More than 300 women from across the United States and around the world gathered Sunday to develop relationships and better understand each others' faiths.
PRINCETON -- They came to the conference from as nearby as West Windsor and as far away as Kuwait.
More than 300 women from around the world gathered at Princeton University on Sunday in hopes of breaking down cultural barriers, combatting negative media representations and better understanding each others' faiths.
At the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom's Muslim Jewish Women's Leadership Conference, the president of American Jewish World Service told participants getting to know each other is crucial in a time of heated political rhetoric.
"Our faiths -- Judaism, Islam, Christianity, other faiths in the world -- properly conceived, give us the ability to live our lives in deep compassion and in deep connection with each other," Ruth Messinger said. "This is our mandate."
Over the next several hours, the women told stories of inter-faith friendships, shared tips for engaging others in conversation and expressed frustration with what they said was a failure by the media to listen to their voices.
The conference fell 19 days after Gov. Chris Christie told President Obama that New Jersey would not accept Syrian refugees, 15 days after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump wrongly claimed that thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and just four days after the shooting of 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., added to widespread concern about both Islamophobia and radical Islamic terrorism.
For West Windsor resident Sumeera Baig, the timing of the event was paramount.
"I am Muslim, and with all the anti-Muslim rhetoric that's filled the media and the airwaves these days, this comes at such an opportune time that it really hits home," she told NJ Advance Media.
Messinger addressed that rhetoric in her speech, telling the packed auditorium that when Muslim and Jewish women are asked what they're doing to combat negative stereotypes of their faiths, they should return the question to its asker.
"The question is, 'What are you doing?'" Messinger said. "To say with groundedness, 'I know what I'm doing. I volunteer at two organizations. We're doing really good work. ... We hope you are, too.'"
But Messinger added that it's not the responsibility of members of minority groups to teach others about who they are.
"The answer is, 'It's not just my job. It's all of our jobs,'" she said.
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Rori Picker Neiss, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, told the crowd that people of different faiths will be able to converse if they come to the table with open minds.
"If there are two people who believe that all faiths are a path to the same universal truth, then they're going to have [something] to talk about, even if they come from different faith communities," she said.
Neiss said it's much harder, but crucial, for people to engage with others who possess different ideologies than they do. There needs to be room for someone to say, "I think you're wrong," even when it's painful, Neiss said.
"If we want to be true to the work that we're doing, then there needs to be the opportunity for somebody also to be able to say that -- in a respectful way, hopefully even in a loving way, but in an honest way," she said.
Neiss's speech struck a chord with Dahlia Herzog, who works for the American Jewish Committee in New York. She works in the field of Jewish-Christian relations and wanted to learn more about Muslim-Jewish relations.
Herzog said she appreciated Neiss's advocating for maintaining a sense of self while striving to connect with others. In some interreligious groups that Herzog had participated in, she felt the discussions had caused her to lose track of her own religious identity.
"You really try to relate to people, and you talk about everyone being the same and coming from the same place. But often I find that it does cause you to lose a sense of identity," Herzog said. "I really liked how [Neiss] was saying that it's possible [and] better not to do that."
Mehnaz Afridi, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, urged conference participants to advocate for people outside of their own faith communities.
"I believe it is more important to speak out for that 'other' than for yourself," Afridi said. "What you're really doing is speaking for yourself, because you're part of that humanity."
Reza Green, who came to the conference from Highland Park, told NJ Advance Media she's working to become comfortable with that idea.
"We live in a pluralistic, libertarian society, but start scratching the surface, and a lot of other kinds of attitudes come out," she said. "You can't take anything for granted."
Afridi closed her speech by challenging the women in the audience to read the texts that form the basis of each others' faiths.
"Understand each other's suffering," she said. "Today, the only hope we have is accepting diversity and love."
Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati. Find NJ.com on Facebook.