After September 11, 2001, a group of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy and laypersons in Yolo county met to consider how our community could honor those who had died and, at the same time, increase understanding and respect among the three major Abrahamic faiths in Davis and Woodland.

The group learned that in February 2002, Randy Rosa, a Lodi attorney, invited several local leaders from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths to gather and celebrate their common ancestor, Abraham. Lodi’s Celebration of Abraham inspired faith leaders from Davis and Woodland, and they soon met with Mr. Rosa and began planning a similar event for Yolo County.

For six months before the second anniversary of 9-11, clergy and lay leaders of the three major monotheistic traditions met regularly to prepare a Yolo event acknowledging that the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—all people of the book—see themselves as children of Abraham, their common ancestor.

The planning group sought to develop a program that would go beyond the hatred that had been part of the past, and that flared up after 9-11. With an original mission of “to journey out in faith to see the shared values of our separate traditions,” the group developed the first Celebration of Abraham.

On Sunday, September 14, 2003, clergy, lay leaders, and congregants of Davis and Woodland Jewish, Christian, and Muslim congregations gathered at the Holy Rosary Community Center in Woodland. As Father Dan Looney, a founding member, noted, the Celebration of Abraham is a chance for people from all traditions to ”be in the presence of a diverse group of well-intentioned, good people willing to share their faith unblushingly.”

The Celebration of Abraham

The first Celebration, “Three faith perspectives on Abraham,” addressed the story of Abraham in each of the traditions. It was followed the next year by “Hope for Healing: Messianic visions from three faiths.”

The Celebration of Abraham became a yearly event to highlight the similarities between the three traditions and build understanding. While pointing out the similarities, the Celebration honors the important differences. In fact, the Celebration has always recognized that even within the three traditions, important differences exist. For example, while Roman Catholics and United Methodists are both Christians, their teachings are not the same.

Check out the list of previous celebrations.

The planners of the Celebrations have built friendships across their religious differences. They hope that the Celebration has allowed members of the larger community to both better understand their neighbors and make friendships across differences.

For the last twenty years, the Celebration has met in January and presented a program where participants learn about the history and precepts of the three main Abrahamic traditions related to a specific topic of relevance to the community.

Each speaker presents their own understanding of how their tradition informs the topic. For example, the Jewish speaker, while basing their discussion on Jewish precepts, is always speaking for their personal understanding and not presenting” the Jewish” belief. Participants react to the speakers, discussing their own views on the topic.

The Celebration has always been interactive, and while always maintaining its basic elements, it has developed over the last twenty years. Participants sit at tables and are encouraged to sit with folks from other traditions or congregations.

Feedback from the Celebrations told planners that folks wanted to expand this interactive part of the program. Over the years, the time allocated for interaction among the participants increased.

In addition, in 2017, the planners began having Mary Ann Ingenthron train the table facilitators in Circle Peer Process to ensure everyone around the table was heard. The Celebration also always included music. Originally children’s choirs sang and/or all the participants joined in.

After a few years, a local songwriter, Randy Ferris, brought us a beautiful song, Children of Abraham. This has become the Celebration’s anthem, and Mr. Ferris has led the whole Celebration in singing the song every year. From the beginning, the Celebration also included a ritual of washing each other’s hands and breaking and sharing a loaf of bread at each table.

Finally, each Celebration also always collects a free-will offering for a group doing social justice work. Over the years, the Celebration has collected money for food banks, flood relief, and refugee resettlement. These offerings have ranged from eight hundred to two thousand dollars. See the table for a complete list of groups that have received the offering.

The Celebration also has responded to events in our community. See the list of Celebration responses.

Over the years, the Celebration has collected money for food banks, flood relief, and refugee resettlement.

The Celebration also responded to events in our community. The Celebration held a memorial in Central Park in Davis on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.