The Arc of Holocaust Memory after 9/11: The Cases of Berlin and New York City

The William H. Donat Shoah Commemoration Series
Co-sponsor: the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center
Scholar: Dr. James E. Young, Director, Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies University of Massachusetts Amherst

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The Holocaust, the Covenant and Religious Responsibility: Reflections on Christian-Jewish Witness

Guest Speaker: Rabbi Eugene Korn, PhD
The Holocaust precipitated crises in Western culture, Christianity and Judaism. This lecture examines these crises, how Christians and Jews can understand each other's faith after the Holocaust, and their religious responsibility to help ensure the flourishing of the human family in the 21st century.

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Healing After Violence: Approaches of Different Faith Traditions

Rabbi Alfredo Borodowski
Executive Director of the Skirball Institute for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanuel, Rabbi, Sulam Yaakov Synagogue in Larchmont

Professor Lisa Cataldo
Assistant Professor of Pastoral Counseling at the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education at Fordham University

Co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, Westchester/Fairfield Regional Office

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The Other Peace Process: Interreligious Dialogue in the Service of Peace

Dr. Ron Kronish, Rabbi
Founder & Director of ICCI, Dr. Kronish is a noted rabbi, educator, author, lecturer & speaker. A graduate of Brandeis University (BA) and the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (rabbi), Dr. Kronish also has a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He has represented ICCI at the Vatican and at many international conferences, and is frequently consulted by local and international media for background information and briefings on interreligious relations in Israel.

Kadi Iyad Zahalka
Head of the Shar'i Court in Jerusalem, Kadi Zahalka is an accomplished judge, lecturer, author and activist. He has filled several important positions in the Shar'i court system, including that of Director. Kadi Zahalka obtained his LLB from Tel Aviv University, and his MA (summa cum laude) from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he is now completing his PhD thesis on the Muslim Minority Jurisprudence Doctrine (Fiqh al Aqalliyyat).

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Annual Driscoll Lecture in Jewish-Catholic Studies:
Thomas Merton and Abraham Joshua Heschel: Partners in Prayer, Peace, and Interfaith Dialogue

Dr. Mary Christine Athans, BVM, PhD will explore how Heschel and Merton integrated spirituality and the quest for social justice.

Co-sponsor: the Iona Spirituality Institute

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Shared Roots, Divergent Paths Series:
Faith in the Public Square: Jewish and Catholic Perspectives on Religion and Voting

Prepare for the presidential election as Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of the National Center for Jewish Learning and Leadership and Dr. Nicholas Cafardi, JD, JCD, author of the book Voting and Holiness: Catholic Perspectives on Political Participation reflect on the role religious belief plays in peoples' lives as they engage questions of civic responsibility.
Co-Sponsor: American Jewish Committee, Westchester/Fairfield Regional Office

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The William H. Donat Shoah Commemoration Series:
Hunting Eichmann: How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World's Most Notorious Nazi

Co-Sponsored by the Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center and the Julian and Barbara Juster Fund for Holocaust Studies of the Jewish Studies Program, Purchase College, SUNY

Author and photojournalist Neal Bascomb describes his research about the hunt for, and capture of Adolf Eichmann, the operational manager for the mass murder of Europe's Jews by the Nazi Party during WWII.

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Rabbi Michael A. Signer Memorial Lecture Series:
The People of God and Vatican Two after 45 Years of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue

Dr. Elizabeth Groppe of Xavier University will trace the development of the Catholic understanding of the theology of the People of God over forty-five Years of Catholic-Jewish Dialogue. Fruits of this dialogue within the Catholic Church include the affirmation that Jews and Christians share in the covenantal life of the God of Israel, remorse for the sins of Christians against the Jewish people, and a new appreciation for the ongoing spiritual vitality of rabbinic Judaism. Professor Groppe will consider an eschatological theology of Jews and Christians as a broken people who nonetheless remain covenant partners in pilgrimage to the mountain of the Lord (Isa 2:2-3).

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Annual Driscoll Lecture in Jewish-Catholic Studies:
The Holocaust and Coming to Terms with the Past in Post-Communist-Poland

The avalanche of initiatives related to the memorialization of the Holocaust in post-communist Poland is an attempt to incorporate the memory of the Holocaust into the mainstream national collective memory. The presentation will explore the consciousnesfter Poland's political commitment to commemorate, research, and educate about the Holocaust.

Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs is the director of the Center for Holocaust Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland and currently the Ina Levine Invitational Scholar Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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The Jewish Annotated New Testament: It's Good for Jews, and Christians

Professor of New Testament Studies and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and prolific author, Amy-Jill Levine, will discuss the groundbreaking, newly released collection, The Jewish Annotated New Testament. Join Iona College along with JCPA and AJC in New York City for a thought-provoking evening! There will be a book signing.

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Shared Roots, Divergent Paths Series:
Intermarriage: Catholic and Jewish Perspectives

Reverend James Lougran Director Graymoor of the Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute, Rabbi Gordon Tucker Senior Rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains, and Dr. William Egelman of Iona College will present Catholic and Jewish perspectives on the sensitive question of intermarriage. This event is co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, Westchester Regional Office.

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Yarzheit Concert:
Remembering the Light: Sacred Songs from the World's Spiritual Traditions

As the dark days lengthen, many sacred traditions conjure the light by intoning ancient and contemporary expressions of mystical song. This evening of sacred music from the great spiritual traditions gathers a consort of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist singers and musicians in a memorial concert to honor the interfaith legacy of the late Brother John G. Driscoll, Iona's sixth president. Co-sponsored by the Iona Spirituality Institute and the Office of Student Development.

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Kristallnacht Commemoration:
A Five Year Long 'Night of Crystal' for the Jews of the British Channel Islands During WWII: Case Histories from a Surprising Location

Richard H. Weisberg is the Walter Floerhsheimer Professor of Constitutional Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. A recent White House appointee to the Commission on the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, he has helped litigate successfully in American federal courts on behalf of Holocaust survivors and their heirs, providing a measure of justice for World War II victims of antisemitism. The founding director at Cardozo of the Program on Holocaust/Human Rights Studies and the Floersheimer Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, he writes widely in those areas, including his book Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France and essays on First Amendment developments in the Supreme Court of the U.S.

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Annual Driscoll Lecture in Jewish-Catholic Studies:
Toward a Jewish Theology of Other Religions

Using Biblical, Rabbinic, medieval and modern sources, Dr. Weissman will explore what traditional Jewish texts have to say about other religious faiths and their adherents. Can Judaism be open to the idea of religious pluralism?  How is each religion's specificity or particularity approached? What are the issues that arise halakhically for Jews concerning Christianity?

Dr. Deborah Weissman, born in New York, settled in Jerusalem in 1972. She holds a BA from Barnard College and an MA from New York University, both in sociology, and a Ph.D. in Jewish education from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her main field of academic research is the social history of Jewish women's education. A prize-winning Jewish educator, Debbie has had extensive experience in both formal and informal Jewish education, both with Israelis and with Diaspora youth and adults. She is currently Co-Chair of the Inter-Religious Coordinating Council in Israel, as well as President of the International Council of Christians and Jews (the first Jewish woman to be elected to that post in the Council's more than sixty-year history.)

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Shared Roots, Divergent Paths Series:
The Chosen and the Saved: Sharing Spiritual traditions as a way to Reconciling Exclusive Claims

Co-sponsored by the American Jewish Committee
Speakers: Dr. Arthur Green and Professor John Merkle

October 28, 2010 marked the 45th anniversary of the historic document Nostra Aetate, which called for a sweeping renewal of the way Catholics understand their relationship to the Jewish people. In recognition of this anniversary, AJC and the Driscoll Professorship in Jewish-Catholic studies designed this academic year's Shared Roots series as a two-part seminar.

The first seminar session focused on the idea that Jews and Christians have different ways of articulating their relationships to God but share a language surrounding covenant and the idea of being chosen.

The second session will build on our new insights into Jewish and Christian self-understanding discovered in our fall meeting by highlighting how the spiritual riches of each tradition can enrich both communities in the contemporary moment. How can we hear and learn from the spiritual tradition of the other? What does the example of ongoing Jewish life have to teach Catholics? What does the power and language of Catholic faith have to teach Jews? How can we become more open to learning from one another?

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Rabbi Michael A. Signer Memorial Lecture Series:
"Why Should Jews talk Theology with Christians?"

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The Week of the Peacemaker:
Partnering Across Nations and Other Considerations Relevant to Disaster Relief Planning

Speaker: Dr. Joel Lion, Consul for Media Affairs Spokesperson, Consulate General of Israel

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Coalition for Mutual Respect Interfaith Seder, 2011

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Teaching Workshop on the Holocaust

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The William H. Donat Memorial Shoah Commemoration Series:
"No-One Ever Died Illegally in Auschwitz: The Nazis' Obsession with Legalizing the Holocaust"

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The Annual Driscoll Lecture in Jewish-Catholic Studies:
Where Christians Misunderstand Judaism, and So Misunderstand Jesus

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Iona College Welcomes Dr. Amy-Jill Levine.

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, Graduate Department of Religion, and Program in Jewish Studies. Holding a BA from Smith College, an MA and PhD from Duke University, and several honorary doctorates, Dr. Levine is an internationally recognized expert in biblical studies and Jewish/Christian relations. Her most recent books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus (HarperOne) and the edited collection, The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton).

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The Light of Torah

An occasional seminar series that will guide participants across faith traditions to read the Hebrew Bible through the interpretive eyes of Jewish sages--ancient, medieval and modern. The study sessions will be conducted according to the traditional method of havrutah Torah study.

Seminar I will explore The Divine Name in its various forms from the Book of Genesis - GOD (Gen. 1:1), LORD GOD (Gen. 2:4), LORD (Gen. 4:1) -- names that are not synonymous, but signify important revelations of the nature of the Divine.

Seminar II will introduce us to Abraham, the father of monotheism, he whom Judaism, Christianity and Islam revere as the first of the biblical patriarchs. We will explore the texts in the Book of Genesis that recount the challenges and responses that shaped the faith and mission of him whom the scripture says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God (James 2:23).

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Jubilee Year Program

The Br. John G. Driscoll Professorship in Jewish-Catholic Studies was inaugurated during the celebration of the Christian Jubilee. Two programs addressed the theme of Jubilee and it's relation to Jewish-Catholic studies.

1. Scholarly Presentation: Realism and Idealism in Biblical Thought: The Sabbatical Year and the Jubilee; lecture delivered by Dr. Alan Cooper, Jewish and Union Theological Seminaries, November 1999.

2. Teshuva: An Interfaith Service of Rememberance, Repentance and Reconciliation was sponsored by the Professorship in response to Pope John Paul's call to Catholics to reflect on the history of pain suffered by the Jewish people at the hands of Christians. Students, faculty and adminstrators participated in this powerful service that included a partial naming of the children who perished in the death camps during the Shoah. Spring Semester 2000.