Cover Story
GaLa
Story by Bailey Hemphill. Photos by minorwhitestudios.com
From Left: Kaitlyn Hayes, Beth Katz, Sierra Pirigyi, and Tom Laird
Project W Interfaith Uniting People of All Beliefs and Backgrounds
www.ReadOnlineNow.com
hen you are part of a religious minority, or any minority group for that matter, you often end up finding yourself in situations where you need to educate people about who you are because they make assumptions based on stereotypes and misinformation about you and your religious or ethnic identity,” says Beth Katz, Founder and Executive Director of Project Interfaith. Katz knows this from personal experience, as she was raised Jewish in Omaha, the community of which is around 6,000 people. Trying to represent or defend an identity can be exhausting when working with an uninformed audience, which was one of the reasons why Katz founded Project Interfaith—to create a community that is educated in religious, spiritual, and cultural identities and that can engage in a place not based on assumptions. During her undergraduate studies at Creighton University, Katz co-founded a student interfaith group where she created programs that included a speaker series, student dialogues, and an interfaith student retreat for the campus. She loved creating opportunities may/june • 2012
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