New Haven Independent

They joined 100 other community people to watch Yale President Rick Levin (pictured) receive a community leadership award from Community Mediation and Interfaith Cooperative Ministries. The award is named after the late Father Howard Nash of St. Bernadette’s Church in Morris Cove, who brought people together across religious and ethnic lines during tense times.

Bishop Peter Rosazza sat with Rabbi Herb Brockman. Rosazza spoke of how Nash defused tensions over the Malik Jones shooting by getting blacks and whites from opposite sides of the protests talking to each other. He spoke of how Nash took a stand when his neighbors were burning houses purchased for public-housing families. Brockman proclaimed both Nash and Levin real “mensches.”

Rosazza and Brockman were just two of the clergymen whom Nash enlisted in dialogues and who showed up at the Lawn Club Wednesday. Others included Imam Abdul Hasan from the Muhammad Islamic Center.

Seated beside Rosazza and Brockman was Father Victor Rogers from St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, which is leading a neighborhood renewal effort in the southeast corner of Dixwell.

Mayor John DeStefano sat, appropriately, at the Yale-New Haven Hospital table. (See?) DeStefano praised Levin’s role in making peace with Yale’s unions. Other speakers noted Yale’s support for the Dialogue Project, which Nash founded, and for generally improving town-gown relations. Levin himself said, “Yale is not an island. New Haven is not some foreign country. We have become one community.”

Meanwhile, the crowd picked at Lawn Club Danish, muffins, strawberries, melon slices, eggs and bacon.

Afterwards there was time for power schmoozing. Lindy Lee Gold, the event’s emcee, huddled with State Rep. Bill Dyson. After all, the theme of the morning was “dialogue.”