Following the shooting April 13 that killed three non-Jewish people at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom,
Rabbi Mark Levin wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, expressing his view that “Jews are seen on a continuum between outsider and beloved friend. But few of our neighbors truly understand us or our religion, neither do they desire to. We are largely strangers to one another.” He posted the letter to his Facebook page.
Nancy Brown, a former Kansas State legislator and current chair of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection’s (COR) Social Action Committee, is a friend of Rabbi Levin’s and shared his comments with other friends. One of her friends, Sharon Ritter, was especially touched by the letter. Soon after, with a little help from their friends, Strangers No More was born.
“I was really, really struck by some of the things Rabbi Levin said,” commented Ritter.
“I didn’t realize that Jews in our community felt like maybe they were considered to be outsiders,” said Ritter, president of COR’s United Methodist Women’s group. “That really bothered me to think that because I have Jewish friends.”
While Ritter — who is president of UMW — had an idea or two about what she might like to see happen after reading Rabbi Levin’s thoughts, she decided to involve Brown because “she’s just excellent at organizing and thinking things.”
One of Brown’s first thoughts was to contact Judy Hellman to see if she was interested in helping them pursue an interfaith dialogue. Brown and Hellman became friends more than 20 years ago when the two helped launch the MainStream Coalition in 1993.
Hellman suggested her sister Marcia Rittmaster, who was retiring from her position as Congregation Beth Torah’s religious school and youth groups director, would make a great addition to the team. The four women met for the first time just weeks after the shooting. In less than 90 days they found sponsors, the Jewish Community Relations Bureau|American Jewish Committee and COR’s United Methodist Women group, chose a time and a place for an event and began organizing a July 22 program at COR.
As it says in the program from the first Strangers No More program, “Together we became aware, more now than ever, that although we have many similarities in our beliefs and goals for a better world, we also need to learn from each other and come together with the goal of making a difference in our community and creating a lasting civil peace. This is our initial attempt to lay a foundation of what we envision to be an opportunity to:
• Construct paths to understanding
• Build bridges through developing relationships
• Develop new understanding of what it means to be citizens of a loving community, created in the image of God
• Pursue the possibility of future events and ways to unite and work together to make a difference in our lives and in our community.”
Details, details
For a variety of reasons the four women decided it would be best to aim their program at women. Seventy-one women, including the presenters — COR’s Rev. Karen Lampe and Beth Torah’s Rabbi Rebecca Reice and the four organizers — attended. The program was by invitation only for various reasons as well.
“We didn’t want it to be a mass meeting and we also wanted it be half Jewish and half Christian,” explained Hellman, who noted that COR has a membership of 20,000 people.
“The purpose was to share thoughts with each other, so we wanted to keep it manageable and equal. We started out trying to get 50 Jews and 50 Christians, and we had close to that in reservations. But then some couldn’t make it at the last minute,” she continued.
Rittmaster explained that the UMW women had strong criteria they needed to follow as they chose who to invite to the program. Since the program was co-sponsored by the JCRB|AJC, Hellman — who has a long history of affiliation with the JCRB|AJC — noted female members of its board and advisory board were among those on the original invitation list as well as “those we knew were interested in this type of thing from different congregations.”
As they were working out who would attend, the four women also met with Rev. Lampe and Rabbi Reice to develop the topics to be covered that night.
“It was a dialogue. They discussed prayer, the Sabbath, the Bible, different denominations …,” Rittmaster said.
Hellman added, “We asked them to include beliefs about Jesus because in our lay opinion that’s a big part (of our differences).” “We consciously chose not to discuss anti-Semitism or Israel at this time because we knew those would be worthy of sessions in themselves,” Hellman continued.
Rittmaster said the key to this program’s success is that they had people sitting at tables that were divided 50-50 between Jews and non-Jews.
“We provided open-ended questions as a follow-up so that there was dialogue. I think people facing each other was the spark that really made it work,” Rittmaster said.
The evening was scheduled to end at 8:30 p.m., but the conversations were going so well that nobody left before 9.
“We knew we couldn’t move the world at this point, but there just seemed to be a genuine desire to get to know each other and ask questions and share,” Hellman said.
Before the first program took place, the four women had no idea whether this would be a one-time thing or blossom into more programs. It’s clear now Strangers No More will have ongoing discussions — some as a large group and others as small affinity gathering, planned by the smaller groups themselves.
“We all hoped that people would want to continue this, but we were not prepared for the response,” Rittmaster said. “It was beyond enthusiastic.”
Hellman, who as a professional and volunteer has devoted decades to the work of justice and community relations, said she has never before seen anything like this.
“This is a first. I have done a lot of interfaith work and it’s not always easy to bring groups together … if they came once there was never any talk of wanting to do something again. In my closing remarks I called it historic and I think it was.”
Rittmaster added that in the written evaluations of the program, every single person gave it high marks.
“It was successful beyond our expectations,” Brown said.
“To sit there and watch the dialogue and the camaraderie and listen to Rabbi Reice and Karen Lampe speak and know that people were hanging on every word … the fact they wouldn’t leave…,” she continued.
Brown added that they really had no idea what to expect.
“Whatever happened, happened. And what happened was wonderful in the sense that people stepped out of their comfort zone, they opened up their hearts and their lives, they are meeting each other for dinner and lunch and book clubs … It’s like wow. Wow. It’s just been fabulous,” Brown said.
Some groups have also planned to attend religious services together.
“We didn’t want it be one big thing. We are going to go with Nancy and Sharon to Church of the Resurrection and they are going to come with us to Beth Torah,” Hellman said. The sisters are both members of the Reform congregation.
The group as a whole will meet again at the end of October, this time at Congregation Beth Torah. The topic will be anti-Semitism.
“That was the No. 1 thing that everyone wanted to talk about, based on the evaluations participants completed that first night,” Rittmaster said.
Organizers are working on a procedure for including new people in the group.
“Now I’m getting friends who are asking why they weren’t invited and I’ve had to explain why we couldn’t invite so many people,” Brown said.
They may not know how large this group can grow, but Rittmaster explained they do know they “need to keep the integrity of the mixed groups.”
“That’s really what made it so successful and we’re also limited by space,” Rittmaster said.
“Certainly the people who couldn’t make it to the first one will be invited to the next event,” Rittmaster said. “Then we talked about people bringing a friend … we’re working on a plan to expand the invitation list.”
They don’t know what the future holds for Strangers No More.
“We trusted …. We had faith and it evolved and this will too,” Hellman said.
One thing is for certain, according to Hellman.
“We listen to each other with a different ear now.”
