In the Second Vatican Council's declaration Nostra Aetate, the Catholic Church renounced its anti-Jewish heritage, initiating a groundbreaking change in Jewish-Christian relations, and paving the way for reconciliation between the Church and the Jewish people. Reciprocal theological perceptions of Christians and Jews have continued to evolve in the decades that passed since the Council. In this talk, Karma Ben Johanan will examine Catholic perceptions of Judaism as well as Jewish Orthodox perceptions of Christianity over the past fifty years, focusing on the internal discourse taking place within each of the religious communities, rather than on the official dialogue between Jewish and Christian representatives. George Griener, SJ, of the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University will offer a response.
Speaker: Dr. Karma Ben Johanan is a Fulbright Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated from the Tel Aviv University’s Adi Lautman interdisciplinary program for outstanding students, completing her doctoral degree at Tel Aviv University’s school of historical studies. She taught at the Cardinal Bea Center for Judaic Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and was a visiting scholar at the Pope John XXIII Center for Religious Studies in Bologna. she was also a research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute program for women in Jewish studies, and at the Israel Democracy Institute program for Judaism and Human Rights. Ben Johanan's research focuses on the cultural and intellectual history of religion, particularly issues of inter-faith relations and religious identity in contemporary Christian and Jewish communities in Europe, Israel, and the United States.
Respondent: Fr. George Griener is Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, where he teaches courses in History of Theology (18th and 19th centuries), Karl Rahner's Philosophy of Religion, Theology of Suffering, God of Jesus Christ, and Theological Anthropology.
Thursday, February 2nd, 2017 12:45pm Graduate Theological Union, Dinner Board Room 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley CA, 94709