Faculty

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first 10 women to serve as rabbi, is storyteller, activist and organizer, writer, percussionist, klezmer dancer and ceremonial artist. She began congregational life in 1973 with Temple Beth Or of the Deaf and then lived for 22 years in NM where she cofounded Congregation Nahalat Shalom, The Muslim Jewish Peacewalk for Interfaith Solidarity and Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence. She moved to California in 2005 to direct Interfaith Inventions Wilderness Peace Camp, and AFSC’s Israel Palestine program with Noura Khouri. Lynn serves on the advisory and rabbinic council of Jewish Voice for Peace and leads delegations to Israel, Palestine, and Iran with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She cofounded The Community of Living Traditions with Rick, Kitty and Rabia in the spring of 2009 in an effort to bring the work of creating a multifaith, multicultural and multigenerational environment for activists committed to strategic nonviolence to build upon their work. She moved to Stony Point in November 2009 in order to set up The Shomer Shalom House and work on CLT programing.

She is author of She Who Dwells Within (Harper SF 1995) and Trail Guide to The Torah of Nonviolence which is coming out in 2012. She co-founded JSNAP: Jewish Solidarity with Native American Peoples in the winter of 2011 and continues to write and organize around Jewish nonviolence, prevention of violence toward women, anti-racism work, living wage movement, ending occupation and promoting multifaith understanding.

Rabia Terri Harris has been a student and practitioner of Islam for over thirty years. She has published translations from the Arabic of prominent medieval Sufi writers Abdul-Karim Qushayri and Muhyiddin ibn al-Arabi, and has written and spoken widely on many dimensions of spirituality and politics, particularly peace and interreligious affairs. Presently Rabia teaches in the Intellectual Heritage Department at Temple University, and serves as a Supervisor in Training in the Clinical Pastoral Education program at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

In 1994, Rabia founded the Muslim Peace Fellowship {www.MPFweb.org}, the first organization specifically devoted to the theory and practice of Islamic nonviolence. She continues to serve as its director. Rabia is also a Founding Elder at the Community of Living Traditions, an Abrahamic residential peace community located at the Stony Point Conference Center in Stony Point, NY.

Rick Ufford-Chase is a co-founder of the Luke 6 Project (a Christian Community committed to nonviolence) and the Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point Center. Rick and his wife, Kitty serve as co-directors of Stony Point Center. Before coming to Stony Point Center in 2008, Rick lived and worked on the U.S./Mexico border for twenty years, focusing on human rights, immigration and border enforcement policy, and the social costs of the North American Free Trade Agreement on both sides of the border. From 2004 to 2006, Rick served as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Rick also serves as the Executive Director of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

Kitty Ufford-Chase is a co-founder of the Luke 6 Project (a Christian Community committed to nonviolence) and the Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point Center. Kitty and her husband, Rick, serve as co-directors of Stony Point Center. Before coming to Stony Point Center in 2008, Kitty worked three years as Faith Community Coordinator for the Community Food Security Center of the Tucson Food Bank and completed the Hesychia School for Spiritual Direction in the Contemplative Tradition. In 2003, Kitty and Rick completed the training and became reservists with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Before that, she served for twelve years as Arizona Area Program Director for the American Friends Service Committee, the social action organization of the Quakers, working on immigration, death penalty, criminal justice, alternatives to violence, and global economic issues. In 2001, Kitty earned a Masters in Intercultural Relations from Antioch University and Intercultural Communication Institute. A life-long Quaker, Kitty is particularly interested in strengthening the spiritual grounding needed for bold action for peace, nonviolence, and justice. She and Rick have three children.