Dialogues Revitalize Interfaith Connections, Resilience in Long Island

Over the last year, Essential Partners has collaborated with LIFaith, a project of the UJA-Federation of New York, to support interfaith dialogue across Long Island. 

The initiative’s mission is to help Long Island clergy from different faith traditions cultivate the necessary skills for interfaith collaboration, to build resilience in advance of flashpoint conflicts, and to imagine what a thriving interfaith community might look like moving forward.

The October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel highlighted the need for deeper interfaith community engagement on Long Island. 

“The aftermath of October 7th was felt far beyond the borders of Israel and Gaza,” said Sepi Djavaheri, Community Mobilizers Director for UJA-Federation of New York. “Communities that had long lived side by side suddenly found themselves facing fear, mistrust, and increasing pressure from external narratives that were pulling neighbors apart. What became clear in those early days was that the global had become local—and that we could no longer treat international conflict as something separate from our own community fabric.”

LIFaith wanted to respond with something new—a dialogue series that would allow genuine friendship and deeper interfaith collaborations to emerge.

An Unprecedented Coalition

“After October 7th,” said Paige Kenis, a trained social worker and program coordinator for LIFaith, “there was this big divide in the world of clergy. In the past, in Long Island specifically, there used to be much more true friendship and coalition between faith leaders of different religious backgrounds. October 7th brought to the forefront that there was this divide in community and understanding.”

Many of the clergy members had participated in interfaith dialogues previously. They were often less in-depth engagements, though, and even those had been disrupted, according to Kenis. “There was a break in efforts trying to do that after October 7th, so we were trying to close that gap—to do it more intentionally and less at a surface level.”

UJA Federation and LIFaith selected Essential Partners because they were looking for a style of facilitation that would, in Kenis’s words, “help break up the regular power dynamics that happen in a lot of these dialogue groups [between clergy]” and invite deeper relationship-building.

The LI Faith Planning Committee was hand-picked, comprising community members who had attended interfaith events in the past, people who have been involved in this type of work, as well as those who were recommended. 

“This coalition has been unprecedented in its scope,” observed Djavaheri. “By uniting leadership from councils representing synagogues, churches, mosques, temples, and other houses of worship, we have forged a network that represents more than one hundred houses of worship all across Long Island. The breadth of representation has allowed us to foster a sense of shared responsibility and collective action at a scale never before possible.”

Dialogue Across Faith Symposium

“Recognizing that dialogue requires skill and care,” said Djavaheri, “we invited Essential Partners to train select clergy in their facilitation approach. This training has had a multiplier effect—not only did it enrich the Dialogue Across Faiths event itself, but it also equipped a cadre of local leaders with effective tools to lead ongoing, constructive conversations within and between their congregations.”

On February 4, 2025, LI Faith hosted its first Dialogue Across Faith Symposium. Sixty-five clergy members from fourteen different faith communities in the area convened to repair interfaith relationships in the wake of October 7th. 

“We decided to do an opening ceremony. We had prayers given by a few different faiths, then we framed what the day was, and explained what Reflective Structured Dialogue was and why we were doing it,” said Kenis. “The audience was split into groups of eight to ten people each. Each group was facilitated by a clergy member from the planning committee who was trained in RSD over a period of three ninety-minute dialogues. Afterwards, we shared lunch and enjoyed live music.”

The feedback from this event was overwhelmingly positive. Clergy members reported feeling a new, unique connection with members of other faith traditions.

“This unprecedented coalition is more than a reaction to one crisis,” Djavaheri said. “This is a blueprint for how faith leaders everywhere can respond to global events in ways that strengthen, rather than fracture, their communities. By reaching across differences, by embracing one another, we have demonstrated that dialogue is genuinely transformative—even, and especially, in moments of heightened tension.”

Kenis reflected on one moment from the Symposium that has stuck with her. “A retired Buddhist priest approached me to share that, for the first time in his career, he felt connected instead of isolated in an interfaith space. He had always felt like he couldn't relate to how other religions see God because Buddhists don't really understand God in that way. But at our event, he heard someone describe God as a creative force and that language, for the first time, allowed him to understand the similarity between his religion [Buddhism], and these other Abrahamic religions”.

What’s Next for the LI Faith Initiative

From its inception, Djavaheri explained, the goals of the coalition were not symbolic gestures, but deep and authentic dialogue that would become the engine for structural shifts that could heal divides and build resilience across faith communities.

“The work of the coalition is ongoing,” noted Djavaheri. “The impact will continue to ripple outward as clergy bring these dialogue skills back to their congregations, creating more spaces for empathy and connection. The coalition itself will serve as a permanent platform for joint action, ensuring that Long Island is better prepared to face future moments of crisis with unity and courage.”

The Symposium energized the faith community across Long Island to re-engage in the important work of connection and community-building. It has already propelled the start of two new locally-led initiatives.

“We've helped support some new groups, like the one in the Hewlett Southshore area,” said Kenis, “and we have a new interfaith group that has already had its first meetings.”

“In short, what began as an urgent response to October 7th has become something enduring,” said Djavaheri, “a coalition that embodies the very best of what interfaith work can achieve—to transform a moment of fragmentation, polarization, and fear into solidarity, partnership, and hope.”