Programs
Better together
AAi COMPASSION
Congregational Compassion
Almost every week of the year, AAi unites Jews, Christians, and Muslims to serve poor, suffering, and unhoused neighbors, building bridges of understanding and respect between our communities while collaborating in compassion תיקון עולם and صدقة . The heart and soul of AAi is compassion, so AAi organizes both congregational and public compassion events so all children of Abraham can get to know each other in “buddy groups” while serving neighbors in need. Congregational compassion events are hosted at a mosque, synagogue or church, and attended primarily by members of co-sponsoring congregations.
Meal Services
Feed Unhoused Neighbors
A synagogue, church, and mosque partner together to serve a tasty hot meal to over 200 unhoused persons. Congregational leaders co-lead meal services at soup kitchens, shelters, recovery centers, and encampments. Meal prep can also occurs at one of the co-sponsoring congregation’s facilities. Work is done in small buddy groups who enjoy some time getting acquainted before working together. Volunteers dine together with the same halal and kosher foods prepared after a blessing, prayer, and dua from community leaders. A smaller group then convoys together to serve meals at encampments and shelters. Capacity: Up to 60 volunteers (20 from each community).
Hygiene Kits
Keep Unhoused Neighbors Healthy
A mosque, synagogue, and church partner together to purchase supplies and assemble 1,000 hygiene kits so unhoused neighbors can stay clean and healthy. Volunteer orientation is co-led by partnering congregational leaders, with the host offering a tour of their facilities after work is done. Thereafter, select volunteers deliver assembled kits to AAi distribution partners. Capacity: Up to 60 volunteers (20 from each community)
Blood Drives
Saves Lives Together
AAi Blood drives are hosted at member churches, mosques, or synagogues in partnership with American Red Cross, known abroad as Red Crescent and Magen David Adom. Capacity: up to 12 volunteers (4 from each community) in two shifts. Volunteers check-in donors, and chat with donors post-donation to monitor their wellness for any negative reactions. AAi Blood Drives are relaxed, providing plenty of time for volunteers to get better acquainted when not assisting Red Cross staff.
AAi COMPASSION
Public Compassion
Public compassion events are hosted at the facilities of AAi’s nonprofit partners and attended by diverse Jewish, Christian, and Muslim volunteers from a variety of congregations, including those that don’t yet sponsor AAi congregational compassion events. Unlike congregational compassion events, public compassion events are open to the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian public.
Bike Repairs
Provide Transportation for Transformation
A synagogue, church, and mosque partner together to serve a tasty hot meal to over 200 unhoused persons. Congregational leaders co-lead meal services at soup kitchens, shelters, recovery centers, and encampments. Meal prep can also occurs at one of the co-sponsoring congregation’s facilities. Work is done in small buddy groups who enjoy some time getting acquainted before working together. Volunteers dine together with the same halal and kosher foods prepared after a blessing, prayer, and dua from community leaders. A smaller group then convoys together to serve meals at encampments and shelters. Capacity: Up to 60 volunteers (20 from each community).
Housing Builds
Build Homes, Community & Hope
A synagogue, church, and mosque partner together to serve a tasty hot meal to over 200 unhoused persons. Congregational leaders co-lead meal services at soup kitchens, shelters, recovery centers, and encampments. Meal prep can also occurs at one of the co-sponsoring congregation’s facilities. Work is done in small buddy groups who enjoy some time getting acquainted before working together. Volunteers dine together with the same halal and kosher foods prepared after a blessing, prayer, and dua from community leaders. A smaller group then convoys together to serve meals at encampments and shelters. Capacity: Up to 60 volunteers (20 from each community).
Sack Lunch Making
Feed Unhoused Neighbors
A synagogue, church, and mosque partner together to serve a tasty hot meal to over 200 unhoused persons. Congregational leaders co-lead meal services at soup kitchens, shelters, recovery centers, and encampments. Meal prep can also occurs at one of the co-sponsoring congregation’s facilities. Work is done in small buddy groups who enjoy some time getting acquainted before working together. Volunteers dine together with the same halal and kosher foods prepared after a blessing, prayer, and dua from community leaders. A smaller group then convoys together to serve meals at encampments and shelters. Capacity: Up to 60 volunteers (20 from each community).
AAi UNIVERSITY
Understanding Neighbors
AAiU takes understanding neighbors to a whole new level. To complement in-person learning when collaborating in compassion, AAiU also offers introductory and advanced courses taught by world-class scholars to their own respective communities. What sets AAiU faculty apart is not only their academic and relational expertise in the religion and culture of the other, but also their ability to teach their own sacred texts to their own faith community. This equips AAiU faculty to translate the common ground between our communities into their own faith vernacular, tackling unjust stereotypes of each other and navigating through the thorny complexities of our differences in ways that build immense respect.
AAiU Yeshiva
For Jewish Learners
Understanding Muslim Neighbors
Instructor: Prof. Rabbi Reuven Firestone
UNDERSTANDING MUSLIM NEIGHBORS by Prof. Rabbi Reuven Firestone is available online now. Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and Affiliate Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California, Rabbi Firestone is the recipient of numerous research fellowships and university invitations. Prof. Firestone has written over a hundred scholarly articles and eight books, including An Introduction to Islam for Jews and An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims. His scholarship has been translated into German, French, Hebrew, Turkish, Arabic, Albanian, Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Indonesian, and Urdu. Having lived with his family in Israel, Egypt, and Germany, he regularly lectures in universities and religious centers throughout the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He served as vice president of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) and president of the International Qur’anic Studies Association (IQSA) and has initiated and continues to be involved in numerous projects and initiatives which bring together Jews, Muslims, and Christians, Jews and Arabs, and Israelis and Palestinians.
Understanding Christian Neighbors
in development
UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS for the Jewish community remains in development. Meanwhile, AAi highly recommends the scholarship of Prof. Amy-Jill Levine, the Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace and Vanderbilt University Emerita Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies.
AAiU Seminary
For Christian Learners
Loving Jewish Neighbors
Instructor: Dr. Marvin Wilson
LOVING JEWISH NEIGHBORS by Dr. Marvin Wilson is available online now. Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Gordon College. He served as a translator and editor of the NIV (New International Version) Bible, currently the most widely used English Bible translation in the world. Dr. Wilson has taught Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Studies for more than 60 years and co-edited four books with Jewish scholars to build bridges of understanding between Christian and Jewish communities. He authored the celebrated book, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith (1989), singled out by Christian Century Magazine as an “all-time best seller” in the field of religion, and selected to form the basis of an award-winning PBS documentary, Jews and Christians: A Journey of Faith. More recently, Dr. Wilson authored, Exploring Our Hebraic Heritage: A Christian Theology of Roots and Renewal (2014), about which Prof. Susannah Heschel (daughter of the legendary Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel) wrote, “For two thousand years, we have longed for a Christian scholar of Judaism as sensitive and knowledgeable as Marvin Wilson, and his work fulfills our hopes.”
Loving Muslim Neighbors
Instructor: Rod Cardoza
LOVING MUSLIM NEIGHBORS by Rod Cardoza is available online now. As a cultural, theological, and linguistic anthropologist, Rod has published ethnographic research on Muslim ritual and lectures internationally on Muslim-Christian dialogue. He studied Urdu language at Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia in New Delhi, India. He researched social stratification among Muslim communities in Ahmedabad, India; shamanism among Maguindanaon Muslims in rural Mindanao, Philippines; and Shi’ite mourning rituals in Gujarat, India. He worked closely with leading scholars from Delhi University and Hazrat Pir Mohammed Shah Research Centre in India to publish faith-based, peacebuilding Urdu texts. He also researched the role of Muslim cinematography in teaching Islamic knowledge in Egypt, where Rod lived with his family for several years while studying Arabic. Rod has lectured widely at universities and seminaries such as Lewis & Clark College, American University DC, Fresno Pacific University, and Fuller Theological Seminary. Rod authored “New Paths in Muslim-Christian Dialog: Understanding Islam from the Light of Earliest Jewish Christianity,” (originally presented in Washington, DC at the Annual Conference on Muslim Peace, Justice and Interfaith Dialogue sponsored by Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, and Islamic Society of North America), published in The Muslim World, a journal devoted to the study of Islam and Christian-Muslim relations.
AAiU Madrasah
For Muslim Learners
Understanding Jewish Neighbors
Instructor: Prof. Amir Hussain
UNDERSTANDING JEWISH NEIGHBORS by Dr. Amir Hussain (coming 2026 إنشاء الله ), Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Prof. Hussain specializes in the study of Islam and has served as an editor of three popular Oxford University Press textbooks: World Religions: Western Traditions; World Religions: Eastern Traditions; and A Concise Introduction to World Religions. Prof. Hussain has authored several books and over 60 scholarly articles on religious studies, lectured in academic arenas internationally, and appeared as a religious advisor on several television programs, including The Story of God with Morgan Freeman. Prof. Hussain also served for five years as editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the premier scholarly journal for the study of religion, and is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion. Prof. Hussain has collaborated extensively in interfaith work with numerous rabbis and Jewish institutions across the country and around the world to analyze and illuminate sacred texts, traditions, and practices in an Islamic pursuit of justice and righteousness.
Understanding Christian Neighbors
Instructor: Prof. Abdullah Saeed
UNDERSTANDING CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS by Prof. Abdullah Saeed (coming in 2027 إنشاء الله ), the Sultan of Oman Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne in Australia, the Director of the National Centre for Contemporary Islamic Studies, and the Convenor of Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne. Prof. Saeed graduated from the Islamic University of Medina in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts in Arabic and Islamic Studies. He holds an MA in Applied Linguistics as well as a PhD in Islamic Studies from the University of Melbourne. He is an active researcher, focusing on the negotiation of text and context, ijtihad and interpretation. He is particularly interested in the promotion of inter-religious initiatives and regularly engages with Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities at national and international symposia to enhance community understandings of Islam, Islamic thought, and Muslim societies. He has authored and edited numerous works, including Reading the Qur’an in the Twentieth Century: Towards a Contextualist Approach (2014); The Qur’an: An Introduction (2008); Islamic Thought: An Introduction (2006); and Interpreting the Qur’an: Towards a Contemporary Approach (2006). Prof. Saeed continues to teach Islamic studies at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and is the Foundation Chair of the Sultan of Oman Endowed Chair in Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Melbourne.
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