Spring 2025
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Past and Present
Thursday, February 6, 2025
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Come to a deeper understanding of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians through an appreciation of its long history, its origins in the remaking of the world order after WWI, the national and religious beliefs of the different parties, and how a century of war and attempts at peacemaking impact the current situation.
Alexander Kaye is the Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, where he holds the Karl, Harry, and Helen Stoll Chair in Israel Studies and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies.
Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding. Ìý
Two Truths in One Heart; Two Peoples in One Land
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
7:00 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
This event is open only to 17³Ô¹ÏÍø faculty, staff, and students.
Roots, a nonprofit organization and unique collaboration of local Palestinians and Israelis, aims to nurture understanding, non-violence, and personal transformation while building a grassroots model for coexistence. Rabbi Hanan Schlesinger, an Orthodox rabbi and cofounder of Roots, and Noor A’wad, a Palestinian refugee and speaker, will share their personal, interconnected stories and present the groundbreaking and challenging grassroots work of their initiative.
Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.Ìý
How the Irish Helped the Jews Become American
Monday, March 24, 2025
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
From the end of the nineteenth century into the early twentieth, Irish Americans opened doors for Jewish immigrants and other newcomers to the United States. Hasia Diner, Professor Emerita at New York University and Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History, considers how and where this allyship played itself out and what each group, the Jews and the Irish, had to gain from it.
Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.Ìý
A Passion for Celebration: The Inspired Legacy of Elie Wiesel
Monday, March 31, 2025
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Known for his eloquence as a survivor of the Holocaust, his accomplishments as a literary master, his advocacy of Jewish causes and study, and his unstinting activism as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Elie Wiesel also made "celebration" a key term in his personal lexicon of life and work. Alan Rosen, Kraft-Hiatt Scholar in Residence, will aim to show how Wiesel’s passion for celebration, cultivated over decades, served as a driving force behind his vocation and message.
Part of the Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding.Ìý
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Fall 2024
Israel/Palestine in World Religions: Whose Promised Land?
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
The struggle over Israel/Palestine is not just another contest by competing nationalisms or an instance of geopolitical competition. It is also about control of sacred territory that involves local Jews, Muslims, and Christians as well as worldwide faith communities, each with their own interests at stake in a tangle of secular and theological claims. Ìý
S. Ilan Troen is Lopin Professor of Modern History, emeritus at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, Stoll Family Professor in Israel Studies, emeritus at Brandeis University, USA, and founding director of the Israel Studies centers at both institutions.Ìý
Deuteronomy, Trauma, and PoliticsÌý
Wednesday, November 20, 2024
4:30 p.m., Rehm Library, Smith Hall
Moses’ farewell discourses in the book of Deuteronomy present a program for constituting Israel as a ‘nation’ in political terms and, at the same time, as the ‘people of God’. In this talk, Dr. Dominik Markl SJ, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament studies at Innsbruck University, Austria, will reflect on how trauma theory can help us understand both the political and religious dimensions of Deuteronomy. He will also offer some reflections on how trauma, politics, and religion are still intertwined in our contemporary world.