SACRED PRACTICE & POSSIBILITY AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF JUDAISM AND ISLAM

We’re delighted to invite you into a virtual immersion at the heart of Jewish and Muslim devotion. The Sarah and Hajar Series: Sacred Practice and Possibility at the Intersections of Judaism & Islam features conversations with spiritual leaders, artists, activists, scholars & more. While our series initially released during the shared sacred days of Passover and Ramadan, feel welcome to listen anytime!

THE SARAH & HAJAR SERIES

The Sarah & Hajar series is convened by …

… Taya Mâ Shere, in the immense blessing field of Pir Dr. Ibrahim Baba Farajajé, whose devotion to organic multi-religiosity, and whose sacred script-flip of the Abrahamic faiths to the Sarah and Hajaric faiths continues to open portals of possibility.

May this journey spark connection and understanding, uplift the most exquisite dreaming of our traditions, and deeply root practices of counter-oppressive multi-religious devotion…

The Sarah & Hajar series features conversations with ….

… is an internationally renowned poet, playwright, workshop facilitator and educator. Born in the UK to Jamaican parents, Sukina was raised in a Rastafari-inspired environment and embraced Islam almost 20 years ago - since that time she has played an intrinsic role within the British Muslim creative community. Sukina facilitates in-person and online writing workshops toward awakening the voice of the heart.  Her new book of poetry is Love and Longing: Yearning for the Face of God.   Sukina is also a muqedma, a spiritual guide and teacher in the Tijani Sufi lineage.

Sukina Noor

… is an Arab Jewish scholar, mystic and artist. She teaches direct experience of God and Jewish mysticism at her spiritual skill building school Malchut. She is a 10th-generation Jerusalemite with lineage roots also in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Hadar weaves the spiritual with the political through performance art, writing, music and ritual. She was the first fellow at Abrahamic House, a multifaith social change incubator, was recently featured on Season 3 of “Ramy: One Cup of Tea” (Hulu) and has her own column at The New Arab. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Hadar Cohen

… is international director of the Abrahamic Reunion Project, and a globally recognized interreligious dialogue facilitator, Fulbright Scholar, and Lecturer from Nazareth. Sheikh Ghassan serves, and has served, on the boards of numerous international peacemaking organizations, including The Middle East Civic Forum, Sulha Peace Project, Anwar Il-Salaam / Lights of Peace Center, and the World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace. He holds regular peace vigils with the Abrahamic Reunion Project and offers weekly zikr through Rising Tide International. Sheikh Ghassan belongs to a Sufi family and is the head of the Tariqat As Salaam Qadiri Sufi Order.

Sheikh Ghassan Manasra

…is an internationally celebrated dancer devoted to creating transformational experiences for her students and audiences worldwide.  Miriam’s signature style draws heavily on Central Asian dance, devotional Sufi whirling, and sacred dance rituals from around the world.  Her movement quality and aesthetics also incorporate her years of martial arts training, contemporary dance, Flamenco, and many other world dance forms. In all of her online and in-person offerings, including Nava Dance, Integral Dance, Turning Toward the Heart and her intensives around the world, Miriam weaves movement and ritual together to create communal experiences for healing and empowered embodiment. 

Miriam Peretz

… is a world-renowned scholar in religious studies, spirituality and psychology. A frequent speaker and workshop leader, his many books include The Sufi Book of Life: 99 Pathways of the Heart for the Modern Dervish, A Little Book of Sufi Stories, Desert Wisdom: A Nomad’s Guide to Life’s Big Questions, The Tent of Abraham (co-authored), Revelations of the Aramaic Jesus, Prayers of the Cosmos, The Hidden Gospel and the Spirituality of Creation. Neil cofounded the Edinburgh International Festival of Middle Eastern Spirituality and Peace. Under his Sufi name, Saadi Shakur Chishti, he offers spiritual retreats combining his work with Native Middle Eastern spirituality with the lineage of Chishti Sufism and serves on the advisory board of the International Association of Sufism.

Neil Douglas-Klotz

… is an author, curator of anti-colonial archives, film essayist, and theorist of photography. She is a professor of Modern Culture and Media and Comparative Literature at Brown University. She is of Algerian and Palestinian descent and identifies as a Muslim Jew, which she powerfully unpacks in her article Unlearning Our Settler Colonial Tongues. Azoulay recently completed a children story, Gold Threads, based on an early 20th century strike led by jewelers and gold spinners, acting also as guardians of the Muslim and Jewish world in Fes, Morocco. Ariella Aïsha’s newest book project is Algerian Letters - The Jewelers of the Ummah (Verso 2024), and its companion film, the world like a jewel in the hand.

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay

aka Mohammed Yahya, is a rapper and an award-winning interfaith arts programmer curating projects for refugees and asylum seekers. Born in Mozambique during a 16-year war, MoYah was forced to flee his country as a political refugee, and he uses his experience of war and displacement to encourage artistic activism, disintegrate stereotypes & encourage community cohesion between different faiths in the UK and beyond. MoYah has performed extensively across Europe, United States, South America and the African continent sharing stages with artists including Nas, Africa Bambaataa, Yuna, Guru & Talib Kweli. He founded the first Muslim/ Jewish Hip Hop Duo in the UK, ‘ Lines of Faith’ delivering performances and workshops to challenge prejudice, and build meaningful bonds between communities. He was named Hip Hop Ambassador of May Project Gardens, and is Head of Social Impact of Acorda Music.

MoYah

… is a journalist at New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, and other publications. He has written over 1400 articles on the Supreme Court, religion, LGBTQ issues, climate change, and other topics. He is a rabbi and meditation teacher who has written several books on meditation, religion, and spirituality. Jay is an affiliated assistant professor at Chicago Theological Seminary and visiting fellow at the Center for LGBTQ Studies in Religion. Jay holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Thought from Hebrew University and a J.D. from Yale Law School. His tenth book, The Heresy of Jacob Frank: From Jewish Messianism to Esoteric Myth, published by Oxford University Press, won the 2022 National Jewish Book Award for scholarship.

Rabbi Dr. Jay Michaelson

…is a Qur’anic studies scholar and the author of Qur’anic Stories: God, Revelation and the Audience (Edinburgh University Press, 2021) and How the Qur’ān Works: Reading Sacred Narrative (Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Her scholarship revolves around Qur’anic stories, style and interpretation in literature, performance, and art, across historical periods, languages, and disciplinary boundaries. Dr. Ozgur Alhassen is working on a book on hierarchies of beings in the Qur’an, and is the author of a number of articles. She has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures.

Dr. Leyla Ozgur Alhassen

… (they/she) is an artist, Spiritual Director, and scholar of art and Judaics. As a teaching artist, Arielle facilitates classes and workshops at universities, museums, and organizations, and their artwork, rooted in painting, fibers and social practice, centers on ritual and healing. Recent exhibition highlights include: A Fence Around the Torah: Safety and Unsafety in Jewish Life at the Jewish Museum of Maryland and Queering Jewish Diasporas at the Omni Commons, Oakland, CA.  As a Spiritual Director, Arielle facilitates life cycle ritual and Jewish and interfaith learning. A lay-hazzan and current SVARA Fellow in the Talmud Teaching Kollel, Arielle’s arts and culture organizing centers around dismantling systems of oppression; Muslim-Jewish cross-textual arts exchange; and Mizrahi cultural flourishing in the diaspora.

Arielle Tonkin

… is one of the first women to become a rabbi in Jewish history. She is a pathfinding Jewish feminist, human rights activist, writer, visual artist, ceremonialist, community educator and master storyteller. Lynn has been a congregational rabbi since the fall of 1973 and Lynn engages in multifaith, intergenerational and multicultural organizing in solidarity with racial, indigenous, gender justice and Palestinian liberation struggles. Lynn sits on the Rabbinic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace and is board chair of Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity. Rabbi Lynn is the author of several books, including Peace Primer II, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of Renewed Judaism, World Beyond Borders Passover Haggadah and Trail Guide to the Torah of Nonviolence. Rabbi Lynn is a Shomeret Shalom, a practitioner of the Torah of nonviolence.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb

…is a writer, singer/songwriter, speaker, human rights defender, and founder and president of Muslims for Progressive Values (MPV), a global, grassroots faith-based human rights organization. Founded in 2007 in Los Angeles, MPV advocates for egalitarian expressions of Islam, for women’s rights, LGBTQI rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of and from religion or belief. MPV also promotes these values at the United Nations by challenging human rights abuses in the name of Islam, and by offering an inclusive understanding based on universal human rights and justice. In October of 2017 in Tunisia, Ani founded Alliance of Inclusive Muslims, a global umbrella organization spanning six continents and registered as a human rights association in Geneva and Uganda. Born and raised Muslim from Malaysia and based out of Los Angeles, she spearheads the progressive Muslim movement both internationally and in the U.S.

Ani Zonneveld

The Sarah & Hajar Series is created in collaboration with Jewish Ancestral Healing podcast and the Center for Multi-Religious Studies at Starr King School for the Ministry, and is made possible by the generous support of Rise Up Initiative: Nurturing the Soul of Jewish Justice, by Ruach haMidbar: Spirit of the Desert, and by listeners like you!

We give great thanks for the sacred copperwork of Shahna Lax - her Shema / Shehada plate is featured in our cover image, and for Rabbi Tirzah Firestone for the gift of this exquisite piece. And with much appreciation to Hamed Habibpour for the sweetest santor instrumental that is the tapestry of our sonic welcome for each episode.

Illumination at the Threshold by Shahna Lax, weaving Arabic from the Hadith: Al Janatu tahta akdam il uma'at, “Paradise/the garden lies under the feet of the mothers", with Hebrew from Psalms: Or Zaruah / ‘Light is Planted.’