Imam Yahya Hendi, Founder

Imam Yahya Hendi is the Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, the first American University to hire a full-time Muslim chaplain. Imam Hendi is also the Imam of the Islamic Society of Frederick, and is the Muslim Chaplain at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, MD. He also serves as a member and the spokesperson of the Islamic Jurisprudence Council of North America. He serves as adjunct faculty member at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD.

Mr. Hendi holds a Master's degree in Comparative Religions from Hartford Seminary, Hartford, CT. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Comparative Religion.

He has written numerous publications on many topics, including women in Islam, women and gender relations in Islam, the coming of the Messiah, and religion and Islam in the United States. A sought-after speaker, Imam Hendi has presented a multitude of interfaith and general lectures in the USA, Asia, Europe, central Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East over the past eight years. Mr. Hendi was one of the Muslim leaders who met with the President of the United States in the aftermath of the September 11 tragedy. Imam Hendi also met the President of the United States many times after September 11th. Imam Hendi often visits and lectures at churches and synagogues hoping to create a new positive relationship between the followers of the three Abrahamic religions.

Imam Hendi teaches that: "It is about time that God's name gets disassociated from all that which undermines His Compassionate Glory and violates His Loving Majesty. Jews, Christians and Muslims are called upon to reintroduce their faiths to the Middle East in a way that does not condone violence and in a way that promotes peace."

Imam Hendi's main message is that: "All of us Americans, in general, and committed Jews, Christians and Muslims, in particular, must find within their own traditions sound reasons to value other faiths without compromising their own. They must realize that what happened on Sept. 11th cannot divide us. We should not tolerate voices of divisiveness. We must use Sept. 11th to explore the best in each of us. Let us keep in mind that Diversity is in itself not a bad thing provided it occurs within unity, cooperation and coordination. So let us all chose to be united with all of our differences for the best of this nation and all of humanity."

Contact him at imamyahya@clergybeyondborders.org!

Rabbi Gerry Serotta, Executive Director

Rabbi Gerald Serotta served as a university chaplain and Hillel Rabbi for 28 years, the last twenty at The George Washington University where he was Chair of the Board of Chaplains. While on Sabbatical from Hillel he held the position of Senior Rabbinic Scholar-in-Residence at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, working on issues of globalization and economic justice from a Jewish perspective. He currently serves as a spiritual leader for Shirat HaNefesh, a Jewish community in Southern Maryland and from 2000-2008 also served Temple Shalom of Chevy Chase as Associate Rabbi.

Aside from his professional work, Rabbi Serotta has for decades been a national leader in the Jewish community in the area of social justice. He was the founder and continues to serve Chair of Rabbis for Human Rights, North America. He was listed in American Jewish Biographies (published in 1982) as one of 500 living American Jews who have contributed significantly to American or American Jewish life. The editor, Murray Polner, comments, "Since the late 1960's Rabbi Gerald Serotta has been in the vanguard of progressive Jewish movements that seek to draw disaffected, unaffiliated, primarily younger Jews into a Judaism that is forward-looking and more accepting of changed values and styles of life."

His long record of activism and leadership in seeking progressive social change in the US and advocating peaceful solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, began in 1973 when he co-founded Breira - A project of Concern in Israel-Diaspora Relations, which called for a Palestinian State as a solution to the conflict. In 1980 he founded and served as the initial Co-Chair of New Jewish Agenda, a national organization conceived to be a "progressive voice within the Jewish community and a Jewish voice within the progressive community." He participated on the initial board which led to the creation of the Jewish Fund for Justice.

Rabbi Serotta has been involved in interfaith work through the Fellowship of Reconciliation (beginning with a reconciliation mission in 1975 to Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Amman, Palestine, and Israel) and the Interfaith Committee for Peace in the Middle East. He served as the first Rabbi on the board of the Faith and Politics Institute, an interfaith, bi-partisan effort to bring spiritual reflection to the work of the US Congress, and serves as a clergy representative on the Workers Rights Board of the District of Columbia, and the Compassion Forum, a bipartisan, interfaith effort to bring important spiritual issues to the fore in the recent presidential campaign. He lectured in the International Conflict Resolution program at Eastern Mennonite University.

Rabbi Serotta's undergraduate degree is from Harvard (1968). He holds a Doctor of Divinity degree from Hebrew Union College, where he was ordained Rabbi in New York in 1974. He holds Masters Degrees from Hebrew Union College in Hebrew Literature, and from New York Theological Seminary in Pastoral Counseling.

Contact him at rabbiserotta@clergybeyondborders.org!

Virginia Avniel Spatz, Program Director

Virginia, a native of Chicago, has lived and worked in Washington, DC, for twenty years. She has worked primarily in publishing, conference management and adult education, serving for several years as director of the District's non-denominational Jewish Study Center.

Virgina is also a writer focusing on education and community issues. Her work, for children and adults, has been published locally and nationally. She contributes regularly to the community periodical, East of the River, and maintains two blogs: "Ward 7 Connections" (DC neighborhood news), and "A Song Every Day" (thoughts on Jewish prayer and text).

Virginia participates in congregations across the Jewish spectrum and is active in working for inter-denominational understanding. She completed degrees in Philosophy (BA: Rutgers, 1983), Math (MA: Northeastern, 1988) and Educational Technology (MS: Gallaudet, 1989).

Contact her at clergybeyondborders@gmail.com!

Sana Saeed, Program Associate

Sana completed her Master of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in VA. She has previously worked as the Campus Program Coordinator for the American Islamic Congress working with a multi-cultural student campaign, Project Nur, in Washington DC and Boston, MA. She has also worked with the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution as a graduate research assistant focusing on development and religious conflicts. Through this important opportunity and experience, she expanded her networks of religious organizations and policy makers. She has also collaborated on many projects that have influenced the local community of students, such as dialogues on religious issues and the Hip Hop and Peacebuilding Festival.

She has been published in the Wall Street Journal in an article she co-authored on the impact of Project Nur on Muslim students in college campuses across the East Coast. She has also presented her college research on Muslim women as peacemakers at the Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, Green Festival and the University of Massachusetts.

Contact her at sana@clergybeyondborders.org!