This lecture, sponsored by the Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College, will take place on Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. in Cascia Hall. It is FREE and all are welcome.
Rabbi Visotzky is the Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He also serves as the Louis Stein Director of the Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies at JTS, and Director of the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue at JTS. Since 1995, Rabbi Visotzky has been deeply involved in work that contributes significantly to reverence, understanding and collaboration in common moral purposes between Jews and Muslims.
During the evening, the winner of the 2014 Goldziher Prize will be announced. The award is given through the generosity of the William and Mary Greve Foundation and the leadership of John Kiser, a principal of the Foundation.
Goldziher (1850-1921) was a Jewish scholar who in 1873 and 1874 toured Constantinople, Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Cairo where he became a student at Al-Azhar. There he prayed in a mosque and wrote in his diary about the profound effect this had on him. Goldziher, who remained a devoted Jew all of his life, established Islamic Studies as an academic discipline in European Universities.
