Join Diversity Awareness Partnership for our annual Interfaith gathering, A Matter of Faith. This interactive event will focus on the intersection of gender identity, sexual orientation and faith.

Attendees will hear TED Talk-style personal stories from a diverse panel, speaking from the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish perspectives. There will be time for meaningful conversation, and participating in a “Share Your Faith” activity. Our speakers are Koach Baruch Frazier, Hamid Bashir, Julie Strassman, and Kenneth Pruitt. Networking begins at 5:30 p.m., and the program will get underway at 6:00 p.m.

Attendees will also receive DAP’s 2017 18-Month Interfaith Calendar, a helpful guide to observances celebrated across 20 religious traditions. Refreshments will be served. Please join us!

DATE: Thursday, February 23, 2017
TIME: 5:30 – 7:00 P.M.
LOCATION: Holocaust Museum and Learning Center | 12 Millstone Campus Drive |St. Louis, MO 63146

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Our Speakers:

Koach Baruch Frazier

Koach, a Black/Queer/Trans/Jew is a healer and musician who is working towards the day everyone experiences liberation. He spends his days helping people reconnect with the world around them through better hearing and providing love and support through revolutionary listening. Koach’s heart beats to the rhythm of tikvah, t’shuvah, and tzedek.

Photograph by Sara Swaty

Hamid Bashir

Hamid came to the US about 12 years ago for an advanced education in the medical field. He graduated from Washington University after finishing a fellowship in Rheumatology. Hamid was born and raised in Northern Pakistan. His father is Pakistani and mother is of Persian decent, with family scattered all over the world. Hamid enjoys engaging in meaningful discussion and has been able to engage with others across many mediums including music, blogs, photography, and community dialogue.

Julie Strassman

Julie has been fascinated by the intersection of faith and gender ever since she got kicked out of Sunday School for insisting that “Eve just wanted to know stuff”. Growing up in a variety of Christian denominations ranging from liberal to conservative, from canticles in high church to running in the aisles, she struggled with what it meant to be female in a faith world largely dominated by men. Struggled as in Jacob wrestling with God, demanding a blessing. Today, as a social justice educator and doctoral student at Eden Theological Seminary, she continues to struggle for the blessing, the honey from the rock, listening for the voices of women and the female embodiment of God in scripture and Christian tradition.