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The moment she begins to speak, you know there is something interesting about her. The heavy Israeli accent immediately draws you in and makes you wonder “How did she end up here?” Here being Trinity Center in Austin, Texas.
In January, Irit Umani became the new Executive Director of Trinity Center. Located in St. David’s Episcopal Church in downtown Austin, Trinity Center serves the spiritual, emotional, and physical needs of people experiencing homelessness and poverty in Austin with the mission of providing assistance and guidance with dignity and respect. For Umani, it’s the perfect fit.
“I have spent my professional life serving people in crisis,” Umani says. “I see my work as part of my service toward global peace as well as an integral part of being on a spiritual journey.”
That journey began when Umani came to the United States from Israel when she was 29-years-old. She lived in California and later moved to The Lama Foundation in New Mexico where, for three years, she joined an Ecumenical spiritual community and regularly practiced different faiths and religions.
“I believe all traditions are different paths going toward the same place,” Umani explained. “When I literally came down from the mountain, I dedicated my life to social justice.”
Umani moved back to Israel after the death of her father. There she became involved in the women’s movement and within a few years was the the founding director of the Haifa Women's Crisis Shelter. It was the first multi-cultural, Jewish and Arab (Muslim and Christian) shelter in Israel. She eventually returned to the United States to continue her work.
Umani says, “It’s time for me to serve from a place of harmony. My work toward creating a world with more social justice and equality was political and social, while outside the work place I had a spiritual life. This is the first time that my many worlds: social, political, and spiritual, come together and inform one another. It is the first time I am doing this work with joy for the world rather than with anger at it, and I feel free for it.”
Within less than a month of being on the job, Umani announced Trinity Center would expand its services to include Tuesdays which means it is now offering programs six days a week.
“The other day I was walking downtown running an errand, and one of the neighbors we serve at Trinity Center greeted me saying: “Here comes my Jewish Grandma”. Surprised and smiling, I stopped to have a conversation with him only to find out that his family originally came from the Gaza Strip in Palestine. In a regular world he would have called this Israeli woman his enemy, not his Jewish Grandma,” said Umani. “The way we serve at Trinity Center is not the regular way, it is an extraordinary way. Love thy neighbor as thy self. This is true work of peace as any demonstration I ever participated in as a member of the global peace movement.”
Sablatura is the Director of Communications at St. David’s, Austin.
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