Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding

Alan Mittleman, the Aaron Rabinowitz and Simon H. Rifkind Professor of Jewish Philosophy at The Jewish Theological Seminary, argues for an affirmation of a philosophically articulated Judaism, which nevertheless respects the particularity and thickness of Jewish tradition. He is author of "Human Nature & Jewish Thought: Judaism's Case for Why Persons Matter."

Adele Reinhartz, professor of classics and religious studies at the University of Ottawa, lectures on how Jesus’s Jewishness has been construed in 19th-21st century scholarship, and how the Gospels of Matthew and John themselves attempt to answer "Jesus: Bad Jew or Good Jew?" The lecture is sponsored by the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and supported by its Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

Rev. James Bernauer, S.J., Kraft Family Professor of Philosophy at Boston College and director of its Center for Christian-Jewish Learning, offers an overview of how Jesuits became a leader in dialogue with Jews, focusing on encounters in the 20th century, with special attention on the historical context of the Holocaust.

Susan Zuccotti, author of a number of award-winning books on the Holocaust, talks about the subject of her recent biography, "Père Marie-Benoît and Jewish Rescue: How a French Priest Together with Jewish Friends Saved Thousands during the Holocaust” (Indiana University Press, 2013). The lecture was supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding.

Author David Kertzer tells the story of his recent book, "The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pope Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe" (Random House, 2014). He is the Paul Dupee University Professor of Social Science at Brown University, where he is also professor of anthropology and Italian studies. Supported by the Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding. Co-sponsored with the Worcester JCC.

Alan Rosen, a renowned scholar of Holocaust literature, talks about the life and works of his mentor and teacher, Elie Wiesel. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, went on to pen 57 works of nonfiction and fiction and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.

An internationally renowned writer, lecturer, interfaith pioneer, Rabbi Eric Yoffie is president emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism, representing 1.5 million Reform Jews in the United States and Canada. He gives a brief history of Jews in America, talks about the "golden age" of American Judaism, from 1980-2010, and talks about the challenges and his hopes for the future of America Jews. Co-sponsored with the Worcester JCC, the Jewish Federation of Central Massachusetts and Temple Emanuel Sinai.

Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, professor and chair of religion and coordinator of Jewish Studies at Wheaton College, analyzes religious rituals involving food that are intended to create synaesthetic, or multi-sensory, experiences.

Mark Kroll, professor emeritus at Boston University and harpsichordist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, traces, in words and music, the stories of Jewish composers and performers from 17th-century Italy to 21st-century America, including Salomone Rossi, Ferdinand Hiller, Al Jolson, Leonard Bernstein and others.

Yaakov Katz, the military reporter and defense analyst for The Jerusalem Post and a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, talks about the changes in the Middle East and their impact on Israel's strategic standing in the region. He also offers a close look at the threat posed to Israel by Iran with its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.

Rabbi Abie Ingber is executive director of the Center for Interfaith Community Engagement at Xavier University. Recognized for his work in advancing Catholic-Jewish dialogue, he shares opportunities for interfaith collaboration and celebration at Holy Cross.

Ervin Staub is professor of psychology emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and founding director of it Ph.D. concentration in the Psychology of Peace and Violence. He has also worked in the field to develop training programs after the Rodney King riots, Hurricane Katrina, and in Rwanda, and served as an expert witness in the Abu Ghraib trials.

Marion Kaplan, Skirball Professor of Modern Jewish History at New York University, has written extensively on how Jews, and particularly Jewish women, negotiated everyday life and coped with the repression of everyday sociability in Hitler's Germany. This lecture was sponsored by the Derrick Lecture Fund of the Department of History, with additional support from Peace and Conflict Studies, Philosophy, and the McFarland Center.

When the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Rena Ferber Finder was a Jewish girl living in Kracow. In this oral history, she shares her stories of life before the war, being relocated to the ghetto, time spent in Auschwitz, and working for German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who ultimately saved her.

Alan Rosen, a Holocaust scholar who teaches at Yad Vashem, considers how poetry written during the Holocaust and after served as a form of spiritual resistance.

Paula Fredriksen, William Goodwin Aurelio Chair Emerita of the Appreciation of Scripture at Boston University, talks about her recent book, which traces the origins and growth of Christian anti-Judaism, while exploring Augustine's singular response and challenge to it. The lecture was presented in partnership with the Worcester JCC.

Nir Eisikovits teaches legal and political philosophy at Suffolk University, where he co-founded and directs the Graduate Program in Ethics and Public Policy. His teaching and writing focus on how countries emerge from war and how they come to terms with their past. He is a senior fellow at the International Center for Conciliation and author of "Sympathizing with the Enemy: Reconciliation, Transitional Justice, Negotiation. His talk is co-sponsored with Peace and Conflict Studies."

Renowned author and Boston Globe columnist James Carroll, distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University, speaks about his newest book "Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World." Presented in partnership with the Worcester JCC, Congregation Beth Israel, Temple Emanuel and Temple Sinai.

Alan Rosen, renowned Holocaust scholar and educator, talks about his current project, "A New Index for Time: Calendars and the Holocaust." Deprived of basic physical and cultural necessities, Holocaust victims often found it impossible simply to keep track of the day's date. Rosen shares a new vocabulary for timekeeping as well as the calendars and diaries victims kept while in hiding and in ghettos.

Eugene Pogany, author of "In My Brother's Image: Twin Brothers Separated by Faith After the Holocaust," tells how the disparate experiences of his father and uncle during the Holocaust irreparably severed their twin bond. Pogany is a practicing psychologist in Newton, Mass. He has written and lectured over the past several years on subjects relating to Jewish-Christian relations, the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.

Susannah Heschel, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, discusses the influence of Nazism on German Protestant theologians during the Third Reich.

Aaron Levine is the Samson and Halina Bitensky Professor of Economics and chairman of the department at Yeshiva University. A noted authority on Jewish commercial law, he recently published "The Global Recession and Jewish Law” in American Economist and is editor of the forthcoming publication Judaism and Economics (Oxford University Press, Spring 2010).

Daniel Bitran, associate professor of psychology, visited Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in 2008 and participated in the intensive International Seminar for Educators Teaching about the Shoah and Antisemitism. His lecture reflects on his experience and the ways we can better understand and teach the Holocaust at Holy Cross.

David Sorkin, professor of history and Frances and Laurence Weinstein Professor of Jewish Studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, suggests that the Enlightenment, which gave birth to Modernity, should best be understood as a religious, not an anti-religious, project.