“You have to come and help me right now!” he said. All I could think was “it’s 4 a.m., and there’s no way I can sneak out.” My parents would kill me. Despite being a senior in college...
I write this now with my hand on my heart, and here it will remain. For what follows is about the precious people within our midst who are treated as ex-humans in our society and...
“All 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are terrorists,” she said as we were eating cookies, standing around the flickering flames at Shabbat services. I was...
It is the first thread in our tapestry of connections. In August 2018, both of us—eager for a safe space to discuss how multifaith communities can cultivate...
Often the friendships made at a conference are remembered long after the keynote speeches are forgotten. In the ancient and mediaeval worlds, friendship was very highly valued. For Aristotle, friendship was the very fabric of a healthy society, and Cicero stressed the importance of friendship. The mediaeval monk Aelred even translated the Biblical verse “God is love” as “God is friendship.” (1 John 4: 8).
During the 1990s, perhaps 150,000 people perished in the hellish violence that raged over the Balkan peninsula. Although the conflicts were largely defined by ethnic differences, religion played a critical role in the three-sided war between Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims. Armed gangs would burst into a house and demand that residents make the sign of the cross. Your life could depend on whether you made the horizontal bar from right to left (Orthodox) or vice versa (Catholic). Across Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, ancient places of worship were desecrated and their artistic treasures vandalized.