Two large universities from Germany and Israel have decided to establish a joint center on interreligious dynamics. It is doubtful whether German universities are the best partners. Read more on VonNaftali: Subscription $29,90/12 months (net)
For the first time, according to the recent press release, Tel Aviv University in Israel and Goethe University in Frankfurt will establish a joint center for the Study of interreligious dynamics. The center will promote research on religion, in particular the monotheistic faiths – a field in which both institutions specialize – with special attention to their mutual interactions at all levels of religious life. The two universities will conduct joint research, hold academic conferences, and train students and researchers in this area.
The agreement for launching the new center was signed in December 2021 in the course of Germany Week at TAU. The signing was attended by the German Ambassador to Israel Susanne Wasum-Rainer, TAU President Prof. Ariel Porat, and the President of Goethe University, Prof. Enrico Schleiff. Now twelve months later the full agreement will be signed in the course of an inaugurating two-day international conference at TAU entitled “Thinking Interreligiously”.
Thinking Interreligiously
The conference comprises six working sessions in which six leading scholars in the emerging field of interreligious dynamics will present papers presenting their specific approach to the subject. Each paper will be responded to by two pre-assigned expert commentators, and then opened to an additional hour-long discussion. World-renowned classicist and long time partner to the interreligious studies initiative,
Prof. Simon Goldhill of Cambridge University will deliver a keynote lecture on “The Christian Invention of Time”. The conference concludes with a forward looking round-table discussion of how we envisage the impact of interreligious studies on the study of religion more generally., says the press release.
It is fundamentally problematic when an interreligious center avoids and avoids the current and political conditions, because it seems as if everything is without problems and everything is based only on a few philosophical misunderstandings between Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
This makes things too comfortable and also too easy for oneself and ignores the eminent power-political agenda of Islam and Christianity. These are also dynamics that very significantly determine the relationship between the three monotheistic religions. It wasn’t just a consensual, “mutual development”, as one says. There was disruption, pogroms, annihilation and violence.
There was and is a lot of violence involved here, especially on the part of Islam and earlier on the part of Christianity. Religion, like any religion, has to do with everyday life and its power relations. All religions find the same reality, some have a better, others a worse algorithm of understanding and forming the world.
For some it leads to more freedom, for others to less, poverty and violence. Let’s hope that, especially for Islam, it will provide an impetus for its long overdue reform, turning away and distancing itself from its hatred of Jews, as Christianity has been trying cum grano salis since World War II.
Finally, for German’s elite antisemitism is a cultural trait of German culture and it does not come out of the blue that Germany’s cultural elite is regarded by and large as antisemitic according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center (USA).