Arlene Anderson Swidler 1929-2008

Arlene Anderson Swidler, an early pioneer in interfaith relations , died this spring. Arlene was not only one of the leaders in the interfaith movement, she also was an important voice for feminism and for homosexual rights in the Catholic Church and beyond. Arlene wrote or edited ten books, including Woman in a man’s Church (1972), Sister Celebrations (1974), Human Rights in Religious Traditions (1982), Mainstreaming (1985), A New Phoebe (1990), Homosexuality and World Religions (1993). She also published 75 articles.

In 196o, Arlene and her husband Leonard, a professor of Religion, returned from three years in Germany where she had collaborated with Leonard's research on the "Una Sancta Movement," the only ecumenical effort then to include Catholics. Arlene conceived of the revolutionary idea of an American scholarly periodical devoted to ecumenism with Catholic participation (no comparable publication existed at the time) and recruited Leonard, who in turn recruited Elwyn A. Smith, Professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Together they founded the JOURNAL OF ECUMENICAL STUDIES.

When Leonard became a professor at Temple University Religion Department, the journal moved with them. To this day, the journal continues to publish regularly and serves as an important resource for those concerned with a mutifaith world.astro.temple.edu/~dialogue/jesindex.htm - 13k

Arlene suffered from Alzheimers disease for the last seventeen years of her life. Thanks to the unceasing efforts of her husband Len, she remained at home all those years, including the last five when she was completely bedridden. On October 3, friends and colleagues will gather at Rosemont College where Arlene taught to pay tribute to the memory of a remarkable woman and to the courage and dedication of a remarkable couple.

Articles by Arlene and Len are being collected at a website: astro.temple.edu/~dialogue/Swidler/

May Arlene's memory be for a blessing.

Terror Claims Against Muslim Leader Rejected by Court

clipped from www.baynews9.com Thursday, September 4, 2008 An influential New Jersey Muslim leader accused by some federal officials of having terrorist ties but praised by others as being an important ally won his fight to gain permanent U.S. residency Thursday. A federal immigration judge in Newark ruled that Mohammad Qatanani, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, can remain in the U.S. Qatanani was active in interfaith activities in his region; Jewish and Christian leaders testified on his behalf at his trial. Among those who testified was a Conservative Rabbi, David Senter. Rabbi Senter wrote: "If I did not know the imam as a person, I would not be willing to support him publicly. I believe in this man. He is a man dedicated to human rights and the pursuit of peace.Do we disagree on some major issues regarding the State of Israel? You bet we do. My hands are those of an individual who volunteered to till Israeli soil in Ofra, Harai Bet El (known as the west bank). My action is part of what the imam might perceive as an "occupation." That reality does not change the fact that I have a deep respect for this man and what he stands for — human rights and respect among all people." In support of ‘a consistent voice for moderation’ By Rabbi David Senter The Jewish Standard Published May 2, 2008 The fruits of grassroots interfatih action at work!

Crosscurrents

This journal continues to be an important source for thoughtful conversation on issues of interest to those engaging in the challenges of a multifaith world.

clipped from www.crosscurrents.org More than just a magazine ... CrossCurrents is a global network for people of faith and intelligence who are committed to connecting the wisdom of the heart and the life of the mind. In print, online and in real time, we bring people together across lines of difference. We invite you to share in the conversation as we reflect upon those "crosscurrents" that thoughtful people everywhere are encountering in the opening years of the millennium.

Statistics

Here is a helpful reminder of the relative size of the religious communities worldwide.

clipped from www.adherents.com

Muslim American Leader Speaks Out

Here is a letter from a Muslim American leader that makes us hopeful about the future.
We need those signs of hope these days....
From the Desk of Ibrahim Abdil-Mu'id Ramey

MAS Freedom Civil and Human Rights Director

WASHINGTON, D.C. (MASNET) March 7, 2008 - On March 6, 2008, the world
received news of yet another tragedy in the ongoing conflict between
the Palestinians and Israelis. In an apparent act of revenge, armed
Palestinians infiltrated a Rabbinical school in Jerusalem and attacked
a group of teenage Jewish students, leaving eight of them dead. They
were not combatants, and the act did not take place in self-defense or
in the heat of combat.

Most of the world, especially in Israel, was stunned and horrified by
the killings. But in Gaza, at least according to news reports, people
were jubilant in their celebration of the deaths.

Should Muslims in the United States also feel a sense of joy and
vindication? No. We must recognize the attack for what it was: an act
of murder. And we must now ask ourselves the difficult question of how
we, as activists in support of the people of Gaza and Palestine, can
go forward in the wake of an act of senseless brutality that could
threaten to derail some significant support for the cause of ending
the occupation and respecting the human rights of the people in Gaza
and the West Bank.

Sadly, acts of deliberate murder are hardly rare in the context of
this part of the world. I remember, a few years ago, the act of murder
in a mosque in the West Bank that left nearly 30 Muslim worshippers
murdered by a fanatic named Baruch Goldstein. The Muslim world, and
most people of conscience, were enraged. Yet some extremists in Israel
not only celebrated the killings, but actually made Goldstein (who was
killed after the attack), a cult hero among some ultra-Zionists.

But murder, by whomever, is simply a crime against humanity and
against the Almighty. And the killing of Jewish students in Jerusalem
was exactly that kind of abomination.

The pursuit of liberation is a human response to oppression, and one
that is common to all oppressed people, in all periods of history. But
there is a moral and practical, distinction between legitimate
political struggle on one hand, and acts of criminal revenge on the
other.

As Muslims, we believe that struggle against oppression, and
self-defense, are not only legitimate, but also required. The killing
of innocent people, on the other hand, is morally repugnant-and Haram.

I hope that the Palestinian leadership, and especially Hamas, will
recognize that the celebration of these murders will only serve to
further isolate them, and make it more difficult for them to claim
some moral high-ground in the eyes of world opinion. I also hope that
they will consider that activists throughout the world, who support
the rights of the people of Gaza, must now labor under yet another
burden of suspicion, and even outright rejection, by opponents who are
all too anxious to equate the Palestinian cause with savagery and
terrorism. Further, it obliterates, in the consciousness of many, the
nonviolent responses to the occupation that would ultimately be more
effective as instruments of liberation vs. sensational and
counter-productive acts of killing and mayhem.

As I have said in a previous essay, it's long past time to end the
violence, and the killing, in Israel and Palestine. We mourn the
deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, especially in Gaza.

But now, we should also mourn the killing of the Jewish students in
Jerusalem, and call for the respect for human life as a core value for
both sides of this conflict. I, as a Muslim in America, offer my
condolences to the families and communities of the young people who
were killed in this act of violence.

The struggle for freedom has no room for the murder of innocent
people. It is not acceptable in the modern world.

An eye-for-an-eye, as Dr. King reminded us, will simply make both
Palestinians and Israelis blind.

American Jewish Leaders Welcome Letter from the Muslim Community Calling for Dialogue and Understanding


Last week Muslim scholars from the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations issued an open letter to the Jewish Community calling for dialogue and understanding. (see entry on this blog for February 28.)

In response the leadership of the Reconstructionist, Reform, and Conservative Jewish Movements in North America made the following statement:

We deeply appreciate the hand extended in a letter from Muslim scholars at The Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations, and we clasp that hand willingly. That we have much to learn from and about each other is clear – sometimes painfully clear. We look forward to the shared work of thoughtful dialogue.

We appreciate in particular the letter’s assertion, regarding the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, that “The loss of every single life is a loss to humanity and a bloody stain on the tapestry of history. We call for a peaceful resolution that will assure mutual respect, prosperity and security to both Palestinians and Israelis, while allowing the Palestinian people their rights to self-determination”. We whole-heartedly share that perspective, and hope that our exploration of the troubling issues will enable us to understand each other’s narratives and to come together in explicit and stern denunciation of terrorism.

Clearly, the time for a respectful consideration of the issues that unite us and also of the issues that divide us has come; indeed, it has been too long postponed.

So let us begin.

The statement was signed by Dr. Carl Sheingold, Executive Vice President of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation; Rabbi Jerome Epstein, Executive Vice President of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Bibliography for Abrahamic Dialogue

Dr. Lucinda Mosher put together this excellent bibliography which can be found on the Auburn Seminary Website. It is the most complete one I have seen for this topic.

ABRAHAMIC DIALOGUE: JEWISH - CHRISTIAN - MUSLIM
Recommended Works:

	Hinze, Bradford E. and Irfan A Omar, eds. Heirs of Abraham: The Future of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian Relations. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005. Reuven Firestone, Michael L. Fitzgerald, and Mahmoud M. Ayoub each write a lead article for one of the three core units of the book, to which the other two respond. In each case, the lead author gets the last say in via a reply-article
For link to Amazon and purchase information, please click here.
	Halevi, Yossi Klein. At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew’s Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. New York: William Morrow, 2001. The candid journal of an Israeli soldier and journalist who asks whether religion—so often blamed for division and violence in the Holy Land—might have the potential to become a vehicle for unity. He then searches for an answer among monastics and mystics, engaging and describing their devotional lives. His conclusions are not simplistic, and he continues to rethink them even now!
For link to Amazon and purchase information, please click here.

Other excellent resources:

Corrigan, John, et al. Jews, Christians, Muslims: A Comparative Introduction to Monotheistic Religions. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1998. A readable college-level textbook which moves thematically with units on scripture and tradition, monotheism, authority, worship and ritual, ethics, material culture, and politics. There are better surveys of each religion separately, but this book is unique in introducing the three religions together in this way.

Erickson, Victoria Lee and Susan A. Farrell, eds. Still Believing: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Women Affirm Their Faith. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005. A dozen women from diverse walks of life and various streams of each faith reflection on belief, belonging, and activism.

Feiler, Bruce. Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths. New York: William Morrow, 2002. Best-seller. Feiler’s thesis is that—over time—Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike have molded and reshaped Abraham to suit their particular needs; and, were we to continue this process together rather separately, Abraham could be a force for reconciliation and peace. (Note: At times, the book is rather hyperbolic, making rather outlandish claims about Abraham's personality- DB)

Haddad, Yvonne Yazbeck and John L. Esposito. Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001. Six interesting essays from six voices—two each Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.

Imbach, Josef. Three Faces of Jesus: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims See Him. Springfield, IL: Templegate, 1992 (originally published in German, 1989). The author, a Roman Catholic, tries to clarify to Christians the Jewish and Islamic attitudes toward Jesus, as preparation for three-way dialogue rather than polemic.

Kaltner, John. Ishmael Instructs Isaac: An Introduction to the Qur’an for Bible Readers. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999. A comparison of the Qur’anic to the Biblical account of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Mary, and Jesus. Aimed more at a Christian than a Jewish audience, but still useful for three-faith scripture-based dialogue.

Kvam, Kristen E., et al., Eve & Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1999. An anthology of almost 100 Biblical, Apocryphal, Pseudepigraphical, and Qur’anic entires, plus readings from early rabbinic texts, the Early Church Fathers, the Hadith, and other representative literature by second- through twetieth-century authors.

Magonet, Jonathan. Talking to the Other: Jewish Interfaith Dialogue with Christians and Muslims. London: I. B. Tauris, 2003. Suitable for a lay audience as well as specialists, this book encourages the move from theory to practice, and provides guidance for approaching even the thorniest topics.

Neusner, Jacob, Bruce Chilton, and William Graham. Three Faiths, One God: The Formative Faith and Practice of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Boston: Brill, 2002. An attempt to present the fundamental concerns for three autonomous traditions with unique narratives, yet a common set of issues: theology, peoplehood, holy living, how to deal with outsiders to one’s faith, and “last things” (resurrection and judgment). One wishes Neusner and Chilton (who often write together) had chosen a practicing Muslim as the third author.

Peters, F. E. Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982. This is a short, challenging-to-read history of the development of these three religions, with chapters dedicated to such topics as Community and Hierarchy, Law, and Theology. Chapter Five (“Scripture and Tradition”) is relevant here.

Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. What is Scripture?: A Comparative Approach. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1993. See especially chapters on “Scripture as Form and Concept”; “The True Meaning of Scripture: the Qur’an as an Example”; “The Bible in Jewish Life”.

Talking About Genesis: A Resource Guide. New York: Doubleday, 1996. Based on the Public Affairs Television miniseries, Genesis, a collection of essays and commentaries from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic perspectives; ideas for interfaith discussion groups, and more. Introduction by Bill Moyers.

Waldman, Marilyn Robinson, ed. Muslims and Christians, Muslims and Jews: A Common Past, A Hopeful Future. Columbus, OH: Islamic Foundation of Central Ohio in association with Catholic Diocese of Columbus and Congregation Tifereth Israel, 1992. The essays are grouped according to common scriptural themes; the history of interaction and parallel development of these three religions; and, the American context. Unique here is considerable emphasis on Jewish-Muslim relations. While this book may be difficult to find now, and while its title might sound a bit too upbeat for our present situation, it provides an example of a project which could be mounted in any American

Yankelovich, Daniel. The Magic of Dialogue: Transforming Conflict into Cooperation. New York: Touchstone, 1999. A methodology for any kind of dialogue. Yankelovich’s ideas are the bedrock of Marcia Kannry’s very successful Dialogue Project (which brings Jews and Arabs—Muslim and Christian—together to learn to hear each other’s concerns regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

Suggestions compiled by Dr. Lucinda Mosher, revised March 2006

Back to AUBURN HOMEPAGE

Back to MULTIFAITH EDUCATION RESOURCES

Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement Founded in Los Angeles

This is hot off the presses. Rabbi/Professor Reuven Firestone of Hebrew Union College(pictured here) deserves kudos for helping launch this important endeavor.

USC Launches New Online Resource for Muslim and Jewish Engagement


LOS ANGELES, February 28, 2008 -- USC’s Center for Muslim-Jewish
Engagement proudly announces the launch of its website,
www.usc.edu/cmje. This new website provides important resources for
scholars, groups, community leaders and individuals working to develop
interfaith partnerships between Muslim and Jewish communities in the
United States and beyond.

The website includes the following resources:

• Scholarly and community-based resources to address critical
issues in Muslim-Jewish engagement
• Best practices to foster and enhance community partnerships
• Articles, videos, and links to interviews with world-renowned
scholars on important topics such as;
Abraham and his sons, women in Islam and
Judaism, and dietary laws from a Muslim and Jewish Perspective.
• Links to dialogue groups and organizations that facilitate
interactions and scholarship
• A calendar of national and international events

The Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (CMJE) is a community resource
for training in inter-religious outreach, an online resource center for
materials on Jewish-Muslim relations, and an academic resource for
journalists, scholars and community leaders. CMJE works to promote
dialogue, understanding and grassroots, congregational and academic
partnerships among the oldest and the newest of the Abrahamic faiths
while generating a contemporary understanding in this understudied area.

The Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement is a partnership between three
institutions: the Omar Ibn Al Khattab Foundation, Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and USC’s Center for Religion and
Civic Culture at the College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. The
collaboration of a Muslim Foundation, a Jewish seminary, and a secular
university is itself an example of the types of partnerships that CMJE
envisions and hopes to promote locally and internationally.

Q: What do these two men have in common?

A: Read this article from the Los Angeles Jewish Journal and find out.

Students at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) were surprised to learn last month that for the first time their professor for a course in contemporary Islam was, in fact, a Muslim.

Ismail Bardhi had arrived as a refugee a few weeks before through the college's Scholar Rescue Fund. The former dean of the faculty of Islamic Studies in Skopje, Macedonia, Bardhi was beaten and stripped of his title because he refused to cede to the vision of Kosovar nationalists, who in rising to power were marginalizing secular Muslims and "Islamic humanists" like Bardhi.

"In 1939 and 1940, Hebrew Union College had a program to rescue a number of scholars from Europe," said Rabbi David Ellenson, president of HUC-JIR. "One of these men was Abraham Joshua Heschel. I thought of that when I received [the] initial request to find a place for professor Bardhi. I recalled how HUC had done this for Jewish scholars who were in this kind of situation 50 years ago and felt there really was a Jewish imperative to provide refuge in this case as well."

Reuven Firestone, an Islamic studies professor at the Los Angeles campus and at USC, brought Bardhi to Ellenson's attention, and his efforts went beyond convincing administrators to create a visiting professorship for Bardhi and ensuring that the U.S. government grant him entry. Firestone also needed to secure the funding.

HUC-JIR's scholar's fund matches whatever funds Firestone raises for Bardhi's income, up to $20,000. Some of the needed funds will be provided through honorariums for speaking at a number of Los Angeles congregations, including IKAR, Valley Beth Shalom and Temple Isaiah.

Firestone first met Bardhi in Macedonia six years ago, when the latter was helping organize an international conference on religion and peace, the first to bring together the country's Muslim Albanian and Orthodox Christian Slavs.

The conference coincided with a violent build-up between the two ethnic groups -- including shootings, retaliation shootings and torchings of churches and mosques -- that put the young nation on the brink of civil war. But the dialogue that began with Bardhi and his Orthodox Christian counterpart helped dissolve the tension, and the conflict fizzled.

"In Skopje, Mr. Bardhi was the voice of Muslim moderates who greatly promoted in a nonpolitical manner the process of reconciliation between Albanian Muslims and Macedonian Orthodox," Paul Mojzes, organizer of the conference and co-editor of The Journal of Ecumenical Studies, wrote in a letter of recommendation. (Last March, in an essay titled, "Orthodoxy and Islam in the Balkans," Mojzes identified Bardhi as "the best Muslim proponent of inter-religious dialogue in the Balkans.")

The Macedonian peace, however, was short-lived, and two years ago, when Bardhi was nominated to become president of the Islamic Religious Union of Macedonia, he discovered that the problems had bled into his own religious community. After a former student who had become affiliated with the Muslim nationalists smashed Bardhi's face with the butt of a gun, Bardhi spent weeks secluded in his home, withdrew from the political race and eventually lost his job for political reasons, he said.

"During the latest elections within the Islamic Religious Union of Macedonia, professor Bardhi has been the most prominent and trusted candidate," Ahmet Sherif, a professor at Macedonia's Institute of National History, wrote in a letter to the Scholar Rescue Fund. "But unfortunately, due to the threatening and sinister actions toward him and his collaborators he chose to withdraw his candidacy as an act of protest."

Bardhi's problem was an unwillingness to politicize his faith. He is, as Firestone described him, an "Islamic humanist," a religious progressive willing to see Islam as "the perfect expression of the divine will," but not alone and superior on the world stage.

"My topic is quranic exegesis and how we have to be more open between the Quran and Torah, to see how they could speak together," said Bardhi, 50. "We have spent too long using religion against each other. This is not good for religion or for human beings."

A slight man with light skin, gray hair and a pointed goatee, Bardhi speaks four unrelated languages -- South Slavic, Albanian, Turkish and Arabic -- and is quickly learning conversational and professorial English. HUC-JIR Dean Steven Windmueller said Bardhi will expose students to a different version of Islam, and Los Angeles' most prominent Muslim organization, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), was pleased to hear of his arrival.

"For there to be this visiting professor from the Balkans, which has experienced a lot of ethnic tension, obviously, could be very eye-opening for students at HUC," said MPAC spokeswoman Edina Lekovic, whose family is from nearby Montenegro. "To look at ethnic tensions in unfamiliar settings can sometimes shed new light on old conflicts. His experience of ethnic tensions in the Balkans might allow people at HUC to step back and add another dimension to their approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

"If we want people to get a more three-dimensional aspect of faith in the modern world," she added, "especially these days when it comes to Islam, there is no better place to get it than the horse's mouth. Everybody asks, 'Where are the moderate Muslims?' Well, it's great that there is one right at HUC."

Bardhi plans to stay through the spring semester, which ends in May, and then return home. Why? So he can teach his compatriots how to live in an ethnically and religiously diverse community, something he hopes to learn a lot about in Los Angeles.

"We have to clean up religion to get it back to what it should be," he said, "a spiritual endeavor."

Muslim Scholars Address the Jewish Community

CMJR(see post below for more information about the group) with the support of Muslims scholars throughout the world facilitated the following letter to the international Jewish community.

This letter is intended as a gesture of goodwill. Its aim is to build upon existing relations in order to improve mutual understanding and to further the positive work in building bridges between Muslims and Jews.
Full letter (in pdf)

The letter was introduced by Prof. Tariq Ramadan(see photo) at CMJR in Cambridge on Monday 25 February.

This is an important letter. Perhaps even historic. I hope it will form the basis for many good conversations between Jews and Muslims.

Controvesy amongst Jews over the Latin Mass

Not all Jews are of one mind concerning the latest development in Catholic-Jewish Relations. This article gives a good summary of the different points of view.

The Christian Science Monitor Feb 21, 12:00 PM EST Religion Today
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Anti-Defamation League was "deeply troubled" by the prayer. Conservative Jewish rabbis said they were "dismayed and deeply disturbed" by its language. But some veteran interfaith leaders - Jewish and Roman Catholic - say there's no evidence that a revised Good Friday liturgy approved this month by Pope Benedict XVI is as threatening as some Jewish groups fear.
"Rather than overreact, we need to look to the future of the Jewish community and this pope," said Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, U.S. director for interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, a leader in building Jewish ties with the Vatican.
The prayer fueling the tension is infamous among Jewish leaders, but little known by the overwhelming majority of Catholics and Jews worldwide. It had historically been used as an excuse for violence and discrimination against Jews.
The prayer is from the old Latin rite, also known as the Tridentine rite. The church had put tight restrictions on celebrating the rite following the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. A New Mass emerged from the council, which was celebrated mainly in local languages.
But Benedict last year relaxed the rules on the old Latin rite, partly to mend ties with traditionalists and Catholic schismatics who had objected to the council's reforms.
But the old Latin rite contains a Good Friday prayer that asks God to lift "the veil" from Jewish hearts and deliver them from "blindness" and "darkness" so they might accept Christ.
Earlier this month, Benedict answered Jewish concerns about
the prayer. In a reformulation, he eliminated the most offending language, while still asking God "to enlighten their hearts" so that Jews - and all humanity - can be saved through the church.
Many Jewish leaders reacted angrily. They feared it signaled a rollback in the church's commitment to Nostra Aetate, the 1965 document that revolutionized Catholic-Jewish ties.
Philip Cunningham, a member of the U.S. bishops' Advisory Committee on Catholic-Jewish Relations, said he understands why Jews are upset. In his many talks with Jewish audiences, he is almost always asked whether the improvements in the church's relationship with Jews are temporary.
"My response is that there's a body of teaching there that's difficult to reverse," he said.
Regarding the revised Good Friday prayer, Cunningham said that "99 percent of the Catholic world" uses the New Mass, which has "no mention of Jews coming to faith in Jesus the Savior. There's not even a hint of it."
Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a training institute and think tank based in New York, was more blunt.
"The Catholic Church, unlike some religions in the world, has come through its murderous period and is neither violent nor dangerous, so Jews should chill out," he said.
Some of the anxiety stems from the fact that Benedict is a relatively new pope.
He was elected three years ago and Jewish leaders are only at the start of their relationship with him. His predecessor, John Paul II, did more than any other pope to build Catholic- Jewish ties during his 26-year pontificate, including praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Judaism's holiest site.
Benedict has made his own significant gestures. He became only the second pope, after John Paul, to enter a synagogue,
visiting a Cologne, Germany, synagogue in 2005 during his first trip abroad as pontiff. He also visited Auschwitz the next year, although some Jewish leaders said they were disappointed that Benedict, a German who lived through World War II, didn't make a more explicit reference to German responsibility for the genocide.
Greenebaum said Jewish groups need to consider Benedict's broader goals in reviving the old Latin rite: helping restore a strong sense of Catholic identity and promoting Catholic unity.
"I think the Jewish community needs to always keep things in context," Greenebaum said. "This is a pope who has a very strong sense of his own beliefs and his own philosophy and I know that he has made positive statements about Jews."

Institute for Muslim-Jewish Relations in Cambridge, England

I recently learned about the work of an institute in Cambridge, England that is addressing the issue of Muslim-Jewish relations. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the chief rabbi of England, is involved with the group as is Professor Tariq Ramadan, a leading scholar in the Muslim world.

To find out more about this group, check out their website at


www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk

RRC Grad in New Orleans on Interfaith Venture

Faith unites Jewish, Muslim students
They bond while planning U-M spring break trip to help New Orleans rebuild
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News

ANN ARBOR -- Even on this famously liberal campus, some University of Michigan students wonder what Muslims wearing head scarves and beards are doing hanging out with some of the Jews wearing yarmulkes. Why are they spending so much time together? Are they supposed to be doing that?

I mean, like, is it even allowed by your religions, the students say they have been asked.

The group of 16 Muslims and Jews says it has been an object of curiosity on campus, as members have met together for months to plan their spring break together, beginning Sunday, to help rebuild New Orleans. But they say that what unites them is the very thing that might appear, to some, to divide them: their faiths.

Advertisement

"Giving of yourself to others is one of the Five Pillars of Islam," said Afrah Raza, a 19-year-old freshman from Sterling Heights. "I feel like, as a Muslim, whatever is in my capability to do good, will help others. So, there is a Jewish community on campus and Muslim community on campus, but we don't interact at all. This is just a way to get to know each other."

Miriam Liebman, 21, of Farmington Hills says she was driven by her faith to be active in community groups."It's just something I have thought about, as part of me being Jewish, since high school," said Liebman, a senior, who has taken Arabic classes, spent a semester in Egypt and joined the Union of Progressive Zionists, a student group that seeks peace and justice in the Middle East.

"It's all culminated in the point that I feel the need to do something like this," Liebman said, "to make those things be more a part of my own Jewish community, to do something within that framework of cooperation with Muslims."

These have not been the best years for relations between Jews and Muslims in Metro Detroit, as generations-long disputes and new spasms of war wracking the Middle East emphasize the divisions between the two large religious communities. But the New Orleans-bound students say that is all about politics and international affairs. What they are about is religion.

For a journey inspired by faith, they have been planning the intimate necessities of life together for six days. They will live, eat and travel with each other, visit a mosque and synagogues, and spend several days working on reconstruction and reclamation projects still under way after Hurricane Katrina. They will even abide by Jewish dietary restrictions, keeping Kosher, part of the time -- a new experience for the Muslims and some of the Jews.

The Muslim and Jewish students began approaching each other on the basis of their faith last year and earlier this academic year. Their willingness to eschew the divisive politics and cling to their shared values led to thoughts of memorializing the effort by leaving some physical legacy -- the work they intend to do in New Orleans. The months-long planning efforts have drawn notice on campus, where fellow students are curious and perhaps concerned that Jews and Muslims are meeting.

While volunteerism has increasingly been part of spring break on campuses for a decade or more, this is believed to be the first formal group of Muslims and Jews from U-M uniting to do the work.

Along the way, they are trying to raise money for the trip. They have received support from the Jewish Federation of Detroit, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Muslim Student Association, the Jewish student organization Hillel and the American Muslim Center in Dearborn.

Rabbi Nathan Martin of Hillel in Ann Arbor strongly encouraged the students to participate in work in New Orleans, and Imam Mohamad Mardini of the American Muslim Center, a mosque in Dearborn, also will travel with the students and participate.

"We started meeting as a group in October, when we sort of had a meet and greet," said senior Sakina Al-Amin, 22, of Ypsilanti. "From then, we probably have been meeting biweekly and doing little icebreakers and things to get to know each other more on an individual level, to get people to be more comfortable around Muslims or Jews, if they have never done it before."

The students often pray together, and they will visit two synagogues and a mosque in New Orleans, and witness a bar mitzvah and Shabbat (Sabbath) services. They often begin meetings by gathering in pairs, a Muslim with a Jew, to talk and reflect about events in their lives since their last meeting.

There is no talk about things like the Second Lebanon War of 2006, or the siege of Gaza. And the students explain it simply: There are a myriad of other forums to delve into the roiling political milieu of the Middle East.

These students say they are about faith.

"In Islam, I learn that Jews, along with Christians, are what Muslims refer to in our holy book as 'People of the Book,' " Al-Amin said. "This is the status they are given, an honorable and notable title that we use to refer to them."

Lizzie Lovinger, a 19-year-old sophomore from Farmington Hills, says the motivation from her faith is clear.

"There is a pretty big idea in Judaism: You should love your neighbor as you love yourself," Lovinger said, first using the Yiddish words for the phrase and then translating. "In the Detroit area and in Ann Arbor, Muslims are definitely our neighbors, in every sense of the word and it is important that we remember that it is our duty in life to be treating people as we would want to be treated."

The students say they also have found they learn nearly as much about their own faith as the other.

"Someone will ask me a question, like, why do you guys do that?" Raza said. "And sometimes I say, 'Oh, I never thought of why we do it that way.' So, you sort of explore your own faith, as well as other traditions."

The preparations have been intense, and scholarly -- right down to the computerized print-out of their meals cross-referenced by ingredients, so that all will be comfortable with any dietary restrictions.

"This is not the norm," Mardini said, watching students interact at a meeting. "You don't normally see these things. But it is going to be the norm, one day. We really will do away with some of these obstacles that keep us apart."

Jewish Educators Seeking Knowledge About Christianity

Today's Boston Globe carried the following article.
I would count this in the "good news" column.

Jewish educators seek information on Christianity


NEWTON - The library walls are lined with books about Judaism and Israel, but the dozen or so Jewish day school and Hebrew School teachers gathered around the table have copies of the New Testament at their elbows and Jesus on the brain.

Over the course of two hours, they ask questions that are simultaneously basic and profound: How can Christians say they believe in one God but also a Trinity? What exactly is salvation? If Jesus hadn’t been crucified, would Christianity still be a religion? And are newborn babies really tainted by something called original sin?

The session is a reversal of the 16-year-old New Directions program, unique to Eastern Massachusetts, that has been training Catholic school and religious education teachers about Judaism, in the hopes of countering centuries of Christian anti-Semitism.

Now, after years of one-way education, the sponsors of the program - the Archdiocese of Boston and the Anti-Defamation League - are testing the possibility that Jewish teachers would be interested in, and could benefit from, knowing something about Christianity.

Previous attempts at engaging Jewish educators in learning about Christianity have failed. But interest in Christianity among Jewish educators has been growing in part for one simple reason: the high rate of interfaith marriages. Many Jewish educators now teach children who have a Christian parent or grandparents.

"In the last 10 years, we’ve seen the populations in our Jewish schools become more diverse," said Daniel J. Margolis, the executive director of the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Boston. "We should try to educate our educators, so they feel more comfortable when these issues arise normally in the classroom."

The world’s largest faith is often mentioned in Jewish schools largely in negative contexts - the Crusades and the Holocaust. But the advocates of the New Directions program are arguing that Jewish teachers should be able to answer questions about Christianity accurately and respectfully both for moral reasons - because it’s the right thing to do - and practical ones - because many children in Jewish schools have Christian relatives, and most live in predominantly Christian communities.

"It’s quite startling to see how little Jews know about Christianity, and I think the sense is there has not been much desire to learn," said Celia Sirois, the Catholic educator who, with Naomi Towvin, a Jewish educator, runs the program. "They’ve been very concerned that Catholics confront their own biases about Jews, and with good reasons, because those biases have been lethal."

Jewish officials offer an identical analysis.

"What has struck me, and I include myself in this, is how little Jews know about Christianity," said Diane Rosenbaum, the senior associate director of the Anti-Defamation League’s New England region. "As Jewish educators, it is important to know about other traditions so you can teach about them with the same respect you want Judaism taught with."

The decision to test a new program was sparked last year, when a local Catholic priest, speaking at an interfaith awards ceremony, suggested that maybe it was time for Jews to address their perceptions of Christianity.

"There is a corresponding history - not without reason - of mistrust and misunderstanding by Jews toward Christians and Christianity," said the priest, the Rev. David C. Michael, associate director for interreligious relations at the Archdiocese of Boston. "And we look forward to the day when Jewish religious educators will also participate in the New Directions program so that, when they speak of Christianity in their classrooms, they will also be able to do so with accuracy and respect."

Margolis was in the audience, and offered to host such a program. He said the initial response from Jewish educators has been positive - a group of teachers from Jewish day schools and synagogue-based after-school programs rapidly volunteered to take part - but that the sponsors will have to assess whether the program is making a difference before determining whether to continue it.

The pilot program this winter was scheduled to have four seminars, at which the Jewish educators would learn about the emergence of Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism, the Jewishness of Christianity, the conflicts over Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter and Passover, and the impact of the Second Vatican Council on the Catholic Church.

But the Jewish teachers had so many questions, they added a fifth session just for questions about Christianity.

"How do you understand some of the atrocities that happened?" asked Ronit Ziv-Kreger, the Judaic Studies coordinator at MetroWest Jewish Day School in Framingham. Ellie Goldberg of Congregation B’nai Shalom in Westborough asked about the Catholic belief that Jesus is present in the wine and bread of Communion. And on it went - about confession, and resurrection, and the nature of salvation for non-Christians.

Sirois, who fielded the questions with a copy of the catechism by her side, acknowledged the topics are difficult, even for many Catholics.

"I teach Catholics, and many of them will say, ‘We know we’ve been saved, but we don’t know what that means,’ " Sirois said during the session, which took place over coffee cake and orange juice in the library of the Bureau of Jewish Education in Newton. And, during her 45-minute answer to the question about the Trinity, she said, "Catholics themselves ask this."

Daughters of Abraham Book Clubs

While trying to track down the extent of this phenomenon(just how many Daughters of Abraham Book Clubs --or similar groups---are there in this country?), I decided I'd post one of the gems I found on the internet exploring... A Reading List! I haven't read all the books mentioned on the list, so I only edited the list to include only ones I could personally vouch for. The list if far from perfect, but I thought it was a good start.

Readers: Do you have suggestions to add to such a list? Any knowledge of a "Daughters of Abraham" group in your area? Please share...

Jewish:

NUMBER OUR DAYS by Barbara Myerhoff. A study of aging through a portrait of elderly Jews in Venice, California. Describes ethical Jewish culture through the lives of this mostly immigrant community.

AS A DRIVEN LEAF by Milton Steinberg. Historical fiction based on Judea in the time of the Roman occupation. Examines the tension between religious life and secular high culture.

THE RED TENT by Anita Diamant. A retelling of the life of the biblical character Dinah through her childhood, short marriage, and adulthood.

AT THE ENTRANCE TO THE GARDEN OF EDEN by Yossi Klein Halevi. Jewish Israeli journalist spends time getting to know and worshipping with Muslims and Christians.

TALES OF THE HASIDIM by Martin Buber. Martin Buber has assembled and translated a comprehensive two-volume set of stories from the early and late Hasidic masters. Organized by master, with historic introduction and reference material.

JOY COMES IN THE MORNING by Jonathan Rosen. Contemporary American tale of a woman rabbi who falls in love with a secular Jewish man. Issues of faith, ethics, creating a Jewish home, observance of rituals, and the balance of public, rabbinic and family life.

A TALE OF LOVE AND DARKNESS by Amos Oz. Covers the history of modern Israel from the vantage point of a participant.

HOLY DAYS by Lis Harris. A secular Jewish writer spends a year with a Brooklyn Hasidic family.

THE CHOSEN by Chaim Potok. Fiction about a relationship between two Jewish boys, one secular and one Orthodox, set in New York in the 1940s and '50s.


Christian:

CLOISTER WALK by Kathleen Norris. A married Protestant Christian woman spends two nine-month periods living with a celibate society of Benedictine monks. She discusses the life of having one's days lived in an environment of frequent, scheduled prayer and one's year marked by the saint days as well as other festivals. She also discusses celibacy and women's history through the stories of the saints and the life stories of the nuns and monks she gets to know.

TRAVELING MERCIES by Anne Lamott. Memoir of finding faith and trying to live it.

LYING AWAKE by Mark Salzman. Fiction about a nun/mystic who faces serious illness and difficult decisions.

THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS by C.S. Lewis. Senior devil advises his apprentice on how to corrupt the soul of a hapless young man. A good view of Christian ideas of evil and temptation. (also SURPRISED BY JOY by C.S. Lewis)

THINGS SEEN AND UNSEEN by Nora Gallagher. Liturgical year as seen by a woman who returned to faith as an adult Christian in the Episcopal tradition.

GILEAD by Marilynne Robinson. This novel in the form of a letter to a son from his minister-father covers the time of the American Civil War and the generations beyond.

THE HEART OF CHRISTIANITY by Marcus Borg. A discussion of the emerging paradigm of Christianity and how this way of embracing the faith works.

Muslim:

BORDER PASSAGE by Leila Ahmed. Egyptian woman's memoir of growing up in an Egyptian/Turkish family in the 1950s, going to college in England, and understanding the complex identity of Egyptian women in her time.

EVEN ANGELS ASK by Jeffrey Lang. Memoir of finding faith and trying to live it.


THE HADJ by Michael Wolfe. American convert to Islam visits Morocco and goes on the Hadj.

POEMS OF ARAB ANDALUSIA. Amazing thirteenth-century poetry.

THE STORYTELLER'S DAUGHTER by Saira Shah. European-raised Muslim journalist has the opportunity to visit her Afghani homeland while covering the beginning of war years there.

ISLAM: THE STRAIGHT PATH by John Esposito. Thorough review of Islam. More historical and philosophical than it is social or practical.

STANDING ALONE AT MECCA by Asra Q. Nomani. Memoir of an American-born Muslim woman who had been a foreign journalist and a friend of the late Daniel Pearl. She returns to America unmarried with her son, joins her family on Hadj, and defies the right-wing swing at her local mosque.

ISLAM IN AMERICA, a video produced by Lindsay Miller (Christian Science Publishing Society). Demonstrates the Five Pillars of the faith through interviews with American Muslims. At the same time, the history of Muslim communities in America is shown.

Multifaith:

THE WORLD'S RELIGIONS by Huston Smith. We read the chapters on the three Abrahamic faiths to establish a common background from which to begin our dialogue.

ORNAMENT OF THE WORLD: HOW MUSLIMS, JEWS AND CHRISTIANS CREATED A CULTURE OF TOLERANCE IN MEDIEVAL SPAIN by Maria Rosa Menocal. Tells of a time and place (from 786 to 1492 in Andalusia, Spain) that is largely and unjustly overshadowed in most historical chronicles. It was a time when the three cultures -- Judaic, Islamic and Christian -- forged a relatively stable, though occasionally contentious, coexistence.

DAUGHTERS OF ABRAHAM: FEMINIST THOUGHT IN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM edited by Yvonne Yazback Haddad and John Esposito

ABRAHAM: A JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF THREE FAITHS by Bruce Feiler. A review of the biblical and historical Abraham.

A HISTORY OF GOD by Karen Armstrong. A comprehensive history of religious thought from Abraham to the present.

COMMON PRAYERS by Harvey Cox. About an interfaith Jewish/Christian marriage. Written through the eyes of a well-informed Christian husband who celebrates the Jewish liturgical year with his Jewish wife and child.

THE LEMON TREe;AN ARAB,A JEW AND THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE EAST by Sandy Tolan. A good introduction to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict through a compelling personal story.

The Faith Club

The Faith Club is a book that illustrates a thesis I have held for some time now: the grassroots is where the action is.
While the organized religious institutions stumble along, in the living rooms of our country, interfaith is moving ahead in exciting ways.
This book tells the story of three suburban New York women, a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew, who get together shortly after September 11th to meet and learn about each other. None are professional clerics or religion scholars, or even especially knowledgable or devout. All are earnest and want to understand more about each other.
The Faith Club was started when Ranya Idliby, an American Muslim of Palestinian descent, recruited Suzanne Oliver, a Christian, and Priscilla Warner, a Jew, to write a children's book about their three religions. As the women's meetings began, it became clear that they had their own adult struggles with faith and religion, and they needed a safe haven where they could air their concerns, admit their ignorance, and explore their own faiths.
The book is the story of their efforts, told by them. In my next blog entry, I will report on the "movement" being created by women around coffee tables.

A new blog on Religion and Politics

“It’s a great time for a student of religion in America to be alive and blogging.”
These are the words of Mark Silk, a professor at Trinity College in Hartford and director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.

During the election year, this is a blog worth following.
http://egghead.cc.trincoll.edu/weblogs/spiritualpolitics/

Those interested in interfaith matters will find this an easy way to keep track of the latest news and opinion pieces relating to the role of religion in the political process, especially the presidential campaigns.

Silk is a respected scholar of American Religion( Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America.)

It is, indeed, an exciting time.

The pictures that accompany this entry do not reflect the politics of the management of this blog.

RABBI JOSHUA LESSER ON INTERFAITH WORK

The Reconstructionist rabbis have a list serve on which we discuss many issues, including the challenges and rewards of interfaith work.I found a recent post so helpful that I received permission from its author to share it on this site. Rabbi Joshua Lesser serves Congregation Bet Haverim in Atlanta, Ga.and is the incoming president of Faith Alliance of Metro Atlanta. Here are Josh's words:




I have grown passionate about interfaith work because:
1. My sense of God's unfolding is that interfaith work can be salvific fostering better understanding of each other and therefore I believe it makes me a better Jew.
2. I have an opportunity to build allies and do social justice work more effectively--especially in a red state that "prays for rain" and invites God in the legislature. Of course, I believe in a separation of church and state, but religious voices countering other religious voices holds sway here in Georgia.
3. I am able to promote an open, loving, approachable face of Judaism to my fellow faith members. In doing so, I am open to the faces of other traditions and have learned much from them including how to be a better Jew.
4. It awakens in me compassion for my own ignorance and the ignorance of others. It guides me to humility and teaches me to temper my righteous and self-righteous anger (which there can be plenty) with gentleness.
5. It is an act of service and stewardship that strengthens a city that I love.

The same approach that I have to being gay in a heteronormative world is one that informs my walking in a christian-normative world. It is the sense of oblivion due to normativity that often pains the minority and ends up with a response of patronizing tokenization or worse invisibility. Anger is always an option and one that I used to choose frequently.{But}I have realized that anger as a default for me is not the path I want to choose. Nor is fuelling any more sense of victimization than I have already experienced. I expect that people do not see the world from my experience and my rabbinate is a conscious choice of education and building bridges. As Gay and Jewish, I navigate differently and work hard to try to choose to use my insights to enlighten not to shame, lambaste or disengage.


This does not mean I acquiesce or conform. Most of the fruitful work I have done has come out of a place of relationship and a recognition of the other clergy as human beings and not just roles. Eating with people, meeting their families, travelling with them has opened them up to me and vice versa. I have participated in interfaith travel to Turkey and Jerusalem with Jews, Christians and Muslims. This has done much to help me better understand Christian theologies and to see aspects that I found repugnant as beautiful. It has made me realize that it is not Jesus that is the obstacle but the triumphalism of any religion, especially the dominant one but including ours.


I go into interfaith encounters with the assumption of goodwill on all parties account even if the message or the outcome does not reflect that goodwill entirely. I do this not out of beneficence, but because my actions and ignorance do not always belie my goodwill.

The most powerful convergence of interfaith prayers was at Ebeneezer Baptist Church (MLK Jr's home community) where I helped plan the city's interfaith service of mourning, healing and hope after 9/11. It was a rare moment when the best of the richness of Atlanta's faith communities, which was vastly beyond the Abrahamic traditions, was offered and for me was inspiring and brought healing. It is not surprising that interfaith services work best when addressing a universal need and not just a demonstration of a value or a desire to show that we can get along.

Most days though are fraught with the personal, cultural, racial, religious minefields that trigger and touch one of many of the participants. When we are engaged in a process, where asindividuals and as a group we work with the assumption that we bring goodwill and a desire for better understanding, profound moments can occur. Much like my prayer life in general, there is a great deal of slogging through and disconnection on the way to a godly moment. Interfaith connection and services can be that godlyvehicle for me.