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Former name | The Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations |
---|---|
Established | 1998 |
Founder | Edward Kessler, Martin Forward |
Academic affiliation | University of Cambridge |
President | Edward Kessler |
Director | Dr. Esther-Miriam Wagner |
Location | Cambridge, United Kingdom |
Language | English |
The Woolf Institute is an academic institute in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1998 by Edward Kessler MBE and Martin Forward, and now located in central Cambridge on the Westminster College Site, [1] it is dedicated to the study of interfaith relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims. [2] Using research and education to explore the relationship between religion and society, it aims to foster greater understanding and tolerance.
Beginning as the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, the institute expanded throughout its history to include the Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations and the Centre for Policy and Public Education. In 2010, these centers were combined and renamed as The Woolf Institute in honour of Lord Harry Woolf, a patron of the institute and former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. [3]
The institute is an associate member of the Cambridge Theological Federation which brings together eleven institutions through which people of different denominations, including Anglican, Methodist, Eastern Orthodox, Reformed and Roman Catholic, train for various forms of Christian ministry and service. [4]
The Woolf Institute was established in 1998 as The Center for Jewish-Christian Relations to "provide an academic framework and space in which people could tackle issues of religious difference constructively." In 2010, it combined with The Centre for the Study of Muslim-Jewish Relations and the Centre for Policy and Public Education, and the institute was renamed to The Woolf Institute. [5]
In 2019, the institute set out to explore how to tackle extremism in the United Kingdom, and to find a way to measure different levels of extremism. [6]
The Woolf Institute works together with the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust and the Cambridge Overseas Trust to offer the Woolf Institute Cambridge Scholarship, a PhD scholarship for the study of relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims. [7] It also contributes to the MPhil in Middle East Studies at the University of Cambridge, [8] [9] and offers a Professional Doctorate in collaboration with the Cambridge Theological Federation and Anglia Ruskin University. [10]
Christianity and other religions documents Christianity's relationship with other world religions, and the differences and similarities.
The Damascus affair of 1840 refers to the arrest of several notable members of the Jewish community in Damascus on the accusation of murdering Father Thomas, a Christian monk, and his Muslim servant for the purpose of using their blood to bake matzo, an antisemitic accusation also known as the blood libel.
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels.
The Cambridge Theological Federation (CTF) is an association of theological colleges, courses and houses based in Cambridge, England and founded in 1972. The federation offers several joint theological programmes of study open to students in member institutions; these programmes are either validated by or are taught on behalf either the University of Cambridge or Anglia Ruskin University. It also offers courses as part of the Common Award validated by Durham University.
David Novak, is a Jewish theologian, ethicist, and scholar of Jewish philosophy and law (Halakha). He is an ordained Conservative rabbi and holds the J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Chair of Jewish Studies as Professor of the Study of Religion and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto since 1997. His areas of interest are Jewish theology, Jewish ethics and biomedical ethics, political theory, and Jewish-Christian relations.
Timothy John Winter; 15 May 1960 is an English academic, theologian and Islamic scholar who is a proponent of Islamic neo-traditionalism. His work includes publications on Islamic theology, modernity, and Anglo-Muslim relations, and he has translated several Islamic texts.
David Shlomo Rosen KSG CBE is an English rabbi and interfaith peacemaker. He was Chief Rabbi of Ireland (1979–1985) before relocating permanently to Israel in 1985. He currently serves as the American Jewish Committee's International Director of Interreligious Affairs. From 2005 until 2009 he headed the International Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations (IJCIC), the broad-based coalition of Jewish organizations and denominations that represents World Jewry in its relations with other world religions.
David Frank Ford is an Anglican public theologian. He was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, beginning in 1991. He is now an Emeritus Regius Professor of Divinity. His research interests include political theology, ecumenical theology, Christian theologians and theologies, theology and poetry, the shaping of universities and of the field of theology and religious studies within universities, hermeneutics, and interfaith theology and relations. He is the founding director of the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme and a co-founder of the Society for Scriptural Reasoning.
Shaunaka Rishi Das is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies (OCHS), a position he has held since the centre's foundation in 1997. He is a lecturer, a broadcaster, and Hindu Chaplain to Oxford University. His interests include education, comparative theology, communication, and leadership. He is a member of The Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, convened in 2013 by the Woolf Institute, Cambridge. In 2013 the Indian government appointed him to sit on the International Advisory Council of the Auroville Foundation. Keshava, Rishi Das's wife of 27 years, died in December 2013.
The Centre for Muslim Jewish Relations (CMJR) was based at Wesley House in Cambridge, and was dedicated to the study and teaching of Muslim-Jewish Relations and the promotion of interfaith dialogue. In 2010 the CMJR and The Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations were renamed The Woolf Institute. CMJR was the first academic centre in Europe dedicated to fostering relations between Muslims and Jews through teaching, research and dialogue.
Dilwar Hussain is an independent British consultant working on social policy, Muslim identity and Islamic reform in the modern world. He formerly taught MA courses on Islam and Muslims at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education.
Edward Kessler is the Founder President of The Woolf Institute, a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations, a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge as well as a Principal of the Cambridge Theological Federation and Convenor of the Commission on the Integration of Refugees.
Norman Solomon is a British rabbi, professor, and scholar in the field of Jewish studies and Jewish–Christian relations.
Burton L. Visotzky is an American rabbi and scholar of midrash. He is the Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies, Emeritus at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS).
Laura Naomi Janner-Klausner is a British rabbi and an inclusion and development coach who served as the inaugural Senior Rabbi to Reform Judaism from 2011 until 2020. Janner-Klausner grew up in London before studying theology at the University of Cambridge and moving to Israel in 1985, living in Jerusalem for 15 years. She returned to Britain in 1999 and was ordained at Leo Baeck College, serving as rabbi at Alyth Synagogue until 2011. She has been serving as Rabbi at Bromley Reform Synagogue in south-east London since April 2022.
The John Paul II Center for Interreligious Dialogue is an academic center that serves to build bridges between religious traditions, particularly between Catholic Christian and Jewish pastoral and academic leaders. The Center is a partnership between the Russell Berrie Foundation and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum). It operates as part of the Section for Ecumenism and Dialogue in the Theology Faculty of the Angelicum in Rome.
Dr Richard Stone is a British medical doctor, social and campaigner and philanthropist. Stone is best known for his association with the Runnymede Trust and the Jewish Council for Racial Equality on issues of race and politics, as well as race and society more generally in the United Kingdom. Stone was appointed to the panel of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry; a case involving a Black teenager who was murdered in London in 1993; which eventually led to the Macpherson Report, which defined the British Metropolitan Police's response to the incident as "institutionally racist." Stone is also noted for his association with the Jewish interfaith group The Woolf Institute.
The Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI) was founded in 1991 to further understanding and communication between members of different faith communities and to build foundations for lasting fellowship.
"Our mission is to harness the teachings and values of the three Abrahamic faiths and transform religion's role from a force of division and extremism into a source of reconciliation, coexistence and understanding for the leaders and followers of these religions in Israel and in our region."
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