The Interfaith Teen Leaders are a group of 30 high school students—Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Latter-Day Saint among others—who, over the past 10 months, have been there for each other in meaningful ways. They have visited each other’s houses of worship, learned about one another’s beliefs and practices, celebrated each other’s holidays, heard Eli Sharabi’s story together, traveled to Washington, D.C. to learn about standing up for one another and worked side by side on service projects.
Throughout the year, the Interfaith Teen Leaders turned their shared learning into meaningful action. Together, they identified, planned and carried out a large service project, beginning with a collection of cereal and pasta, and culminating at Toni’s Kitchen in Montclair when the group assembled family bags filled with nonperishable food and packed clothing donations for distribution. Executive Director Anne Mernon was thrilled to meet us, and we already have plans to come back in the fall.
Beyond the service component, the Interfaith Teen Leaders program fostered lasting friendships, leadership skills, and a deeper understanding of each another’s faiths and experiences. As our year comes to a close, several participants have already committed to returning as mentors, helping to guide and inspire the next cohort of Interfaith Teen Leaders and strengthening our bonds to their communities.
As one parent noted, “Thank you so much for providing this opportunity for our teens. Our daughter has grown in her perspective and empathy for others, with an even greater respect and appreciation for the goodness in all of us, and that we are all more similar than different and our differences actually can strengthen and unite us when we seek to understand and respect others. Thank you for everything! We are truly so grateful for her to have been a part of this amazing opportunity.” – Mandy, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
What Interfaith Work Actually Means
We often talk about fighting hate and antisemitism. But interfaith work, at its core, is also about building a shared society—one in which an attack on any community sends reverberations everywhere else.
We know that feeling viscerally: the tightness in your chest when you hear the names Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., Australia. Our interfaith partners know it too—through swatting incidents at HBCUs, a mosque shooting in California, a truck ramming into a church in Michigan.
That is why Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ doesn’t limit its security expertise to our own institutions. Chip Michaels and Greg Drucks, our security leads, understand better than most what it takes to keep a congregation safe. And they have taken that knowledge beyond our own walls, assisting a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an Evangelical Church, and most recently, a Methodist Church in Westfield.
At the First United Methodist Church in Westfield, Chip walked the facility, flagging immediate, actionable security upgrades and explaining the importance of a formal risk assessment. Church leadership will now connect with the Risk Mitigation Planner from the Union County Prosecutor’s Office. Greg led board members through active threat training.
This is interfaith work made tangible—beyond solidarity in words, it is showing up with expertise and time when our neighbors need it. Thank you, Chip and Greg. And thank you to every teen, mentor, partner and community member who have helped with our interfaith work this year.