A RABBI AND AN IMAM WALK INTO A FORUM...
APRIL 05 | 06:30 PM
Vienna's Muslim-Jewish Conference and its U.S. Partners: Transatlantic Efforts towards Interfaith Understanding
In continuation of the first international Muslim-Jewish Conference which took place in Vienna in August 2010, three panelists were invited to discuss Transatlantic Efforts towards Interfaith Understanding at the Austrian Cultural Forum.
The 2010 conference was initiated by a group of students from Austria, Israel, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States, and saw a coming together of over 100 participants of both faiths. Over a period of six days, the participants produced joint resolutions toward putting an end to the vicious cycle of stereotypes and prejudices, and opening the doors for mutual understanding and respect.
In April 2011, the event brought together Ilja Sichrovsky, the Secretary General and Founder of the MJC, and Walter Ruby, who filled in for Rabbi Marc Schneier, the Founder and President of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, which is a partner organisation here in New York. They were joined by Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali, the Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York. Jeremy Walton, of NYU's Religious Studies Program, served as the moderator for this panel discussion.
The ideas behind initiatives such as the Vienna Conference and its U.S. counterparts, as well as the potential impacts these projects have, was the focal point of the event.
Imam Muhammad Shamsi Ali is currently the Imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, the city’s largest mosque. He is also the Director of Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens and Chairman of Masjid Al-Hikmah Astoria, New York. He is an Advisory Board member to the Tannenbaum Center and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Asian Muslim Federation of North America. Well known in the interfaith community, Ali has lectured in churches and synagogues and other institutions around the nation and the world. He participated in the International Conference of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in Seville Spain 2006 and as well as the first National Summit of Imams and Rabbis of North America 2007.
Rabbi Marc Schneier is a prominent leader of the Jewish community, who serves as Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, Honorary Chairman of the World Jewish Congress United States and spearheads its Commission on Intergroup Relations; He is also the founder and President of The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding (1990) of which Russell Simmons is Chairman. Rabbi Schneier was unfortunately unable to attend, and at very short notice, Walter Ruby was kind enough to fill in for him. Walter Ruby has served as Muslim-Jewish Relations Program Officer at the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding since March 2008. A strong advocate of Muslim-Jewish communication and reconciliation, he organized The Foundation-sponsored First National of Summit of Imams and Rabbis in November, 2007 in New York. As a career reporter, Walter covered President Anwar Sadat's historic trip to Jerusalem and the breakup of the Soviet Union. He has served as New York and United Nations correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, and Moscow correspondent for The Jerusalem Post and The Forward. Today, Walter writes for many newspapers including the New York Jewish Week, the New York Daily News.
llja Sichrovsky is the founder and Secretary General of the ‘Muslim Jewish Conference’. Currently, he is completing his Master’s thesis in international development from the University of Vienna. His paternal family has Jewish roots in Vienna dating back centuries. During his studies, Sichrovsky represented the University of Vienna three times at international Harvard student conferences, winning the "Harvard Award for Exemplifying the True Spirit of Diplomacy" every time. Later, he acted as faculty adviser and coach for the Viennese delegation and chaired the peace-building commission at EURASIAMUN. Sichrovsky published a scientific article about studying at an Austrian University as a Jewish student six decades after the Holocaust.
Jeremy Walton is an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow of Religious Studies at New York University. Walton's research and writing grapple broadly with the myriad relationships between secularism and Islam, and focus specifically on public life in contemporary Turkey. He initially explored the relationship between Muslim piety and secular governance in his dissertation, Horizons and Histories of Liberal Piety: Civil Islam and Secularism in Contemporary Turkey, which he completed for the University of Chicago Department of Anthropology in 2009.He is currently revising his dissertation for publication as an academic monograph, and continues to travel to Turkey as frequently as possible to pursue research related to both his current book project and future study. In line with his research interests, his teaching emphasizes the intersections of religion, politics, and global cultural forms broadly; recent seminars and lectures that he has offered include courses on comparative secularism, blasphemy and globalization, and religion and economic practice.
Videos of the panel discussion:
Photos of the event (click to enlarge), by Arita Soenarjono:
