As the Festival of Faiths keynote speaker, Eboo Patel, author of Acts of Faith and founder of the Chicago-based national Interfaith Youth Core, spoke yesterday evening to a crowd of nearly 500 at Beth Shalom Synagogue. He called for a new generation of interfaith leadership. He outlined  a time of choices in which we live. We can choose to live the reality of the pluralism in our communities…or we can choose the path of extremism. Patel described three things that interfaith leaders do: 1. Change the conversation…stand up against religious prejudice. 2 Launch projects…interfaith projects…raising the question: what does your faith’s theology inspire you to do? 3. Transform the environment…create a new ethos in which interfaith cooperation becomes the social norm. Patel urged us to build bridges instead of bigotry, barriers and bombs. It was an exciting and thought provoking evening for all.