Bringing Our Community Together
I don’t know about you, but the FIFA World Cup has consumed me. Vozinha, the goalie from Capo Verde, has become my favorite player. The way players from African countries are treated is simply appalling and especially in which the Iranian team had to travel in and leave the US from Mexico for each game and on the same day, is a disadvantage none of the other teams had to endure. FIFA President Infantino’s pathetic appeasement of the fake Peace Award to Trump did nothing to appease this racist and corrupt American government.
On June 6 and 7, we organized MPV’s National Spiritual and Community Empowerment Retreat, made possible with funding from the Fetzer Institute. For the first time in our 19 year history, we were able to bring together our diverse MPV Leadership Team to Los Angeles, including our board members, chaplains, officiants and chapter organizers from Arizona, Boston, the Great Lakes, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Besides the camaraderie and connections established, it was also the first opportunity that many in the leadership team had to take an in depth look at the scope of work we do, particularly what I do at the helm of MPV.
MPV representatives at "Many Voices. One Thread"
To accompany the retreat weekend, Silver Thread organized “Many Voices. One Thread”, which brought MPV Leadership and local artists and creatives together to hear testimonials from the beneficiaries of our Community Arts Grant. A sizzle reel introduced the audience to grantees and their projects, and in turn, introduced the Silver Thread community to MPV’s human rights and community building work. Check out this 30 second video of the evening.
If you’d like to support the Silver Thread Collective and our Community Arts Grant, you can do so by making a donation here.
Public education is one aspect of how we achieve our mission and that includes informing and educating stakeholders about the nature and scope of our work. I was invited by the Foreign Ministry of the Netherlands to give a virtual presentation on our #ImamsForShe initiative to Dutch diplomats participating in a human rights course. #ImamsForShe is MPV’s global initiative in which we train imams to preach, teach and engage with their communities to advance women’s and girls’ rights. To date we have trained over 3,800 religious leaders in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda and 400 in Afghanistan.
I also taught a virtual class at Berkshire/OLLI for a series of classes titled “Preaching in a Polarized World”, where I offered a Muslim feminist perspective on sharia law, hijab, homosexuality, women’s reproductive rights, politics, and more! You can watch that lecture here.
In last month’s newsletter I shared with you my experience speaking on a panel at the Council on Foreign Relations’ “Conflict in the Middle East”. Here’s the full video of the panel. It should be noted that some, despite the authoritative and scholarly declarations, still doubt a Gaza genocide is being committed by Israel.
Some months ago, I sat down with Rabbi David Ingberg for his 92nd Street Y podcast to talk about a broad spectrum of topics. I'm sharing the segment where we spoke about antisemitism and my response to that. Please watch the 2.5-minute segment (or the whole conversation)!
And lastly, my response to the prompt, “What does Washington get wrong about religion?", was featured in a recently published piece from NOTUS with “Enough with the lie that Muslims want to impose sharia”.
Looking ahead, we are working on the “Positive Masculinity in Islam” curriculum, a partnership with Imam Khalfan of Burundi, which will be published later this year, and we will begin the production of our documentary about interfaith marriages.
Onward and upward…
Ani Zonneveld
Founder & President, Muslims for Progressive Values