World Religions News

Democracies falter not only when leaders overreach but when citizens assume that overreach is temporary, justified or someone else’s problem.

The post Never Again Means Now appeared first on Jewish Journal.

“Forgiveness is a painful and difficult process. It’s not something that happens overnight. It’s an evolution of the heart.” ~Sue Monk Kidd

Sometimes I hear the word “forgiveness” and I cringe.

I’ve been wrestling with this all year because I realized something really uncomfortable: When I look back at those moments where I felt betrayed, in most instances, I wasn’t a victim of other people’s bad behavior—I was a willing participant.

For years, I stayed in one-sided relationships and situations that asked me to shrink and conform to other people’s expectations. I gave everything and got crumbs (and this includes …

(RNS) — Every Christmas season as her neighbors draped their house and grounds with festive lights, Jasmina Husic’s children asked the same question: “Mama and baba, why don’t we decorate for Christmas?” she said.

The mother of five, who lives in Kennesaw, Georgia, would explain that they can appreciate Christmas, but that it’s not a Muslim holiday. That didn’t seem to satisfy their curiosity. So a couple of years ago during Ramadan, she tried something different — Husic bought crescent string lights and inflatables to decorate her yard with her kids. 

“And they were so excited,” said Husic. “Now they realize, ‘Oh, it’s Ramadan, because we have inflatables and our house has decorations everywhere.’ It helps them to be proud that they are different.” 

Big-box retailers such as Target and Party City have been embracing Ramadan in recent years with indoor holiday supplies, from wall decorations to children’s books. Many Muslim Americans have enthusiastically embraced the stores’ nod to representation in return. 

But for a growing number of small retailers and their Muslim customers, the celebration no longer stops at the front door. Outdoor displays that rival those that appear at Halloween or Christmas are now lighting up lawns during the Islamic holy month, which this year began on Feb. 17 in the United States.

Since launching her Muslim-oriented inflatables business in 2020, Basharat Rehman has seen sales increases for her displays for Ramadan and Eid, the holiday marking the end of the month of fasting.

Her New Traditions Store, based in Toronto, is one of several businesses in North America that sells inflatables worldwide in the shapes of mosques, a crescent and people holding up a “Ramadan Mubarak” banner. “There were a lot of parents out there that felt the same sort of void that we did,” said Rehman. 

The concept is not without its critics, who say Muslims should not mimic non-Islamic holidays, but Rehman said those commentators likely don’t understand the challenges of raising Muslim children in a world where Christmas can overshadow the delights of other faiths.

“If we just tell our children Ramadan is just about praying and fasting, a child will not find that appealing,” she said. “You have to introduce it in a fun way in the beginning years, so that by the time they’re older, they can actually partake in the spiritual aspects of Ramadan.” 

Some mosques across the country have also opted to hang lights or signs to mark the month when Muslims fast from dawn to sunset.

Professional Christmas decorating companies have caught wind of the trend and are extending their season beyond December. Several lighting companies in Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois advertised services ahead of Ramadan this year. 

In Livonia, Michigan, close to Detroit’s western suburbs and their densely Muslim neighborhoods, Martin Zoros, owner of Zoro’s Lights, said the more than 20 homes he has decorated for Ramadan so far is down from previous years, due to what he suspects are lean financial times.

But Nora Farhat, a Muslim who runs the Detroit-area company Wonderly Lights, said Muslim clients make up a slightly larger chunk of her business this year, at about 10%. 

“It’s ironic. We are a proud Christmas lighting company. But actually we are proud Muslims that do holiday lights,” she said. 

Farhat said interest in outdoor displays from both Muslim and non-Muslim families took off during the COVID-19 lockdowns, as outdoor lights, she said, offered joy to people spending holidays apart from their families. 

In 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, Halal Metropolis, an organization in Dearborn, devised a Ramadan home lights competition as a way to maintain the “Ramadan spirit” during a time of isolation, according to organizers. 

Since then, Farhat said more Muslim families have sought her services for string lights and displays, such as crescent-shaped wreaths in traditional Ramadan green. 

“The same way a neighbor might decorate for Christmas, the neighbor next door is decorating for Ramadan. There is a really beautiful unity to it because we’re all doing it, just with our unique touches,” she said. “And when people are able to share their different beliefs and customs, I think it brings more beauty, and the lighting concept is a beautiful way to do that.”

The city of Dearborn, where the large Muslim population has sometimes been a flashpoint, has decorated its street lights with the crescent moons and stars for Ramadan. The display, commissioned by the city’s development authority, is the first of its kind in Dearborn, a spokesperson said. 

“This initiative reflects who we are as a city,” said Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud in a statement. “Each season, we stand side-by-side to celebrate all of the traditions that make us special. It’s no wonder we continue to set new standards for holiday and cultural displays.”

Light Up Columbus, an Ohio company, created Dearborn’s designed custom Christmas and Ramadan displays. Since then, owner Chris Apfelstadt said mosques and a school have expressed interest in his work, which he said shows the importance of having holidays represented in a public way.

“Being on display is a big deal, and it brings people joy,” Apfelstadt said. “When we can bring people joy with lighting, we want to do that, and it doesn’t matter to us what the religion is, what the reason is.”

But for Muslims, the reason comes down to community. Randa Restum, a mother of two, said public recognition of Ramadan in Dearborn’s streets and schools has made it easier for her young children to practice some aspects of the holy month.

“It’s really important for them to just be proud of their culture and their religion,” said Restum, who paid Wonderly Lights to light up her Dearborn home this year. “I just want my kids to remember that it’s just a special time.”

But Husic, the Georgia mother, said it is also important that her displays spark conversations with curious neighbors who want to learn about her beliefs. “It just makes it even more special that my neighbors appreciate it,” she said. 

(RNS) — From the South Side of Chicago to global stages, Dr. Che “Rhymefest” Smith has lived at the crossroads of art, money and spiritual searching. Amber and Tom sit down with the Grammy- and Academy Award-winning songwriter, educator and public servant to explore what happens when inspiration intersects with industry and calling becomes responsibility.

Rhymefest reflects on cultural currency, hip-hop, commerce and the spiritual roots of creativity. He shares unforgettable stories: being broke in Brazil, an accountant instructing him to spend $10,000 in a week, and navigating an industry that rarely teaches artists how to steward success.

The conversation moves beyond music to public service, as Rhymefest describes his work on the Chicago Board of Education as a form of ministry — overseeing billion-dollar budgets while staying grounded in community and purpose.

It’s a wide-ranging, soulful conversation about art as a vocation, money as a tool and the responsibility to use both in service of something bigger.

About Dr. Che Rhymefest Smith:

• Dr. Che “Rhymefest” Smith is a Grammy- and Academy Award-winning songwriter and recording artist. He is also an educator and public servant, currently serving on the Chicago Board of Education, helping to oversee a $10 billion budget for more than 300,000 students.

For more episodes and info, visit Money, Meet Meaning.

(RNS) — The lukewarmness of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops toward Pope Francis and his agenda was hard to miss. His initiatives on climate and synodality were received unenthusiastically to say the least. His de-prioritization of combatting abortion and LGBTQ+ rights was ignored.

Bishops aligned with him were regularly denied leadership positions in the USCCB in favor of those associated with monied bastions of opposition like the Napa Institute. In parallel, criticism of the Trump administration was muted, while criticism of the Biden administration was loud and clear.

So now there’s a new pope in town. How’s that working out? 

Pope Leo XIV may be less inclined to stick his thumb in the eye of the conservative resistance, but he’s no less committed to Pope Francis’ agenda. He has made clear his support for the climate and synodality initiatives, and last fall he backed the Archdiocese of Chicago’s decision to give its annual lifetime achievement award to retiring Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a supporter of abortion rights. (After criticism of the decision by domestic conservatives, including Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Durbin declined to accept the award.)

On the Trump front, the Vatican recently turned down an invitation to participate in the president’s new Board of Peace even as Leo declined Vice President Vance’s in-person invitation to come to the U.S. to celebrate the country’s anniversary. The pope said he’d be spending July 4 instead on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a major port of entry for migrants to Europe.

Indeed, nowhere has Leo followed his predecessor’s footsteps more closely than on immigration policy, up to and including criticism of what he called “the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States.” And the American bishops do seem to have taken note.

Of course, the bishops cannot be accused of ignoring the treatment of immigrants during the first Trump administration. And in its annual report a year ago, their Committee on Religious Liberty listed as the first of its areas of critical concern “the targeting of faith-based immigration services.”

At its annual plenary assembly in Baltimore last November, the USCCB passed a “special message” for the first time in a dozen years, in this case to express concern about current immigration enforcement. Sure, the message didn’t call out the president or Immigration and Customs Enforcement by name, and it prayed for “an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence, whether directed at immigrants or at law enforcement (italics added),” but it did oppose “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people.”

At the same meeting, meanwhile, the bishops proceeded to choose a number of leaders from its old anti-Francis wing. This led Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter to “fear the USCCB will spend the next three years hobbling along, tripping over itself, too divided internally to help heal the polarization of society, too often silent in the face of previously unthinkable challenges to our democratic norms.” 

Case in point: In this year’s annual report, the bishops’ Committee on Religious Liberty did not so much as mention faith-based immigrant services, targeted or otherwise.

What we are left with, as usual, is individual bishops taking it upon themselves to speak or act in ways consistent with the pope’s concerns, such as Cardinal Joseph Tobin calling for the defunding of ICE and conducting Masses at a local ICE detention center in Newark on Ash Wednesday.

Or Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, condemning the federal government’s plan to use giant warehouses as detention centers. Or Archbishop Timothy Broglio, immediate past president of the USCCB and head of the Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, declaring “illegal and immoral” orders to kill survivors of attacks by U.S. forces on boats in the Caribbean. 

As for Pope Leo himself, new reporting reveals that in a closed-door meeting with Spanish bishops last November, he said the greatest danger to their country comes not from economic turmoil or secularism but from ultra-right politicians seeking to “instrumentalize” the church for partisan purposes. Whatever the American resistance to the first American pope thinks, they’ve got to know that he’s on the case and that, at age 70, he’s likely to be around for some time.

ISTANBUL (RNS) — In early February, a few weeks before the beginning of Ramadan, Greece’s minister of migration and asylum, Thanos Plevris, announced a nationwide sweep to close down “illegal places of worship,” specifically mentioning more than 60 unregistered mosques that are operating in Athens. But as Islam’s holy month of fasting began on Feb. 18, Greece’s Islamic community has maintained a defiant tone. 

“If Plevris wants to make his Islamophobic plans, that creates sadness and distress to the Muslims, but they will not skip prayers because of an ultra right government,” Naim Elghandour, the president of the Muslim Association of Greece, told Religion News Service.

The crackdown on mosques, which, like houses of worship in many countries in Europe and the Middle East, must be registered with the Greek government, came as the Greek Parliament was in the process of passing a strict new immigration bill that human rights advocates say criminalizes organizations coming to the aid of migrants.

The focus on mosques was signaled when Athens police charged a Bangladeshi man who was in the country legally for opening a mosque in the neighborhood of Agios Nikolaos without a permit. Plevris invoked an immigration statute to deport the man immediately from the country.

“What happened in Agios Nikolaos will happen everywhere,” said Plevris, a member of the right-leaning New Democracy Party, in announcing the sweep. “All illegal places of worship will be shut down, with the parallel revocation of the legal documents of those who operate them. In cooperation with the relevant ministries, illegal mosques will be sealed and those involved will be deported.

“Those who do not comply with Greek legislation will automatically be deported,” Plevris declared. 

The Muslim association’s Elghandour was tried by Greek authorities in 2020 for operating the Al-Andalus mosque in Piraeus, Athens’ main port, without a license but was acquitted. The mosque had been the longest functioning mosque in the Athens area — active since 1989. 

More than half a million Muslims are believed to live in and around Athens, the majority of whom came to Greece in the last quarter-century as migrants, either from the Middle East or as laborers from the Balkans and Albania. Only one mosque has been legally recognized, however, so most gather in private homes, businesses and other venues for prayer. The new policy, Elghandour said, could leave hundreds of thousands under threat of deportation for practicing their religion. 

“Greek taxpayers, permanent residents are being threatened with deportation for praying in visible prayer halls, that’s irrational and dangerous for the wider society,” he said.

But Elghandour said that the crackdown could backfire on a government that depends on the good will of Muslims to enforce the law in migrant communities. In response to the new policy the members of many mosques and other Muslims across the country have ceased cooperating with law enforcement. If mosques are closed, he added, they will take their Ramadan prayers and gatherings to the streets. 

“The long-standing cooperation with the public security forces has ceased, as their presence was solely due to the mosques. Now that the mosques are being closed, there’s no need for cooperation,” he said. “We informed them that we would pray anywhere, without police surveillance, and they wouldn’t know where we would pray.

“We will perform congregational prayers in the squares and streets,” he added.

Barely a century ago, after hundreds of years of Ottoman rule, Greece’s native Muslim population worshipped in hundreds of mosques throughout the country. In the wake of the First World War and the Greco-Turkish war that followed, Greece’s Muslim population was largely sent to Turkey, with only small communities near the Turkish and Bulgarian borders allowed to remain under an agreement approved by the League of Nations. At the same time, nearly 1.5 million Christians expelled from modern-day Turkey resettled in Greece, in what is remembered as “the population exchange.”

Over a century later, the shadow of the exchange and Ottoman rule still haunts Greek policy toward migration and religious freedom.

“The most important thing to take in mind when talking about religion in Greece is that Muslims are, in the Greek perception… something that has to do with Turkey,” said Stavros Milichudis, chief editor of the Greek investigative NGO Solomon, which tracks migration and Human Rights issues, told RNS. “Turkey is the enemy, Turkey is dangerous, Turkey is the other. So I would say that this is the first thing that guides the relationship of Greece with Muslims.”

Greece’s constitution stipulates that “the prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ,” but the charter enshrines a right to religious freedom and equal treatment between the clergy of the “prevailing religion” and those of minority faiths.

“However, in reality, we find difficulties in achieving this,” explained Elghandour, pointing to the overwhelming number of requests to establish mosques that have been rejected by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs. 

According to Milichudis, the crackdown on mosques, like the immigration bill, flow from Plevris and the ruling New Democracy Party’s aim to make life in Greece difficult for migrants and anyone who associates with them. “He’s trying very actively to criminalize solidarity when it comes to NGOs, to volunteers, to other workers. He’s also targeting undocumented migrants and asylum seekers who lose their status.”

Partnership Advances the Fellowship’s new strategic plan goals as Kerux celebrates a decade of multicultural marketing

CHICAGO — The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (The Fellowship), the leading nonprofit organization providing humanitarian care and lifesaving aid to Israel and the Jewish people around the world, today announced a strategic multi-year partnership with Kerux Group (Kerux), a full-service, multicultural agency specializing in Hispanic engagement.

The partnership is mission-critical to The Fellowship’s “Building the Future” strategic plan and its ambitious goal of engaging 1 million supporters globally, including evangelical Christians and pastors from Latino communities throughout the United States. With 62 million Hispanics nationwide representing nearly one in five Americans, 15% identify as evangelical, and many cite religious reasons for supporting Israel.

“As the charitable giving landscape becomes increasingly diverse, there is a tremendous opportunity to deepen relationships with Hispanic Christians who share our commitment to standing with Israel and the Jewish people,” said Robin Van Etten, United States CEO of The Fellowship. “We want to invite them to turn their conviction into meaningful action, and this partnership ensures we can do so with cultural competency and genuine respect.”

The Fellowship conducted a rigorous national search to identify a partner with the cultural fluency, theological depth, and strategic expertise necessary to meaningfully engage the growing U.S. Hispanic community—a demographic that has historically been underserved in faith-based philanthropic outreach.

Kerux has pioneered culturally resonant strategies that go beyond translation and speak authentically to the hearts of Hispanic audiences. As The Fellowship’s multicultural agency of record, Kerux will lead an integrated strategy that includes cultural audience analysis, bilingual storytelling, omnichannel campaign design, church relations, and staff training and coaching—equipping The Fellowship to serve Hispanic Christian communities with excellence and intentionality for years to come.

“This year, we are celebrating 10 years of leading nonprofits toward cultural diversity. In all this time, we have never seen an organization where the vision, intentionality, and enthusiasm around welcoming Hispanic Christians into its mission is so deeply aligned across its leadership—from the board room to senior leaders and critical stakeholders across channels,” said Iván León, Founder and Chief Strategist at Kerux Group. “Alignment at this level is a powerful motivator and reflects a sincere commitment to building lasting relationships. We are thrilled and grateful to have earned their trust.”

By combining The Fellowship’s established outreach infrastructure with Kerux’s cultural intelligence capabilities, the partnership seeks to open new pathways for Hispanics to support urgent humanitarian needs and vulnerable communities while advancing shared values of compassion, faith, and solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people.

“Through grassroots outreach, we’ve already seen that Latinos feel deeply connected to Israel and are generous supporters of our programs,” said Gail Arcamone, Vice President of Outreach at The Fellowship. “Our focus is on strengthening that bridge of friendship—ensuring that every believer who chooses to stand with Israel feels welcomed, respected, and connected to the impact their faith makes possible.”

The collaboration reflects The Fellowship’s ongoing commitment to education, stewardship and innovation in its outreach, ensuring that its mission continues to resonate across cultures and generations while remaining firmly rooted in its founding purpose: building bridges between Christians and Jews and providing lifesaving humanitarian aid to Israel and Jewish communities worldwide.

# # #

About the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

For more than 40 years, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (The Fellowship) has been the leading nonprofit building bridges between Christians and Jews, blessing Israel and the Jewish people around the world with humanitarian care and lifesaving aid. In 2025, The Fellowship helped 2 million people living in poverty, helped thousands make aliyah back to their homeland, Israel, and helped strengthen Israel’s security infrastructure. To learn more about The Fellowship’s work, visit www.ifcj.org.

About Kerux Group

Kerux Group is a cross-cultural marketing and fundraising agency exclusively dedicated to helping nonprofits speak authentically to the hearts of Hispanic audiences. Through cultural intelligence and strategic guidance, the agency empowers organizations to identify, acquire, and cultivate Hispanic constituents so they become engaged followers, passionate advocates, committed members, and loyal donors. Kerux has served legacy organizations in the faith-based sector, including In Touch, Ligonier, FamilyLife, and Pathway to Victory. Founded in 2016, the agency brings together multicultural fluency, scalable expertise, agile integration, and a vetted partner network to drive meaningful, mission-aligned growth. For more information, visit www.keruxgroup.com

Press Contacts:

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Kerux Group: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

###

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RNS or Religion News Foundation.