“Abraham’s Bridge,” a dialogue about Jewish-Muslim relations, led by interfaith activist Jacob Bender and Wayne State University lecturer Saeed Khan is coming to Vanderbilt University Tuesday, Oct. 16.
The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 6:30 p.m. in the multi-purpose room at The Commons Center located on the southeastern part of campus near the university’s Peabody College of education and human development.
The hour-long presentation will explore the religious and intellectual cross-fertilization, lasting hundreds of years, between Jewish and Muslim civilizations; parallels between Islamic and Jewish beliefs; practices and patterns of Jewish and Muslim immigration to America; nonviolent paths to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, and strategies for contemporary cooperation.
Bender has lived in Israel and is the former drama director of the Los Angeles Bureau of Jewish Education. He has taught at synagogues and temples around the country and delivered more than 200 lectures on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Holocaust and other topics in Jewish history. He has produced media projects for the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, as well as directed media projects for American Jewish Committee, National Foundation for Jewish Culture and Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education.
Khan is a lecturer in Wayne State University’s Department of Near East and Asian Studies where he teaches Islamic studies and Middle East and Islamic history. He is the founder of and a senior research fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Michigan-based think tank promoting the study and analysis of U.S. social and domestic policy. He has been a contributor to the BBC, C-SPAN, National Public Radio, Voice of America and the National Press Club. Since 9/11, he has given more than 300 lectures for interfaith organizations and events.
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