Sunday, November 2, 2025
10:00 AM
Spiritual Meditation Service: Conversation with a Rabbi & Imam
Rabbi Angela Buchdahl in conversation with Imam Abdullah Antepli
Pay What You Can $0-25, general admission seating
Join the Rothko Chapel for a service and interfaith conversation on meditation and spirituality with Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Senior Rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York City and Imam Abdullah Antepli, President of the Rothko Chapel. As prominent faith leaders from different communities and backgrounds, learn how Rabbi Buchdahl and Imam Antepli bridge divides and foster meaningful reflection and dialogue within national and international circles.
About the presenters
Angela Warnick Buchdahl serves as the senior rabbi of Central Synagogue in New York City, a flagship Reform synagogue, dubbed the first ‘mega-shul’ by the Wall Street Journal. Buchdahl is the first woman to lead Central in its 185-year history. Born in Seoul, Korea, Buchdahl graduated from Yale University and went on to become the first Asian American ordained as a cantor and first ordained as rabbi in North America. Rabbi Buchdahl has been nationally recognized for her innovations in leading worship, which draw large crowds in the congregation’s historic Sanctuary and a million live streamers in more than 100 countries. Rabbi Buchdahl was invited by President Barack Obama in 2014 and President Joe Biden in 2023 to share blessings and light the menorah for the White House Hanukkah Party, the first rabbi invited by two administrations. Rabbi Buchdahl serves on the boards of American Jewish Committee, The Asia Society, Yale University Presidents Council, and New York Board of Rabbis. She has been featured on the Today Show, NPR, PBS and Newsweek’s “America’s 50 Most Influential Rabbis.” Rabbi Buchdahl’s memoir, Heart of a Stranger is set to be published by Penguin/Random House in October 2025.
Abdullah Antepli is a globally acknowledged scholar and leader of cross-religious and cross-cultural dialogue in American higher education and non-profits. He has built multiple organizations and initiatives to facilitate religious and spiritual life across America’s college campuses, sowing seeds of understanding between religions while upholding their cultural integrity and dignity. Antepli joined the Rothko Chapel in September 2025, following prominent teaching and administrative positions at Duke University as the Sanford School of Public Policy associate professor of the practice, with a secondary appointment at the Divinity School as associate professor of the practice of interfaith relations. He previously served as Duke University’s first Muslim chaplain and director of Center for Muslim Life, and then as Duke’s chief representative for Muslim affairs. Professor Antepli is a senior fellow on Jewish-Muslim Relations at Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where he founded and co-directs the widely recognized Muslim Leadership Initiative. The NonProfit Times recognized Imam Antepli as one of their Power & Influence Top 50 leaders of 2019, calling him one of the most prominent Muslim leaders today.