Sister Rose Thering, a Dominican nun, spent her life combating anti-Semitism and fostering better Jewish-Catholic relations. Her research influenced the writing of "Nostra Aetate," the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions issued by the Second Vatican Council in 1965, which dismissed the charge that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus Christ. It also urged Christians and Muslims to work together for mutual understanding and social justice. The gift of Victor and Susan Temkin, the Thering Fellowship is designed to bring a leading figure in conversations among Jews, Christians and Muslims to UW-Madison as a scholar-in-residence to both deliver a public lecture and to meet with small groups of students and other members of the greater Madison community.
LISAR Proudly Announces the Third Annual Thering Fellow:
Chancellor Arnold Eisen
Arnold Eisen
"Toward a Jewish Theology of Religious Pluralism"
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
7:30pm
1100 Grainger Hall
975 University Avenue
Free and Open to the Public
Arnold M. Eisen, one of the world's foremost experts on American Judaism, is the seventh chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Prior to his work with JTS, Eisen was the Koshland Professor of Jewish Culture and Religion at Stanford University. He also served as senior lecturer in the Department of Jewish Philosophy at Tel Aviv University and assistant professor in the Department of Religion at Columbia University. Eisen received a PhD in the History of Jewish Thought from Hebrew University; a BPhil in the Sociology of Religion at Oxford University; and a BA in Religious Thought from the University of Pennsylvania.
Eisen authored an essay in a volume of Theology and the Soul of the Liberal State, which was co-edited by LISAR Director Professor Charles Cohen. His other publications include a personal essay, Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America (1997); a historical work entitled Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community (1998); and The Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America (2000), co-authored with sociologist Steven M. Cohen.
As part of the Thering Fellowship, Eisen will hold conversations with small groups of faculty, students, and members of the greater Madison community.
The Sister Rose Thering Fellowship is sponsored by a generous gift from Victor and Susan Temkin.