IJCR Upcoming Events
Understanding Multiple Narratives about Israel/Palestine
Monday, September 16, 2024, 5:00-6:30 p.m.
Teletorium in Mandeville Hall (campus map)
Co-sponsored with the SJU Faith-Justice Studies Program
The struggle over Israel/Palestine is not only another geopolitical competition among competing nationalisms. It also concerns sacred territory that involves local Jews, Muslims, and Christians as well as worldwide faith communities, each with their own interests and stake in what transpires. This presentation explores the multiple positions within and among the great monotheistic traditions, while also demonstrating that secular and political issues are often entangled with religious claims. Although some argue that history, political rights, and justice have replaced religious claims, they actually coexist and often complement the theological.
S. Ilan Troen is Lopin Professor of Modern History, emeritus at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel and Stoll Family Professor in Israel Studies, emeritus at Brandeis University, USA. His new book, Israel/Palestine in World Religions: Whose Promised Land? has been praised for its sensitivity to the many religious and political forces that shape the conflict.
The Middle East from a Catholic Perspective
MONDAY, October 21, 2024, 5:00-6:30 P.M.
TELETORIUM IN MANDEVILLE HALL (CAMPUS MAP)
The Catholic Church is unique among the Christian traditions in that its organizational and spiritual center, the Holy See, is also an internationally recognized state, located in Vatican City. It thus has an ambassadorial corps and formal legal relations with nations, including those in the Middle East. Join us as a church official who has lived and worked on the border of Jerusalem (Israel) and Bethlehem (West Bank) surveys the present situation in the Middle East from the viewpoint of the Catholic Church, whose members are “called to be artisans of peace, reconciliation and development, to promote dialogue” (Pope Francis, Dec. 14, 2014).
Rev. Russ McDougall, C.S.C. is the recently appointed Executive Director of the Secretariat of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Previously, he has served as Campus Minister and lecturer in theology at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, PA, Rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, and Formation Director, Academic Dean and lecturer in Old Testament at the Queen of Apostles Philosophy Centre in Jinja, Uganda.
How Christians Imagined Muslims as the Enemy—Just Like Jews
Monday, November 11, 2024, 5:00-6:30 P.M.
TELETORIUM IN MANDEVILLE HALL (CAMPUS MAP)
In his new book Jewish Muslims, David M. Freidenreich uncovers the hidden history of Christian Islamophobia and its surprising connections to long-standing hatred of Jews. He makes the compelling case that, then and now, hate-mongers target "them" in an effort to define "us." Analyzing anti-Muslim sentiment in texts and images produced across Europe and the Middle East over a thousand years, he shows how Christians intentionally distorted reality by alleging that Muslims were just like Jews. The disdain premodern polemicists expressed for Islam and Judaism was never really about these religions, but rather about their own visions of Christianity—a dynamic that similarly animates portrayals of Muslims and Jews today.
David M. Freidenreich is the Pulver Family Professor of Jewish Studies at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he serves as chair of the Jewish studies department and associate director of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life