national and international movement to include religious diversity and spirituality as core issues in higher education. Specializing in inter-religious dialogue and conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, and peace building, Victor is a recognized thought-leader, the co-author and editor of several books and numerous articles and a frequent lecturer worldwide. In 1998, Victor co-founded Education as Transformation, an international organization working with colleges and universities around the world to promote religious pluralism and spirituality in education. He is also a visiting faculty member and Fulbright Scholar at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, and member of the Global Learning Leadership Council of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Victor is also an ordained Episcopal priest. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a B.A. from Harvard University.

Ishaq Pathan, Deputy Director, Islamic Networks Group, (www.ing.org)
Islamic Networks Group is a non-profit organization with affiliates and partners around the country that are pursuing peace and countering all forms of bigotry through education and interfaith engagement while working within the framework of the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom and pluralism. Ishaq earned his B.A. from Hamilton College with a major in Anthropology and minors in Education and Middle Eastern & Islamic World Studies. Ishaq has conducted dozens of youth training seminars and spoken to thousands of students on topics relating to Islam and Muslims. He also holds a certificate in nonprofit leadership from the College of San Mateo and Center for Excellence in Nonprofits.

Sister Denise Lawrence, co-director - Brahma Kumaris Retreat Center, Germany: www.brahmakumaris.org
Sis. Denise is a meditation teacher, producer of television series and author. She has a deep understanding of spiritual knowledge and practice drawn from more than four decades of studying and teaching Raja Yoga meditation. She speaks all round the globe on spirituality, inter-religious understanding and related topics. She coordinates the Overseas Communications Centre at the Brahma Kumaris HQs, Mt. Abu, India. She brings philosophical and spiritual outlook to the international audience through her presentations in several Television series including "Virtues, Values, Ethics and Morality", “The World We Want”, “Women of the Future”, “The Gita Decoded”, and many others. Her text books of Diploma Program in Education in Values and Spirituality are being used at various universities in India. She worked at BBC and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Television News as a researcher and short news film maker.

Rabbi Serena Eisenberg, Northern California Director of the American Jewish Community, www.AJC.org,
an organization with a long and successful history of building strong relationships with other religious groups. Rabbi Serena also currently serves as the president of the Northern California Board of Rabbis. Previously she was the executive director at the Hillel Foundations at Stanford University and Brown University, her alma mater. A Reconstructionist rabbi and Wexner graduate fellow, Serena has served a variety of Jewish communities, including congregations and organizations in Israel, the Bay Area, and Montana. Also trained as a lawyer and social worker at U.C. Berkeley, Serena formerly worked as a family welfare advocate and ombudsman in Oakland, the Bronx and in Africa. Serena is married with five sons and lives in Palo Alto.

Friday, May, 17
6:30 - 8:00 pm

Grace Cathedral, The Dining Room
1100 California St, San Francisco, CA 94108

$20 member $25 non-members

Click here to register

Event Organizer
Joe McDonough
2jomcd@gmail.com