Faith: Jewish
Watch more of our interview about the meaning of Shavuot with the director of community engagement at Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in Washington, DC. More
Pope Francis visited sacred sites recognized by Muslims, Christians, and Jews, including the Western Wall. He met with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and a range of other religious leaders, made unexpected stops at a terror memorial and at the separation wall that surrounds the West Bank city of Bethlehem, and he inserted himself into the peace process with a surprise invitation to a prayer summit at the Vatican. More
The pope’s pilgrimage is intended on one level to commemorate the 1964 meeting between Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras that ended a thousand years of estrangement between Eastern and Western Christianity. But there are other agendas as well: interfaith dialogue, the Middle East peace process, the diminishing Christian presence in the Holy Land, encounters with Jewish and Palestinian religious and political leaders. More
“It’s not that religious leaders are in a position to take political initiatives. But they represent the identities of the people, and to ignore the possibilities of interreligious support is rather short-sighted.” More
Best-selling writer and journalist Sara Davidson says she felt completely unprepared for the reality of dying. Then she met Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, founder of the Jewish Renewal movement. Their weekly conversations about facing mortality led to their book, “The December Project.” “When you feel you’re coming to the end of your tour of duty, what is the spiritual work of that time,” asks Reb Zalman, “and how do we prepare for the mystery?” More
Watch Web-only excerpts from our recent conversation with the United Methodist pastor of the grandfather and grandson who were shot to death outside a Jewish community center in Kansas. More
A new National Geographic film about Jerusalem attempts to transcend the city’s reputation for conflict with sweeping imagery and personal stories of why the city is so loved. “Jerusalem to me is more than a city.” says Farah Ammouri, a young Muslim woman featured in the film. “Its beauty, its spirit, also my religion–but most importantly, it’s my family.” More
The haggadah is the book that guides Jews through the ritual of the Passover Seder, the meal commemorating their ancestors’ exodus from slavery in Egypt. The Sarajevo Haggadah is famous for its artistically illustrated manuscript pages. Created 600 years ago, “It went through so many different cultures,” observes composer Merima Kljuco, “and so many different people took the care of the book and helped it survive.” More
“The central moment in Passover is the use of the material—the use of the tools we have with us in the world to bring us to another place.” More
Historian Simon Schama explores 3,000 years of Jewish history and culture in a five-part documentary series and companion book. “The problem of the Jews,” Schama says, “was that they were a nation without a home.” More
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