Jake Henry

Hi! I’m Jake, I’m a Junior majoring in Microbiology from Minneapolis, Minnesota. I grew up in a very Reform Jewish Congregation, and this upbringing formed a lot of the ideas and values that I still hold to this day. Interfaith dialogue matters a lot to me because religion is in the world all around us, and it permeates social issues and political dialogues. My synagogue made me aware of this when we learned about world religions in Sunday school and how the differences and similarities of these faith practices impacted politics in their time and region of the globe. I was able to see the power of interfaith dialogue when my congregation partnered with other faith groups (as well as other non-faith-oriented groups) to protect same sex marriage in Minnesota. Seeing the successful, positive changes that were accomplished through interfaith partnerships made me realize how much I wanted to participate in and learn from interfaith groups. On a smaller scale, I’m a science major stuck in STEM classes all the time and getting a chance to learn about religions is exciting to me because it’s content that I normally wouldn’t be exposed to in my classes.