Transportation Provided from Manhattan

These are challenging times for New Yorkers and others targeted by our increasingly authoritarian federal government.  Along with organizing, advocacy, and service, our moment calls for compassionate spiritual care – to support ourselves and our neighbors as we build sustainable movements for social change.  On November 16 - 17, ICNY, Hands Off NYC, Stony Point Center, and The Beacon will answer this call through an overnight retreat providing spiritual care for activists, organizers, and impacted community members.

The Rest, Restore, Resist retreat will be held at Stony Point Center, an hour from NYC in Rockland County, with transportation provided from Manhattan.  Overnight stay is encouraged, but single-day registration for Tuesday, November 17, is also available.  People of all faiths and none are welcome!

The retreat will include an introduction to movement chaplaincy, as well as healing practices drawn from diverse faith traditions.  Participants will build relationships through dialogue and practice, while learning self-care and community-care skills.  We will take a moment to reflect and connect in the midst of the struggle against authoritarianism.  The program will include:

• Keynote address by Rev. Dr. Danielle J. Buhuro, Founder and Director of Sankofa CPE Center, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Gammon Theological Seminary, and former Director of Movement Chaplaincy for the Faith Matters Network
• Multifaith panel discussion, with diverse religious leaders reflecting on healing resources in their traditions then leading healing practices — featuring panelists Imam Ammar Abdul Rahman, Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum, and Dr. Brooke Dodson Lavelle
• Hands-on spiritual care workshops, including sitting and walking meditation; yoga for healing and liberation; healing through sacred arts and music; spiritual practices from Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Quaker, Taoist, and West African traditions
• And much more – click here for the full retreat program

Please join us on November 16-17.  We will get through these challenging times together, drawing on healing resources from our diverse faith traditions.  Click the button to learn more and register.  Questions?  Contact ICNY’s Director of Programs Dr. Henry Goldschmidt at [email protected].

Application Due Friday, November 6

Applications are now open for ICNY’s Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy (ICLA)!

Are you a clergy member, faith leader, spiritual activist or organizer, lay leader, or faith-based nonprofit leader seeking to put your faith and values into action?

ICLA brings together diverse New Yorkers to deepen their faith-rooted leadership, strengthen their civic engagement, build relationships across faith traditions, and develop practical tools to create positive change in their communities and across NYC.

Fellows receive a $500 personal stipend, a $500 grant for a community project, and a network of multifaith leaders to support their work.

📅 Apply by Friday, November 6, 2026

Know a faith leader, organizer, or community leader who would be a great fit for ICLA? Please share this opportunity on Instagram, Threads, X, and Facebook and encourage them to apply! 

As we move toward the 2026 midterm elections, Hands Off Faith is expanding its work to equip faith communities to protect the vote, respond to potential federal encroachment, and help maximize voter participation.

Faith calls us to care for the well-being of our communities and to be faithful stewards of our democracy. As trusted messengers, faith leaders have an important role to play in helping our communities navigate misinformation, barriers to participation, voter intimidation, and other challenges that may arise before, during, and after Election Day.

With that in mind, Hands Off Faith, Common Cause New York, ICNY and our partners have launched the NYC Democracy Walks in Faith series. Join clergy, faith leaders, and lay leaders from across New York City for the third and final session of the series, an interactive election preparedness workshop designed to help faith communities prepare for potential challenges before, during, and after Election Day.

Together, we’ll work through realistic scenarios involving misinformation, voter intimidation, disruptions to civic participation, and other challenges that may affect our communities. Participants will assess the strengths and resources they already have, identify gaps, develop response plans, and strengthen coordination with faith leaders across the city.

The Forum on Faith brings together religious leaders, government officials, business executives, academics, and community leaders to discuss the benefits of faith in strengthening individuals and communities.  The universal message of the Forum is that religion is a powerful force for good in society and can be beneficial in many ways to both believers and non-believers.  Faith can make the world a better place.

The program will include keynote speakers, panels, and break-out discussions to address relevant topics such as:

• The general declining participation in religion: the impacts and how to respond
• The rising generation: how to interest them and how to keep them involved
• How can religion help to build bridges between people of different beliefs
• What people of faith can do to promote civil dialogue
• How religious literacy can lead to unity
• How faith blesses communities through outreach and service
• What we can do together
• The importance of religious identity to individuals
• How faith can bless communities

Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive

As many suffer and die from the weaponization of religion by the governments of India, Israel, the United States and many other countries, it must be countered with real interfaith dialog which cannot be trivialized or used as by anti-democratic forces as a cover for oppression, authoritarianism and fascism.

Together, we want to chart a new path forward with dialog marked by truth seeking, listening, confession, repentance and shared commitment to democracy and community building.

Our inaugural conversation will be at The Riverside Church in New York City on October 1, 2026 from 4:00 to 6:00 with a reception from 6:00 to 7:00. This opening conversation will center on understanding Hinduism and how it is distorted by Hindutva devotees committed to using their brand of religious nationalism to create a Hindu only state.

The session will open with comments by Imam Shamsi Ali, Imam of Jamaica Muslim Center and The Reverend Adriene Thorne, Senior Minister at The Riverside Church on the necessity to create spaces in our synagogues, temples, mosques, churches for authentic interfaith dialog marked by creating curiosity about different religious traditions and how they can be distorted by religious nationalism.

Noted Jewish journalist and political commentator, Peter Beinart, will offer his reflections on the importance of faith and how it can be so badly distorted by religious nationalisms to hurt others. Beinart is an Opinion Columnist for the New York Timees, Editor of Jewish Currents, Commentator for MS NOW, Professor, Newmark School of Journalism at City University of New York and author of Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning. You can hear his many interviews with prominent guests on Substack.

In addition to Peter’s reflections, we will do a deeper dive into Hinduism and Hindutva with Sunita Viswanath, Co-Founder, of Hindus for Human Rights and The Reverend John J. Thatamanil, M.Div., Ph.D. Professor of Theology & World Religions Director, Insight Project: Theology & Natural World, Union Theological Seminary.

Subsequent self-reflective and confessional conversations in synagogues, temples, mosques, churches, mediation centers and other sacred settings in New York and across the country will use a similar format where we highlight a particular religion and discuss how it gets distorted by religious nationalism.

Ankhlave Arts Alliance, 408B Colonels Row, Governors Island

Sacred Waters: Rivers of Resilience traces the spiritual waterways that have carried African sacred traditions across oceans and centuries of displacement and planted new roots throughout the Americas. Like rivers that carve new pathways, these spiritual practices—Ifá, Vodou, Santería, Hoodoo, Christianity and countless others—have adapted to new landscapes while preserving their sacred core.

This exhibition honors the profound resilience of African spiritual wisdom, celebrating how enslaved peoples and their descendants transformed oppression into empowerment, and the enduring power of the human spirit to find the divine in the most challenging circumstances.

On Saturday October 17 at 2pm, we will be having a panel titled "Sacred Waters, Living Roots: Ancestral Tradition as a Blueprint for Liberation." This conversation featuring priestesses, cultural workers, community organizers, and healiers will debunk myths and share how African spirituality and values can shape communities and build a better future.

Featuring Iya Rev. DeShannon Barnes-Bowens, Hakim Pitts and ICNY's Danielle Williams.