Faith leaders gather, speak out on behalf of the marginalized

Elizabeth Dunsker’s great-grandfather managed to escape a Siberian prison where he’d been thrown “because he dared to speak out against the czar,” she said. The other side of her family overheard a “plan to burn and pillage their town and to rape and murder everyone who survived.”

All these people fled Czarist Russia for their lives.

“I know through my own family what it means to need a safe harbor,” she said. “My family was saved … through the welcoming doors of the United States, opened to an entire town of Jews marked for death.”

Dunsker, the rabbi at Congregation Kol Ami, was one of nearly 30 Clark County faith leaders who gathered Wednesday afternoon at Vancouver Heights United Methodist Church to support an interfaith “Call to Beloved Community,” demonstrating compassion, determination and solidarity with all marginalized people who feel threatened simply for being who they are during this time of deep political division and distrust.

“Our government has created an atmosphere of fear among those of us with the least power and authority, and there is a sense that world is becoming riskier for women, for people of color, for immigrants, for non-Christians, for the LGBTQ community,” Dunsker said. Recent executive orders closing American borders to refugees and limiting the speech of health professionals overseas “create this atmosphere, and I cannot remain silent when my government threatens the freedoms of so many,” she said.

Dunsker said that 5,000 years of Jewish wisdom and tradition compel her “to offer loving rebuke.”

Joining Dunsker onstage were members of the Interfaith Coalition of Southwest Washington, including local Episcopal, Islamic, Lutheran, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Congregational and Metropolitan Community Church leaders. Also there was Vancouver Mayor Tim Leavitt, who was invited at the last minute but said he didn’t want to miss it.

“Vancouver is an open and inclusive community that rejects xenophobia, intolerance, sexism, racism, classism” in every way, Leavitt said. He added that he issues official proclamations all the time, but only one has been framed on the wall of his City Hall office — the one issued right after Election Day 2016, which says: “We are a nation bound not by race or religion, but by the shared values of freedom, liberty and equality. … Our community is strengthened by our growing diversity and ensuring that pathways that foster diversity, dignity, tolerance and respect remain clear and open.”

The Rev. Greg Ward, the interim minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church, said his faith has taught him to “live as large as the times demand.” This moment in history is “a moment that matters. We will always show up for one another,” he vowed.

The Rev. Jennifer Brownell said she and her Hazel Dell church have already lived that experience. The First Congregational United Church of Christ was heavily damaged by an arson fire in May; while no motive for the crime is known, the church is a left-leaning one that eagerly hosted the first same-sex marriages in Clark County and has been involved in other progressive causes.

After the arson, Brownell said, her congregation received many gifts of cash, equipment and worship space from other congregations.

“What got us through that day was the love and support of the people of Vancouver,” she said. “How much greater than any one act of hate or malice love and community can be.”