East Meadow faith leaders unite at annual interfaith Thanksgiving service

Thanksgiving in East Meadow means sharing faith. Each year, spiritual leaders from different houses of worship gather at a synagogue or church for a community-wide interfaith service hosted by the East Meadow Clergy Association.

“It’s really a wonderful event,” said Rabbi Ronald Androphy, of the East Meadow Jewish Center, where the service was held this year. “I would actually call it inspirational and heartwarming.”

The first service was held in 1982, organized by the late Rev. David Parker, pastor of the United Methodist Church of East Meadow. It has been held every year since during the week of Thanksgiving, and cycles through the various religious communities. When it takes place at a synagogue, a member of the Christian clergy delivers the homily, or sermon. When it is held in a church, a rabbi is the main speaker.

Androphy joined the East Meadow Jewish Center in 1983, a year after the interfaith service began, and said he has seen it develop into a community tradition that many look forward to throughout the year. The service was originally held the night before Thanksgiving, he said, but because residents were occupied with holiday preparations, officials moved it to the Sunday before the holiday, and participation nearly doubled. This year’s event drew nearly 200 participants.

Rabbi Judith Cohen-Rosenberg, of the Community Reform Temple in Salisbury, is president of the clergy association. She noted that members of all faiths interact regularly, attending the same schools and going to the same shops or meeting at local libraries, and that this program gives them the chance to worship together.

In addition to the Jewish center and United Methodist, participating congregations included the Community Reformed Temple in Salisbury, St. Raphael’s Roman Catholic Church in East Meadow, New Hope Church in Westbury and Temple B’nai Torah of Wantagh, which merged with East Meadow’s Temple Emanu-El in June.

This year, the Rev. Dan Olsen, of New Hope Church, delivered a homily that highlighted the Oxford English Dictionary’s “word of the year,” toxic. Olsen spoke of how community members must counter the toxicity that he said has entered our society by embracing one another’s differences and finding common ground.

A similar theme had brought East Meadow’s faith leaders together only two weeks earlier, on Nov. 4, when Temple B’nai Torah held an interfaith memorial in the wake of the Oct. 27 shooting that left 11 people dead at the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Rabbi Daniel Bar-Nahum, of Temple B’nai Torah, said that events like the Thanksgiving service give congregants an opportunity to come together in more positive circumstances. “If our faith leaders are close,” he said, “our communities will be close.”

In his remarks to the gathering, Androphy highlighted the gratitude he feels to live in “such a warm and embracing community” that embraces open dialogues and unions like the interfaith service.