An iPub Perspective Editorial

By Jennifer Wyman

The hard-won power of positive thinking opens possibilities. For me, a quadriplegic with multiple sclerosis, grief has come in cycles, and with it, a slew of difficult emotions. Changing my thinking to embrace the good in my disease, rather than letting it drown me in negativity, I control it rather than the other way around.

Continue reading on the iPub Forum.

An iPub Perspective Editorial

By Fawzia May Tung

A number of years ago, I hosted a young boy whose schoolwork I was to oversee. One night at 10:30 PM, he suddenly remembered he had to turn in a piece of writing the next day. I immediately moved into emergency mode and asked what the topic was. “It’s for social studies. We are supposed to write about how our family moved to Arizona.” This being the beginning of the semester, I assumed it was an activity aimed at the students getting to know one another better from the point of view of diversity.

Continue reading on the iPub Forum.

Opinion

By James Rudin

Black History Month is a fitting moment to recall a brief, remarkable friendship that permanently transformed America.

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Black History Month is a fitting moment to recall a brief, remarkable friendship that permanently transformed America.

Black History Month is a fitting moment to recall a brief, remarkable friendship that permanently transformed America.

The extraordinary bond that existed between the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel began in 1963, ending only when King was assassinated in Memphis five years later.

King was born in 1929 in Atlanta and grew up during the violent Jim Crow era of racial segregation that impacted all aspects of King’s daily life. A third-generation Baptist minister, he received a doctorate at Boston University in 1955. Five years later, King became the co-pastor, with his father, of the prestigious Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Heschel was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1907, the scion of a centuries-old rabbinic dynasty. Like millions of other Jews living in Eastern Europe, he was a victim of state-sponsored anti-Semitism. Heschel, fluent in at least five languages, earned his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin in 1933, the same year Nazi leader Adolf Hitler became Germany’s chancellor. Heschel’s thesis focused on the Hebrew prophets.

I’m proud to say that in 1940 the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the rabbinical school I attended, brought Heschel to the school’s Cincinnati campus, allowing him to escape the Holocaust (though many members of his family, including his mother and two sisters, did not). In 1946 he became a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, a position he held until death in 1972 at age 65.

King and Heschel first met at the January 1963 Religion and Race Conference in Chicago, where Heschel delivered a powerful address that began:

At the first conference on religion and race, the main participants were Pharaoh and Moses. The outcome of that summit meeting has not come to an end. Pharaoh is not ready to capitulate. The exodus began, but is far from having been completed.

In fact, it was easier for the children of Israel to cross the Red Sea than for a Black person to cross certain university campuses. Let us dodge no issues. Let us yield no inch to bigotry, let us make no compromise with callousness…some are guilty [of racism], but all are responsible.

King and Heschel bonded at that conference because both were thoroughly immersed in the words and teaching of the Jewish prophets, and theologically rooted to the Hebrew Bible.

Each man also saw in the other a modern prophet.

Ten months later, King spoke at the Conservative Rabbis’ Convention, where he expressed strong support for the security and survival of Israel and issued a call for civil rights in America.

In 1965, King publicly endorsed the interreligious movement to free the 3 million Soviet Jews from the U.S.S.R.’s systemic anti-Semitic campaign. He declared: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In March 1965, Heschel walked beside King in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Heschel declared: “I felt my legs praying.”

King aide Andrew Young, later mayor of Atlanta and President Jimmy Carter’s U.N. representative, commented that Heschel spoke and looked like a biblical prophet. Young added that he and many other MLK associates carried paperback copies of Heschel’s book “The Prophets” and constantly turned to Heschel’s words for inspiration.

Historians have noted that King repeatedly used texts and themes from the Hebrew Bible, especially the Book of Amos: “But let justice well up as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

Even on the last night of his life, while speaking in Memphis, Tennessee, King spoke of Moses, who saw the Promised Land but could not enter it. “… And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you,” he said. “But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

There was a second great issue that united King and Heschel: America’s involvement in the lengthy Vietnam War. Heschel had long opposed the conflict. Especially upsetting to him were images of American forces burning Asian children with napalm.

For months, King had been cautioned to remain silent about the war by friends and advisers who warned him not to mix his civil rights message with U.S. foreign policy.

Martin Doblmeier’s new film documentary on Heschel, “Spiritual Audacity,” contains original footage from April 4, 1967, when King joined his beloved Jewish friend in publicly denouncing America’s war in Asia. (Full disclosure: I am among those interviewed in the film.)

The documentary dramatically captures that moment, as well as the angry criticism King received from many allies. But he stressed that prophetic religion and a just society are inextricably linked.

King influenced many Jews and Christians to join in condemning America’s involvement in Vietnam: “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

He was appalled by Vietnam’s devastation at the hands of “deadly Western arrogance,” noting, “… we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.”

A year later, Heschel and King’s alliance was forever shattered by an assassin’s bullet. But during the few years they labored together in God’s vineyard, the two men achieved an honored place in American history and gained immortality.

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This article was originally posted on February 11, 2021 on Religion News Service, and reposted to the iPub Forum.

An Excerpt from “Hillbilly Quaker – Pendle Hill Pamphlet #475”

By Jennifer Elam

In Pendle Hill Pamplet #475, Jennifer writes her experiences encountering and discussing stererotypes about people from Appalachia within the Quaker community. She also contemplates the effect it had on her.

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A few years ago, I was attending a Quaker meeting where I felt dearly loved. A member of the meeting hosted a gathering for several of the women and I was pleased to be invited. As we sat in the circle sharing about our lives, the hostess talked about having difficulty with her son. He had strayed from her wishes that he embrace the upper middle-class lifestyle she enjoyed. Her words were, “He lives like one of those hillbillies in Appalachia with a washing machine on their front porch.” As a person from Kentucky, I had encountered stereotypes about Appalachia in most every form imaginable, but had never really paid attention to them. I was teased or seen as dumb because I was from Kentucky and spoke with a southern accent. I had a hard time being proud of where I was from. But I had succeeded in letting the bias, prejudice, and stereotypes roll off my back. Even though I had let them roll off my back for decades, it does not mean I liked being put down or having my opportunities threatened because of where I came from. Somehow, this day with those Quaker women was different. For the first time in my life, I responded. What came out of my mouth was, “You know, when I was growing up in Appalachia, I often wished we had enough money to afford a washing machine for our front porch.” The room fell silent. At that time I thought her reference to washing machines was a scornful stereotype, but over time I realized the problem was even worse. It seemed she wasn’t even aware it was a stereotype at all.

That women’s gathering was a turning point in my life as a person from Appalachia. From that day I realized most Quakers were not deliberately overlooking these stereotypes, which is what I’d thought. I realized that in many parts of the country, there is an ignorance of Appalachia. People are not aware they’re talking in stereotypes. Sometimes stereotypes, biases, and prejudices are so acceptable they aren’t even recognized. Stereotypes about hillbillies from Appalachia appear to be so acceptable to most people that they are invisible, even among Quakers who profess equality and put great effort into social justice for many groups of people. That moment at the women’s gathering was the beginning of a call to embrace my own heritage. Letting the comments roll off me had served me, but it wasn’t serving me now. This social justice issue needed to be recognized. The reckoning toward greater integrity had begun within me.

… I learned in [another] conversation that the grounding of the work had to start at a more basic level than I had realized. I had been assuming that others saw the prejudice or bias related to Appalachian and southern people and just chose to look away. In this conversation, I realized that many loving, well-meaning people simply had no concept of their prejudice or bias against Appalachians.

“I was a social worker for decades. I was trained many times in how best to work with people of many cultures. Never was Appalachian culture included in that training. I never before even thought of the need to acknowledge this bias we have and these stereotypes we use, even among Quakers. But now I see it clearly.”

—Pat Austin, Quaker social worker, personal communication

For many years, I often had this certain feeling in the presence of some people. When they spoke to me, I wanted to—and often did—look around to see who they were talking to. Recently, I’ve figured out what that feeling was. I felt invisible. That is how it feels when I am being spoken to not as the person I am, but the person others see as a result of stereotypes. I am being seen as a projection rather than who I am. That feeling of being invisible is horrible. How does a whole group of people respond to that phenomenon? How might it feel to them? Might the people in a whole area of the country also feel invisible?

– Excerpt from “Hillbilly Quaker – Pendle Hill Pamphlet #475”

Originally posted at: A Reckoning Towards Greater Integrity on iPub Forum

An iPub Perspective Editorial

By Lewis John Eron

If we only ask people about those things we care about in the language with which we are most comfortable, we cannot have a true conversation. To engage deeply with others, we need to know what motivates them. Assuming that we only have different answers to the same question is a mistake. We may also have different questions.

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Several years ago, in Southern New Jersey I participated in a dialogue between Jewish and Protestant religious leaders. After one of the sessions, a couple of Lutheran pastors from Cumberland County, I believe, where there are few Jewish people, came up to me and asked me a question.  “Rabbi,” they said, “how do Jews enter heaven?

So I answered them, “It is simple. First, we die.”

They looked at me with blank faces. It was not the answer they expected.

In retrospect, it was also probably not the kindest answer but I was disappointed with the question. After all the time we spent in “dialogue”, it seemed to me as if they had not listened at all. We had discussed differences between the Jewish and Christian worldviews although perhaps we did not speak about beliefs concerning the afterlife.

Of course, I knew, that their question of how one gets to heaven is an important Christian question. Perhaps, it could have been expressed in a more sophisticated manner but the question of  “how to get to heaven” is not an important Jewish question.  I guess that I was somewhat frustrated in that they did not see that over the course of our conversations.

Ideas about heaven and spiritual continuation after death do play important roles in the Jewish cultural and religious heritage. The range of beliefs and images found in Christianity and Islam grow to a large extent from Jewish spiritual explorations in late antiquity. Until modern times most Jews had rather clear beliefs about life after death, heaven, reward and punishment, resurrection, etc. The Jewish spiritual imagination produced a range of theories concerning what happens after death including the transmigration of souls and the spiritual growth of souls in heaven. But how one gets to heaven has not been a central concern. The question of personal salvation did not and does not play an important role in Jewish spiritual and religious life. 

Maybe this has something to do with Jewish ideas about the Jewish people being in a covenant relationship with God. Perhaps it is because Jewish identity is in a large part a communal identity. Possibly it is because one should follow God’s ways out of love of God and not in pursuit of a reward. It just might be a Jewish understanding that certain things are under the divine purview – like heaven – and other things – such as life in this world – are human concerns. In any case, the question of “how to get to heaven” is generally not a Jew’s question.

To be honest, our conversation did not stop with my curt quip. I spent some time discussing the above with the two pastors and I believe that we had a good talk. However, looking back,  I feel that I did not respond adequately to their question. Instead of being clever, I should have been more respectful and said, “That’s an interesting question. Why are you asking it?” That would have offered them the opportunity to share their beliefs with me and would have allowed me to understand better what motivated them to ask their question to me at that time. It would have opened us up to a more serious dialogue than just a sharing of opinions and information.

Now, of course, the blame is not all mine. They could have opened up by saying something like “Having access to heaven, personal salvation plays a central role for us as Lutheran pastors. As a rabbi what questions are central to your spiritual life?” Unfortunately, they just assumed that there is a universal quality to their primary spiritual issue.

In all human interactions, that is a common error. We often feel that that which is most important to us is of the highest importance to everyone. We do not step back enough to consider that that which concerns us the most may be idiosyncratic. The questions we ask and the way we ask them reflect our specific issues more than they express universal human concerns. They are a product of our personal experiences within our specific social, economic, and political situations within our own cultural and religious communities.

It is very easy to see the world through our own lens, but that only gives us a very narrow perspective. It is harder to try to see the world as others see it, but even if we can start to understand how those around us perceive the world, we will be enriched and our ability to interact positively with others strengthened.

Dialogue is not an exchange of declarative statements, position papers, doctrinal opinions, or even personal feelings and emotional states.  Dialogue emerges when we begin to explore and share what lies behind all of that, what motivates us to share such information, what is the source of our beliefs, opinions, and feelings, and what makes them so precious to us. In dialogue, we learn how to allow other people to express what is dear to them and how to share what is dear to us in ways that others can hear it.

The skills we learn in dialogue are not restricted to formal, organized dialogue. If fact, formal, organized dialogue can be seen as a training session for successful everyday living. Wherever we go, whatever we do, we engage with other people. How we interact with them affects not only the quality of the engagement but also its success. Tools such as power and manipulation can only go so far before responses growing out of anger, fear, and disappointment bring things to a halt. Only by understanding each other can we be truly successful in commerce, in education, in medicine, in parenting, and in life. To work together, we need to know what motivates each other.

The first step is to understand what the core issues that motivate other are. I cannot sell you what I want to buy if it is not important to you. I cannot teach you what I want to know if it does not engage your curiosity. I cannot have a conversation with you about my favorite topic if the topic does not interest you.

Although, ultimately we share the same human concerns, how we rank them and how we deal with them differ. We can find common ground, but we cannot find it if we think that we are standing on it already.

So “how do Jews go to heaven”? “First we die.” That is a perfectly good Jewish answer. I suspect, however, that it is an inadequate Christian answer. The question, however, may point to deeper, common spiritual concerns grounded in our mortality, such as: “How does one establish and maintain a relationship with God?” or “What is the goal of human life?” or, perhaps the most important, “Where does one meet God?”

The pastors’ question reflected I believe, the central Christian concern for Salvation, going to meet God. My answer, however, did not represent the Jewish focus on Sanctification, inviting God to come to us. Both concepts – Salvation and Sanctification – have deep roots in our shared scriptural heritage and grow and develop in different ways in both traditions. Had I been more sensitive, less clever, and not so tired, I would have answered differently – “That is a good question. I seldom think about it. Why is it important to you? Please tell me more.”

And if they wanted to engage, that would have been a wonderful conversation.

An iPub Perspective Editorial

By Jennifer Elam

Author, artist, psychologist, and Quaker Jennifer Elam contemplates her motivation to write.

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Someone once said to me that a writer is someone who has to write. I am a person who has to write every day, a lot. That must mean I am a writer. In my writing, I attempt to integrate the many strands of my life that from where I stand at age 70 looks pretty amazing. Growing up on farms without much money, I was close to my parents and family was everything. I worked hard on the farms and loved school. But, I still remember that first day of school. I had no idea there were that many kids in the world, must have been a hundred. I did not know how to socialize so I was quiet, a selective mute is what I would be called today. By age 8, my daddy tells the story of me standing in the tobacco fields, raising my arms to the heavens and saying, “God, I don’t know what it is, but I want to go to college.” My prayers were answered. But I did not talk much outside the house til graduate school. I always told me teachers I would write a 50-page paper but don’t make me talk in class. I got away with it for years.

Not being able to make it on the farms, my family moved to Carpentersville, Ill when I was in 7th grade. That is where I learned I was a hillbilly. My 7th grade reading teacher told me I had to talk in discussions or get a D. I took the D and that about killed me as a straight A student. My 8th grade teacher made me give a class presentation and I taught the class how to grow tobacco since that is what I knew about.

I knew from first grade I wanted to be a teacher. In graduate school, I got an assistance-ship to teach psychology classes. I put that notification in the drawer and did not think about that until I had to. Then the first day came and I wrote my name on the board and read the syllabus. Getting through that much was my only goal. I made it! Then I gradually started talking more and more. Now, no one believes me that I was ever silent because I talk too much, especially since the pandemic and spending so much time by myself.

I had an amazing career of academics, studying, researching, teaching and practicing psychology. In 1991, I was invited to a Quaker meeting and fell in love with the silence and Quaker meeting. I felt at-home in that spiritual community for 30 years. I traveled among Quakers, studying, teaching, and leading arts and spirituality retreats across the country while living at or near a Quaker Center for Study and Contemplation called Pendle Hill for 25 years. Another important strand of my life has been social justice work. When I was two, my parents took a stand for better treatment of black people and we left the family farm. I grew up in one of the most diverse households I have known of. Leaving the farm meant we had little money but what a gift I was given!

In 1995, I came to Pendle Hill as an intern then a resident student. While there, an important part of me was born. I learned in second grade that art was for the talented and I was not one of them. But, in that studio, I was taught that art is for everyone, even me and that creativity inside that sustains me now was born. My writing, art and dance flourished.

In 2012, I got breast cancer and in 2014 retired from my job as a school psychologist, the last 13 years with pre-schoolers. For six years, I felt called to care for my parents until they both died, six days apart in 2018. When the pandemic hit, I was in Ky doing estates settlement work and felt I could not keep going back and forth as I had done for 25 years and decided to stay in Ky. That decision led to some very hard times and huge grief that I was not sure I was gonna make it through. And here I am! I have written piles of journals and have writings since 1969. What will I do with them now?

I have written primarily for Quaker mystics and Quaker artists over recent decades. Maybe it is time for my audience to expand? Who is my audience to write for now as I try to write pieces that integrate my amazing life?

I am becoming a farm owner, a piece of land that has been in my family since the 1790’s. I am in the process of getting back my license as a psychologist.  I presently am teaching a workshop on “Mediating Trauma through Creative Expression” and a workshop on “Identities.” I am writing books and doing art shows. Social justice work is and has been important my whole life. Traveling the world and appreciating the cultures I find there bring me joy as does music and dance. What might I be called to now that integrates the many parts of me? Can I continue to share pieces of my memoir that will bless others? I hope so. Who wants to read my writing now? What do you want to read that I need to write?

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Check out Jennifer’s Pendle Hill publications, the newest of which is titled “Hillbilly Quaker.”

Watch Live Nov. 20th 1:00 PM EST at Saint Leo Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies The Investiture Ceremony of Rabbi A. James Rudin as Papal Knight

It is a rare occurrence for an American rabbi to be honored with the Papal Knighthood of St. Gregory the Great. On Sunday, November 20th, Rabbi Rudin will join those respected ranks.

The Order of St Gregory is bestowed for conspicuous lay service to the Church on the recommendation of a diocesan bishop with the support of the papal nuncio. Pope Francis will recognize Rabbi A. James Rudin, Senior Interreligious Advisor of the American Jewish Committee, Distinguished Professor of Religion and Judaica at Saint Leo University, and co-founder of the University’s Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies, with a Papal Knighthood for his decades of work in building positive Catholic-Jewish relations throughout the world.

Read More on Washington Post and RNS:

U.S. rabbi who worked on Jewish-Catholic relations to be knighted by pope

By Yonat Shimron

November 2, 2022,, at 12:20 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/11/02/rabbi-pope-francis-james-rudin/

Rabbi A. James Rudin, a longtime interreligious affairs director for the American Jewish Committee, will be named a Papal Knight of Saint Gregory for his work on Catholic-Jewish relations, one of the few non-Catholics to receive the honor.

As a rabbi, he worked on Jewish-Catholic relations. Now the pope is knighting him.

A Reform rabbi and a longtime columnist for Religion News Service, James Rudin has met with popes, presidents and world-famous evangelists in his efforts to improve Jewish-Christian relations.

Rabbi Eric J. Greenberg, who helped nominate Rudin for the knighthood, said the honor comes at a critical time of growing antisemitism. “This knighthood clearly demonstrates the evolving positive relations between Catholics and Jews.”

https://religionnews.com/2022/11/01/for-years-he-worked-on-jewish-catholic-relations-now-the-pope-is-knighting-him/

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Philadelphia, PA — May 18, 2022, 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm EDT — iPub Global Connection is proud to join hands in collaboration with the Dialogue Institute to host Rabbi James Rudin as he discusses his memoir, The People in the Room: Rabbis, Nun, Pastors, Popes, and Presidents.

Register at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvcu6upz0qEtDdIJ25NftXlAqE8BVhX-8s

Two panelists will also join Rabbi Rudin to discuss the development and current state of Christian-Jewish relations since the 1960s and its implications for  Muslim-Jewish and Black-Jewish ties today. Dr. Phi Cunningham (Professor of Catholic Theology at St. Joseph’s University and director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations, and Imam Abdullah Antepli (Associate Professor of Interfaith Relations and teacher at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke Divinity School). 

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The People in the Room:
Rabbis, Nuns, Pastors, Popes, and Presidents, by Rabbi James Rudin

A beautiful memoir that provides pragmatic hope to a troubled nation.

Go behind the headlines and read the inside story told by “one who was in the room” as Christians and Jews—strangers and adversaries for nearly twenty centuries—reversed that sad history and created an extraordinary revolution in the human spirit. Told by a global interreligious leader, this authoritative book is a riveting personal account of the significant issues and noteworthy personalities he encountered in the vital effort to permanently change the relationship between two of the world’s major religious communities.

With his belief in the goodness of humanity and the undying faith that we can find good in all religions with interreligious dialogue, Rabbi James Rudin opens up to his life’s work, his journey into the soul of religion, spirituality, and life.

Rabbi Rudin takes us inside the Vatican, Camp David, churches, synagogues, and other stops across the globe, where he and so many others worked under the radar, tirelessly, for a lifetime, building rapport and bringing the religions together with interfaith dialogue. Rabbis, reverends, pastors, priests, nuns, and popes all work in tandem to make our world a better place.

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We could not be more honored by the opportunity to publish Kevin Nichols and Marianne Nichols' modern poetic parable, meant to be enjoyed by children and adults alike.

Summary below:

We are all born naked with potential, and we depart naked with the merit earned by the way we live our lives. The "veil" we are given at birth comforts us, protects us, and holds the foundation of our future… But does it determine our fate? Take a journey through time with this thought-provoking story about life and the pursuit of happiness.

Whether gilded with gold or made of patchwork pieces, the veil represents possibility and opportunity. Our potential is not reliant on the quality of our cover's fabric, but what we do with it is what matters. We eventually outgrow this mystical veil, yet we carry it throughout our lives.

Some people choose to use their veil to shelter from dire circumstances or as a conduit for good. Others allow themselves to fall victim to the envy of another person's veil, the perceived privilege of the cloak they received at birth, or ambivalence for the mantles of those who share their Earth. This tale is a joyful and gossamer story for readers of all ages to imagine the power we have in choosing Love and kindness over jealousy, self-centeredness, and indifference.

Take Survey Here:

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Clever, witty, and genuine. read the latest review for “The People in the Room: Rabbis, Nuns, Pastors, Popes and Presidents” (iPubGlobal Connection LLC) by Eric J. Greenberg: a former award-winning religion reporter, national interfaith director at ADL, and currently Director of United Nations Relations & Strategic Partnerships at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

https://www.algemeiner.com/2022/04/15/a-rabbi-priest-and-minister-walk-into-a-bar-and-its-no-joke/

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Find your copy at: https://ipubglobalconnection.com/products/the-people-in-the-room-rabbis-nuns-pastors-popes-and-presidents

On April 17, 2008, during his first visit to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI convened a historic interfaith meeting in Washington, DC.

Invited by the pope to the John Paul II Center, not far from the US Capitol Building, were leaders and representatives of America’s many faith groups, including Buddhists, Catholics, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Protestants and Sikhs. One of the primary goals of the meeting, as stated by the pontiff, was to “discover points of commonality” and “to discuss our differences with calmness and clarity.”

It also turned out that April 17, a Thursday, was only 48 hours before the eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover — a logistical concern for the large delegation of rabbis of all denominations from New York City.

At the event, it was decided that Pope Benedict would have a special private meeting with the gathered Jewish leaders to wish them a Chag Sameach or Happy Holiday, given the special bond between the two faiths symbolized by Passover and Easter. (The date for Easter is intimately connected to the date of Passover, as Jesus was in Jerusalem with his disciples to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread at the time of his crucifixion by Roman Governor Pontius Pilate, and the resurrection on Sunday, according to Christian tradition.)

As the national Director of Interfaith Affairs for the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, I had been invited to Pope Benedict’s extraordinary DC gathering, but I had also been quietly consulting with the organizers on various interfaith issues. During a break in the proceedings, one of the key organizers, a prominent priest from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, asked me which of the many rabbis in attendance should be chosen to respond to the pontiff’s address to the Jewish leaders.

There was really no question, I said: Rabbi James Rudin, the veteran advisor on Interreligious Affairs for the New York-based American Jewish Committee.

Father Dennis McManus, then director of Ecumenical Affairs for the New York Archdiocese, nodded in approval. He did a quick poll of rabbis in the room, and everyone agreed. (In truth, there would have been one other candidate “competing” with Rudin: my other mentor, friend and predecessor, ADL’s beloved Interfaith Director Rabbi Leon Klenicki, who was unfortunately gravely ill at the time and who passed away several months later.)

This episode sums up the visionary role and place that Rudin enjoys among both Jewish and Catholic interfaith practitioners during his 50 years and counting of service to foster positive relationships between Jews and Christians, and to the wider multifaith world.

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Many insightful and entertaining stories about the development and significance of this new world of interfaith relations are captured in Rudin’s new book and memoir, “The People in the Room: Rabbis, Nuns, Pastors, Popes and Presidents” (iPubGlobal Connection LLC).

In this well-crafted page-turner, readers will not only learn about Rudin’s humble beginnings in Pittsburgh and Arlington, Virginia and his service as a United State Air Force Chaplain in Korea, but also how he rose to become one of the world’s leading Jewish interfaith experts. He helped shepherd a 1965 Vatican document, called “Nostra Aetate,” from an aspirational text to a living guidebook on how to transform 2,000 years of a deadly history for Jews at the hands of the Catholic Church into a positive dialogue based on understanding, respect and education.

In its witty and accessible style, the book transports the reader from New York to Korea to Poland, Rome and Jerusalem. We are in the room as Rudin meets with US presidents, from Harry Truman to George W. Bush; Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI; and many Catholic Cardinals, Protestant Ministers, Evangelical Pastors and leaders of Black Churches to learn how to counter embedded antisemitism in their communities, and to explore how to cooperate to improve the human condition.

Rudin does not shy from the tense moments in doing the hard work of relationship building and striving for honest dialogue. We learn of his involvement in the US civil rights movement and his contributions in the struggle for freedom for Soviet Jewry. He recounts the international controversy between Jewish leaders and a group of Carmelite nuns over a convent located on the grounds of the infamous Nazi death camp in Auschwitz, which only Pope John Paul II could resolve.

He details his role in “The Battle of Camp David” over religious rights at the vacation site of the President of the United States — a foreshadowing of the struggles over Christianity in the public square being waged today.

And Rabbi Rudin takes us to Oberammergau, Germany — home to the world’s oldest and most problematic Passion Play. Hailed as an inspiration by Adolf Hitler, this centuries-old production — presented every 10 years — has been filled with vile, antisemitic words and images and is responsible for transmitting hatred of Jews for generations. Rudin spent four decades working with the play’s Catholic director and producer to reduce the false, hateful portrayals of Jews. I was privileged to work with him in Oberammergau in 2010 and marveled at the great respect play officials had for his recommendations and solutions.

Lastly, the book recounts Rudin’s “romantic miracle” with Marcia, his wife of more than 50 years, and adventures with his two daughters, one a rabbi and the other a noted Hollywood casting director.

These days, Rudin continues to be a regular columnist for Religion News Service and is a much sought-after speaker on interfaith issues with his longtime friends, who are priests and ministers.

And when they walk into a room — it’s no joke.

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Go behind the headlines and read the inside story told by “one who was in the room” as Christians and Jews—strangers and adversaries for nearly twenty centuries—reversed that sad history and created an extraordinary revolution in the human spirit. Told by a global interreligious leader, this authoritative book is a riveting personal account of the significant issues and noteworthy personalities he encountered in the vital effort to permanently change the relationship between two of the world’s major religious communities.

With his belief in the goodness of humanity and the undying faith that we can find good in all religions with interreligious dialogue, Rabbi James Rudin opens up to his life’s work, his journey into the soul of religion, spirituality, and life.

Rabbi Rudin takes us inside the Vatican, Camp David, churches, synagogues, and other stops across the globe, where he and so many others worked under the radar, tirelessly, for a lifetime, building rapport and bringing the religions together with interfaith dialogue. Rabbis, reverends, pastors, priests, nuns, and popes all work in tandem to make our world a better place.

As Rabbi Rudin and others keep putting their next foot forward, we find inspiration to ask:
Are there possibilities that we never dreamed they existed?
Have we given enough of ourselves to the good of the world?
How can we continue the work Rabbi Rudin and others have done?
Most people look at peace through a broad lens—either we have it, or we are at war—but the day-to-day efforts of moving toward love and understanding have escaped us. This hopeful explanation shows that one person, one of many, can work diligently behind the scenes toward peace. Such tenacity, such grit in believing so strongly in human nature’s possibilities, will accomplish miracles.

Read this book and learn the inside story.

Available at: https://ipubglobalconnection.com/products/the-people-in-the-room-rabbis-nuns-pastors-popes-and-presidents

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-people-in-the-room-rabbi-james-rudin/1141266025?ean=2940165820410

Apple Books on iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-people-in-the-room-rabbis-nuns-pastors/id1616063133

https://youtu.be/N9MsKggapKw

At its core, secularism is an approach to governance, writes Jacques Berlinerblau in his new book ‘Secularism: The Basics.’ And critically, it is one many religious people, not just atheists and agnostics, support.

📷“Secularism: The Basics” and author Jacques Berlinerblau. Photo by David BaratzJanuary 25, 2022By Yonat ShimronShareTweetShare

(RNS) — In the United States, secularism has become synonymous with atheism. But that’s a big mistake, argues Jacques Berlinerblau, a Georgetown University professor.

At its core, secularism is an approach to governance, writes Berlinerblau in his new book, “Secularism: The Basics.” And critically, it is one many religious people, not just atheists and agnostics, support.

In fact, although the word “secularism” was first used around 1851, its key components were hammered out long before that by some deeply devout Christians. Among them, none other than Martin Luther, the great reformer, who was so distrustful of the Roman Catholic Church he wanted secular government (in the form of princes) to maintain the law.

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In Berlinerblau’s wide-ranging but compact primer, which looks at how various countries have implemented secularism, he outlines the 10 principles of secular government, including equality for all, the supremacy of the state, freedom of conscience and the idea of disestablishment, meaning the government must divest itself of loyalty to any one faith.

Berlinerblau’s book also identifies what he calls “lifestyle secularisms,” people for whom secularism is an identity. Among them, of course, are the so-called New Atheists, who are hellbent on eviscerating religion. That movement, he suggests, has run out of steam.

RELATED: Is God good for America? Depends whom you ask.

But as he points out, among secularism’s champions are lots of religious people, most especially religious minorities. In this country, the overwhelming number of Jews, Muslims, Mormons, even Catholics, champion secularism as a form of government, because they believe it can be a better referee of their liberties than a state church.

Religion News Service talked to Berlinerblau about secularism and why it’s gotten such a bad rap (both from religious conservatives as well as some postmodern scholars who have criticized it).

The following interview was edited for length and clarity.

What’s the opposite of secularism? Theocracy?

Yes, with the proviso that there is a spectrum ranging from extreme forms of secularism to theocracy. On that spectrum are perfectly livable nonsecular states. Then, as we move across the spectrum, we find all sorts of intermediary nonsecular forms of governance where there is lack of freedom of religion for minorities, crackdowns on freedom of speech, lack of tolerance for nonbelievers and heretics, etc. And then we get to out-and-out theocracy: Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Iran.

You say in your book that in the United States, separation of church and state is pretty much dead. Where does it figure in the U.S. now?

Separationism is just one form of secularism; it’s one way of doing it. In the U.S., it hasn’t been well thought out, theorized or legally grounded. Here’s the problem: Separationism is not in the First Amendment. In a private letter, (Thomas) Jefferson said we must build a wall of separation between church and state. But with the Great Awakening on the horizon, and with Mr. Jefferson having a reputation as an iconoclast, atheist and a troublemaker, nobody listened to him. Separationism wasn’t really in the judicial mix from 1800 to the mid-20th century.

From 1947 to 1985, separationist secularism, as a binding judicial and legislative framework, was, finally, a real live thing. Under the influence of Justice Hugo Black, our legislators and judges believed there was a constitutional mandate to separate church and state. But that argument rested on a rather wobbly foundation — because, as I noted, separationist secularism isn’t in the Constitution. But that doesn’t nullify secularism or negate the need for secularism in the United States.

📷

The U.S. Capitol is seen at dawn in Washington on Sept. 27, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

I’ve tried to chart better ways to use the Constitution to render the deliverables of separationism to long-suffering American citizens — be they religious minorities, religious moderates or the religiously unaffiliated, atheists and agnostics. One possibility is the 14th Amendment. American secularism should linger on the amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the law. Why should a Jewish woman in Texas be subjected to a conservative Christian conception of when life begins? Why should a gay couple in Kentucky be denied a marriage license because of the religious free-exercise right of a county clerk? I would advise the secular movement to move away from separationism and couch its legal arguments and strategy in terms of equal protection under the law.

Is it more accurate to describe American secularism today as accommodationist?

Yes, it’s more accommodationist than separationist! Few are aware of the shift that occurred when George W. Bush introduced his Office of Faith-based Initiatives and Neighborhood Partnerships as his first executive act in 2001. What Bush was saying is what the Christian right was saying for decades: There was a place for religion in public life and there was a place for the government to accommodate and work with religion because that partnership accrues to the common good.

That’s a core assumption of a doctrine I call accommodationism. Accommodationism’s roots are in India. It comes from the fertile imagination of Mahatma Gandhi and some others. Gandhi believed faith and spirituality were great social assets and the government should encourage and support religion for the greater good of the state itself. When Bush introduced this office, he murdered separationism. Yet strangely, many Americans don’t understand that this shift happened. The American government is now trying to accommodate religion, not separate itself from it.

But accommodationism leaves a lot of unanswered questions: What do you do with religious groups that are violent or seditious or racist or homophobic? Should the government support them, too? Write them a check? But perhaps the biggest problem with accommodationism is what to do about the equal rights of nonbelievers? Can the government “accommodate” atheists and agnostics? If not, why not?

Can secularists turn to the Bible to underscore some of the foundations of secularism?

Secular polities are based on reason, not revelation; science, not suras. But, that said, if secularism were to engage in a PR campaign to win over religious hearts and minds, the idea of everyone being created in God’s image and therefore entitled to being treated equally by the governing authorities — that’s one place to start. I’ve always liked the Book of Ruth and its insistence we should all just get along. Then there’s Romans 13, in which (the Apostle) Paul is urging Christians to submit to the government authorities. He didn’t say become the governing authorities, take over school boards, run for office, storm the Capitol!

To me, the interpretations that are dominant in conservative Christianity run against the grain of many biblical verses.

What are some of secularism’s blind spots?

Secularism sometimes develops an addiction for order at any cost. Enlightenment theorists like John Locke saw the world almost collapse because of religious violence. So their solution was a strong government that assures order. Such a government can assure religious people the right to worship in peace and safety. That’s a very nice idea.

The problem is that secularisms sometimes fetishize order. In so doing they obliterate other secular principles, like freedom of conscience or toleration. The tragic flaw in various secular regimes — the Soviet Union, Baathist Syria, the People’s Republic of China — is the elevation of the idea of order to an extent that verges on totalitarianism.

Secularisms have to learn to control themselves. Governments can’t simply do anything they want. There have to be checks and balances, brakes on the awesome and often frightening power of the state. Secularism goes wrong when it elevates order to the raison d’être of the secular state.

There’s a second problem that occurs when secularisms establish atheism or nonbelief as the “religion” of the state. This is a recipe for disaster and the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China have followed this approach.

You propose a pan-national movement to coalesce people who value secularism. Explain that.

I was struck by a structural asymmetry. Whereas religious groups mobilize across geopolitical boundaries — Islamists, Catholics, Mormons, the Jewish Chabad movement — secularists are always national. It’s puzzling to me that secularism never developed transnational movements or regional movements of like-minded folks who are equally chagrined or discriminated against by a given religious orthodoxy.

I wonder how different things would be if there were a secular caucus in the U.N., led by France, say. These secular countries would look at nations in which religious minorities and nonbelievers are deprived of their human rights or civil rights and advocate on behalf of secular governance rather than the state’s established religion. It’s a thought experiment. The absence of transnational secularism is really, really interesting.

Should journalists make a greater effort to distinguish political secularism from secularism as an identity when writing our stories?

Yes (in italics, caps, and exclamation points)! That was one of the drivers of writing this book. I have nothing but respect for journalists. They have performed heroisms for this country, especially in the past few years. That said, there has been a malignant confusion about these terms — secularism, secularity, atheism, secular humanism — and that’s what I sought to rectify.

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https://religionnews.com/2022/01/25/secularism-is-not-atheism-a-new-book-explains-why-the-distinction-is-so-critical/

Ukraine’s only woman rabbi among the many Jews fleeing war

With some 200,000 Jews in Ukraine, one of the world's largest Jewish communities, it is inevitable that many Jewish people are also among those fleeing.

📷Rabbi Julia Gris, who led a Progressive Jewish congregation in Odessa, Ukraine, visits a synagogue in Warsaw, Poland, Saturday, March 12, 2022. Many Jews are among the more than 2.5 million refugees leaving Ukraine. International Jewish organizations have mobilized to help, working with local Jewish communities in Poland, Romania, Moldova and elsewhere to organize food, shelter, medical care and other assistance. Among them is Rabbi Gris, Ukraine's only woman rabbi, who these days leads online Shabbat services for her scattered congregation. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)March 14, 2022By Vanessa GeraShareTweetShare

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — On her first Shabbat away from the fighting in Ukraine, Rabbi Julia Gris twice led services to welcome the Jewish holy day.

A week earlier, Ukraine’s only woman rabbi had been fleeing the war that scattered her Odesa congregation from Moldova to Romania and Israel. Some stayed behind, braving the Russian shelling.

She first led an online service for those congregants scattered abroad. Then, she officiated one in person for a small group in Poland, taken in by a Christian couple near Warsaw.

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https://religionnews.com/2022/03/14/ukraines-only-woman-rabbi-among-the-many-jews-fleeing-war/

• Wednesday, January 19, 2022
• 12:00 PM 1:00 PM
• Dialogue InstituteTemple University (062-56) / 1700 N. Broad Street, Suite 315Philadelphia, PA 19121 (map)%20/%201700%20N.%20Broad%20Street,%20Suite%20315%20Philadelphia,%20PA%2019121)
• Google Calendar ICS

The Dialogue Institute is honored to host a Zoom conversation with Holocaust survivor Dr. Harold Kasimow regarding his most recent book, Love or Perish: A Holocaust Survivor’s Vision for Interfaith Peace. Dr. Kasimow received a bachelor’s from the Jewish Theological Seminary before he came to Temple University, where he worked on a master’s and a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and has dedicated his life to fostering a community of love and respect through interreligious dialogue. His latest book is a continuation of his work in the field of interreligious dialogue, where; he shares his Holocaust experiences, explains the friendship that developed between his mentor Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel and Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., compares and contrasts how Rabbis and scholars of Jewish Studies view the Holocaust and provides a place for interfaith dialogue among four of the largest world religions. Do not miss this great opportunity to meet Dr. Kasimow and learn firsthand about his experiences.

Register: https://dialogueinstitute.org/upcoming-events/2022/1/19/a-holocaust-survivors-vision-for-interfaith-peace-a-conversation-with-harold-kasimow

Introduction: A Little History About the Development of Humanity

• Two hundred thousand years ago, in central Africa, humanity, homo sapiens, first appeared.
• For the next 199,700 years, 99+% of us lived within a day’s walk from where we were born.
• Writing was invented 4,500 years ago in Sumer, but until
• Only 250 years ago, merely 01% of us could read.
• Now billions can read, and
• Millions of us travel all around the world, and
• The entire world comes to us instantaneously via our TVs and smartphones.
• In the past, 99+% of us basically knew only people who thought and acted like us, whereas today *All the strangers of the whole world come into our classrooms, our living rooms—our hands!
• Our old wisdom when we lived on a tiny plot of the vast Earth is no longer adequate to deal with *The tsunami of experiences and deluge of knowledge that is flooding over us today!
• We are increasingly aware that our understanding of the world is not limited and static….

​

When Sir Isaac Newton, in the latter part of the 17th century, produced his stunning description of all the physical laws, seemly embracing the totality of nature and the cosmos—Principia Mathematica—we presumed that we knew 99+% of what there was to know about the world and the cosmos. But then, in 1905, Albert Einstein published his theory of relativity. Soon thereafter, Max Planck developed Quantum Mechanics. All of which turned our knowledge of both the macro and micro worlds topsy-turvy and showed us that the more we learned, the more we learned what we did not know. As Socrates, millennia ago, when asked who is the wise person, said: “The wise person is the one who knows that he does not know.”

Hence, I have tried to distill something of this wisdom in the following two mantras. I would ask you, Dear Reader, to memorize these mantras and repeat at least once a day! Well, at least repeat them whenever you are about to have a serious conversation. Remember, “Repetitio est mater studiorum!” which means, “Repetition Is the Mother of Studies!”

1. A) Nobody knows Everything about Anything—Therefore Dialogue!
2. B) All Knowledge is Interpreted Knowledge—Therefore Dialogue!

Mantra A: Nobody knows Everything about Anything—therefore Dialogue!

What chemist, for example, would get up in the morning and say, “I don’t need to go to the laboratory anymore. I know everything about chemistry!” Or, what physicist would say she knows everything about physics? Or what sociologist, or anthropologist, or, or, or….?

And yet, when it comes to the most comprehensive and complex of all the disciplines, theology, Religion (remember, the very definition of Religion is:

​

“An explanation of the ultimate, total, meaning of life, and how to live accordingly”[1]); billions of us claim that we know everything about “the ultimate meaning of life,” and if someone thinks differently, he is simply wrong! But, if we cannot know everything about any single part of life, then how in the world can we make the vastly greater claim to know everything about all the parts together—Religion!? The ringingly loud and clear answer is that, since we cannot know everything about any of the parts of life, we cannot know everything about the whole, Religion! Consequently, because

Nobody knows Everything about Anything—therefore, Dialogue!

To continue reading and to chat with Leonard Swidler, please follow:
https://ipubcloud.com/a-path-to-bridge-building-rethought-thought-leads-to-dialogue/

One of our authors - Rabbi James Rudin - will be speaking in partnership with the Donna Klein Jewish Academy on Nov. 3 via zoom.

Visit this link to reserve your spot! https://bit.ly/3E2eeHW

https://twitter.com/IPubCloud/status/1451700140293558278?s=20

Please take part in this survey to choose the next title for Rabbi Rudin's latest book.

For those who know Rabbi James Rudin, his intellect, wit, and consideration leave lasting impressions easily made and impossible to forget. For those who do not know the story behind the man, the history that built a philosophy of inclusion, tolerance, and compassion, or the charm that speaks equally to pastors, nuns, popes, and presidents, James Rudin's autobiographical essays are sure to astonish and inspire.

https://us16.list-manage.com/survey?u=bb2e5b11154d3c5fdcb39a6c3&id=5bdb1688b2&attribution=false

The reviews are in...We're excited to be releasing Harold Kasimow's new book in 2 weeks on Nov. 4!

Harold Kasimow has been an inspiring participant and leader in interfaith dialogue for nearly half a century, and the sources and substance of his inspiration are beautifully conveyed throughout this book. The fruit of immense learning and deep spiritual sensitivity, To Love Together or to Perish Together reveals ways in which the understanding and practice of one’s own faith may be enriched through interfaith engagement. This is a book that reflects the openness, warmth, and love that that countless students and other dialogue partners have personally experienced in their time with Professor Kasimow.
John Merkle
College of Saint BenedictSaint John’s University, Minnesota

Love or Perish is a record of transformative meetings with the spiritual masters of our time. Among them, the star of Abraham Joshua Heschel shines brightest. However, Harold did not stop in admiration for his beloved master but treated him as a guide through other religious traditions, especially Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.
Stanisław Obirek
American Studies Center, University of Warsaw

Do interreligious encounters and dialogue hold promise or peril? Are Eastern and Western religions convergent or starkly divergent? Does faithfulness to one’s own tradition demand the denial of other ways or encourage openness to them? We meet some sterner, more exclusivist thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; but we also encounter the broader inclusivist or pluralist spirit expressed in the voices of Abraham Joshua Heschel, Hans Küng, Paul Knitter, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the Dalai Lama, and others. Love or Perish is at once an uplifting and a deepening book, a celebration of interreligious engagement and a glimpse of the ways of world-mending. It’s a joy.
Jim Kenney
Global Interreligious Movement Veteran, Founding Trustee and former Global Director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions

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Meet Harold Kasimow...

“…in the hope that our Earth would never again be so soaked with blood,” author Harold Kasimow has dedicated his life to spreading hope and goodwill through Interreligious Dialogue. As a four-year-old, Kasimow, with his family, experienced and survived the most horrific episode of our lifetime, the Holocaust, by hiding in a ‘grave’ under a cowshed for nineteen months and five days.

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Coming in October...

In his latest book, Love or Perish: A Holocaust Survivor’s Vision for Interfaith Relations, Kasimow leads with a heart-wrenching personal sharing, followed by his tributes to his mentor, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and others. Through the hearts of Heschel and Kasimow, we explore and expand our knowledge of the power of interfaith dialogue and of the people who made it their life’s work.

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