The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV) partnered with Jewish Women International (JWI) to convene listening sessions and interviews with respected faith leaders from many traditions. As part of NRCDV’s larger goal to increase understanding and collaboration between faith-based organizations and efforts to enhance survivors’ access to safe housing options, these listening sessions and interviews aimed to enhance the awareness of the role faith leaders and communities play or could play at the intersection of faith, spirituality, religion and gender-based violence response and prevention, with a particular emphasis upon increasing safe housing options for survivors.
Facilitators spoke with a group of fourteen faith leaders representing diversity in religion, race, gender, sexual orientation and region. There were three members of the United Methodist Church, one from the Baptist Church, two from the Bahá’í
faith, one from the Catholic Church, three Islamic faith leaders, one faith leader from the Metropolitan Community Churches, one faith leader from the Jewish faith, one representative from the Evangelical Covenant Church and one faith leader from the Korean American Protestant Church.