News Highlights Building Interfaith Leadership Initiative (BILI) Fellowship Goes National, Adds New Online Resource for Interreligious Leadership

“We are deeply gratified to be partnering with Interfaith America (formerly Interfaith Youth Core) to bring our signature and highly successful BILI program to a national network of colleges and universities. Undergraduates are confronting ever-deepening social, cultural, religious, and political divides both on and beyond campus. We feel an urgent responsibility to help them cultivate the skills and capacities of heart and mind to learn and to lead across difference. This is at the heart of Hebrew College’s mission and is vitally important — both for the personal health and well-being of teens and young adults and for our collective health and well-being as a society.”

— Rabbi Sharon Cohen Anisfeld, President, Hebrew College

In this time of division, “there is an urgent need for cooperation across religious and cultural divides,” according to Rabbi Or Rose, Miller Center director. This is in part the focus of the Building Interfaith Leadership Initiative (BILI), recently renamed the BILI Launchpad Fellowship. BILI provides young leaders with the skills and experience to build bridges across differences and address common challenges. “BILI aims to raise up a new generation of leaders equipped to carry out this sacred work. Our new partnership with Interfaith America offers us the opportunity to develop a premier national program,” Rose continued.

“Hebrew College’s new, open-access, digital platform, will extend BILI’s reach beyond the bounds of the cohort and share our resources with others engaged in related interfaith educational efforts,” added Rev. Tom Reid, program co-director & Miller Center associate director.

The Miller Center is also unveiling BILI Online this month, a new digital interreligious curriculum.