How Much Criticism Do Judaism and Islam Tolerate?

Lecture Series: Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights (in English and German, with video recording)

The open exchange of opinions is the foundation of political and intellectual freedom and includes criticism of religious content and institutions.

During the numerous conflicts over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, a controversy arose in Western Europe about the relationship between religion and satire and the boundaries between legitimate criticism and hate speech. Historically, Judaism and Islam have had a culture of debate that has promoted a diversity of opinion.

past event

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin (Opposite the Museum)

Where, when, what?

Video recording of the lecture How Much Criticism Do Judaism and Islam Tolerate?; 12 April 2018; Jewish Museum Berlin 2018.

How much internal and external criticism of their religions do Judaism and Islam tolerate today? A discussion with Suzanne Last Stone and Anshuman Mondal. The event is moderated by Dr. Nahed Samour, from the Lichtenberg-Kolleg, the Göttingen Institute for Advanced Study.

Suzanne Last Stone

Suzanne Last Stone is University Professor of Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, Professor of Law, and Director of the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University. Her research specialties include the sometimes fraught relationship between Jewish and secular law.

Text Jüdische und islamische Perspektiven auf Menschenrechte (Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights)

Anshuman Mondal

Anshuman Mondal is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of East Anglia, specializing in post-colonial studies. He writes about discourses on Islam in Europe. His best-known book is Islam and Controversy: The Politics of Free Speech after Rushdie.

If I sign up for an event, what should I keep in mind?

If you sign up for an event, please note that the ticket will expire fifteen minutes before the events starts. If you have not collected the ticket by then, it may be given to a visitor who is waiting for a ticket.

View full answer

With the kind support of

Where, when, what?

When Thursday 12 April 2018, 7 pm
add to my calender
Where W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)
See location on map

Entry fee
free
Reserve Online Ticket
Please noteThe event will be held in English, with simultaneous translation into German.

For journalists Phone: +49 (0)30 25 993 419
presse@jmberlin.de

Lecture Series: Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights (6)

Show all

Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights

Our lecture series addresses controversial human rights topics arising in various walks of life and examines them from Jewish and Islamic perspectives. For every lecture, we invite two scholars who present their own positions and then engage in a dialogue.

My God, Your God, No God

With Leora Batnitzky (Princeton University) and Anver Emon (University of Toronto)

Lecture Series
14 Jun 2018 (with video recording)

Equal before God and Humans?

With Susannah Heschel (Dartmouth College) and Katajun Amirpur (University of Hamburg)

Lecture Series
3 May 2018 (with video recording)

How Much Criticism Do Judaism and Islam Tolerate?

With Suzanne Last Stone (Yeshiva University) and Anshuman Mondal (University of East Anglia), in English and German

Lecture Series
12 Apr 2018 (with video recording)

The Right to Life

With David Novak (University of Toronto) and Jonathan Brown (Georgetown University)

Lecture Series
8 Mar 2018 (with video recording)

Human Rights Treaties and How They are Received

With Michael Galchinsky (Georgia State University) and Mashood Baderin (University of London)

Lecture Series
25 Jan 2018 (with video recording)

Human Rights and Religions – A Contradiction?

With Shaheen Sardar Ali (University of Warwick) and Jill Jacobs (Rabbi and the Managing Director of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights)

Lecture Series
23 Nov 2017 (with video recording)

Academy Programs: Past Events for You to Listen To and Watch (55)

Show all

Past Events for You to Listen To and Watch

We have recorded some of our conferences, lectures, readings, and panel discussions for you as audio or video files.

Non-Transcendental Morality: Judaism, Islam, and Atheism

With Jacques Berlinerblau (Georgetown University) and Ufuk Topkara (Johns Hopkins University), in German and English

Lecture Series
20 Apr 2020 (with video recording)

What Do You Think about Jesus? Judaism, Islam, and Christianity

With Israel Yuval (Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and Maha El Kaisy-Friemuth (Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), in German and English

Lecture Series
18 Feb 2020 (with video recording)

Mono or Poly? Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism

With Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein (Elijah Interfaith Institute) and Reza Shah-Kazemi (Institute of Ismaili Studies in London)

Lecture Series
4 Feb 2020 (with video recording)

About a Tea Bowl

Discussion with brief presentations about interwoven experiences of post-Soviet Jewish migration, with video recording, in German

Lecture/Discussion
27 Nov 2019 (with video recording)

Ruth Wodak:
Swing to the right?!

Ruth Wodak traces how a new “normality to the right” is establishing itself in many European countries (in German)

Lecture/Discussion
17 October 2019

“To Know One Religion Is to Know None”

28 August 2019
W. Michael Blumenthal Fellow Walid Abdelgawad talks about reflections on Islam and Judaism in the writings of German-speaking Jewish orientalists between 1833 and 1955 (in German)
Video: in German; no subtitles

Do You Believe in Miracles?

With James A. Diamond (Professor in Jewish Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada) and Umeyye Isra Yazicioglu (Professor in Religious Studies at St. Joseph’s University in Philidelphia, United States)

Lecture Series
13 Jun 2019 (with video recording)

Photography of a totem pole in a foggy landscape with lake

Museums, Religion, and the Work of Reconciliation and Remembrance

9 May 2019
Museums are called on to deal critically and transparently with the often invisible colonial history of their collections. The curators Jisgang Nika Collision (Haida Gwaii Museum, Haida Nation & Canada) and Léontine Meijer-van Mensch (Saxonian State Ethnographic Collections) discussed this topic.

Humanity: Between Destiny and Free Will

With Alan Mittleman (Jewish Theological Seminary of America) and Martin Mahmud Kellner (Institute of Islamic Theology, Osnabrück)

Lecture Series
30 Apr 2019 (with video recording)

Access Barriers. Critical Perspectives on Racism in Schools and Curatorial Practices

Keynote by Bonita Bennett (District Six Museum, Cape Town) at the conference Access Barriers on museums as places of social change.

Lecture/Discussion
20 Mar 2019

How Much God Is in the Holy Scriptures?

With Benjamin Sommer (expert in modern Jewish theology) and Ghassan el Masri (researcher on the Koran in the context of the Arabic literature of his time), in German and English

Lecture Series
5 Mar 2019 (with video recording)

God, Darwin, and Evolution

Natan Slifkin (Biblical Museum of Natural History, Israel) and Fatimah Jackson (Howard University, USA) discuss how Jewish and Islamic theologians treat evolutionary biology.

Lecture Series
31 Jan 2019 (with video recording)

Happy Birthday, Academy Programs!

2 December 2018
Welcoming Remarks and Introducing the Academy Programs | Discussion with Performance: Archive of Life. Memory in a Society Shaped by Migration | Panel Discussion: Jewish Fathers – Jewish Children? | Panel Discussion: A Pre-fascist Era? | Reception: 5 Years – 5 Friends – 5 Gifts

Science in the Light of Faith

Geoffrey A. Mitelman and Ahmad S. Dallal discuss how Jewish and Islamic theologians have reflected for centuries on the conflicting powers of God and his revelation and human reason.

Lecture Series
20 Nov 2018 (with video recording)

Living with Islamophobia

11 and 12 October 2018
The international conference “Living with Islamophobia” considered how cultural and religious affiliations are constructed and invited experts to enter into discussion.

Judaism and Islam – The History of Theological Relations

Prelude to the new lecture series The Others’ Faith. With Lukas Mühlethaler (Free University Berlin) and Imam Abdullah Antepli (Duke University, USA), in German and English

Lecture Series
21 Nov 2019 (with video recording)

Imported Antisemitism?

30 August 2018
Is Antisemitism increasing with the number of refugees from Arab countries? We discuss with political, academic, and practical experts which manifestations of antisemitism among Arab migrants and Muslims in Germany exist (in German).

My God, Your God, No God

Part of our lecture Series Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights

Lecture Series
14 Jun 2018 (with video recording)

Ongoing Struggles. Anti-Discrimination Work during the Rise of the Far Right

7 June 2018
Opening Session of the academic conference
Including Imani Perry's keynote »What Lies Underneath: Difficult Histories and the Resurgence of The Far Right«