Complete Story
04/28/2015
Seeking Peace in the Holy Land: A Community Conversation Involving Christians and Jews
Seeking Peace in the Holy Land: A Community Conversation Involving Christians and Jews
Wednesday, June 10, 2015, 8:00 AM - 9:00 PM
Thursday, June 11, 2015, 8:00 AM - 12:30 PM
Trinity Lutheran Seminary
2199 East Main Street
Columbus, Ohio 43209
On a visit to Columbus in January, noted Jewish scholar and historian Rabbi Reuven Firestone spoke of Israel and the Palestinian territory as, “One Holy Land – Three Holy People.” His words accurately capture one of the fundamental understandings of that part of the world. It is a Holy Land, but the land and its people are conflicted.
This unique two-day program, “Seeking Peace in the Holy Land: A Community Conversation Involving Christians and Jews,” will highlight the most acceptable resolution to that conflict: the long sought after two-state solution, a Palestinian state alongside Israel. The two-state solution is the consensus outcome. We know something about how it might work, since it has been the topic of peace talks dating back to 1993 with the Oslo Accords. The blueprint for how a two-state solution might look already exists. All we lack is the political will. The hope for this program and conversation is that as we can learn more about the details, and perhaps we can become empowered to openly support the peace process and advocate for the two-state solution.
Keynote Speakers
DANIEL C. KURTZER, Former U.S Ambassador to Israel Daniel C. Kurtzer is the S. Daniel Abraham Professor of Middle East Policy Studies in Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Following a 29-year career in the U.S. Foreign Service, he retired in 2005 with the rank of Career-Minister. Among his numerous appointments, he served as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel from 2001-2005, and as the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt from 1997-2001. He has been instrumental in formulating and executing U.S. policy toward the Middle East peace process. Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Kurtzer to the Secretary's Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University of Cairo; a member of the Board of Governors of the Middle East Institute; and a member of the Board of the National Library of Israel. He is the co-author of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East and The Peace Puzzle: America's Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011, and he is the editor of Pathways to Peace: American and the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
AMY-JILL LEVINE, Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt Divinity School
Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies, and Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School. She also is an affiliated professor at the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge UK. Her books include, The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us (co-authored with Douglas Knight); The New Testament, Methods and Meanings (co-authored with Warren Carter), and the 13-volume edited Feminist Companions to the New Testament and Early Christian Writing. Her most recent volume is Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi. Dr. Levine is also the co-editor of the Jewish Annotated New Testament. A self-described "Yankee Jewish feminist," she is a member of Congregation Sherith Israel, an Orthodox Synagogue in Nashville, although she is often quite unorthodox. A self-described “secular Zionist,” Professor Levine has consulted for Americans for Peace Now as well as Churches for Middle East Peace.
For further information contact Pr. Skip Cornett, program organizer, at 614-775-0787 or wcornettIII@gmail.com To view the complete program and register for the event, please click this link.