GTU Receives Funding for Madrasa-Midrasha Interreligious Programs

January 6, 2016

The Graduate Theological Union has received a grant of $35,000 from the Walter and Elise Haas Fund to support Madrasa-Midrasha: Interreligious Education Programming during 2016. Madrasa-Midrasha is a collaborative effort between the GTU’s Center for Islamic Studies and its Richard S. Dinner Center for Jewish Studies.

The Madrasa-Midrasha program produces workshops, lectures, courses, and public events that offer students, faculty, and community members an opportunity to explore the richness, diversities, and commonalities of Islamic and Jewish traditions. The program promotes dialogue among participants about contemporary issues experienced by both communities, including those that at times have spawned conflict. Through Madrasa-Midrasha, GTU students engage in close study of texts from both traditions and study the traditions as they are lived, practiced and experienced through the celebration of holidays, dietary laws, prayers, rituals, sacred spaces, literature, music, and the arts.

Madrasa-Midrasha is dedicated to building bridges between academia and the wider community, and emphasizes public programming in which members of the Jewish and Muslim communities interact around topics like “Media Representations of Jews and Muslims,” “Hagar in the Jewish and Islamic Traditions,” “Kosher and Halal,” and “Thinking about Gaza.” Stay tuned to www.gtu.edu/events for information about upcoming public programs.