The Right to Life

Lecture Series: Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights (with video recording)

The right to life and physical integrity is the foundation of every free society. Nonetheless, this right is severely restricted and disregarded in many countries. In reference to the Sharia, torture, beatings and capital punishment are found to be justifiable in some Muslim states.

Past event

Where

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

Where, when, what?

In the "war on terror," torture and targeted killings without trial are found to be legitimate. Under what conditions can a person's right to life be restricted in Judaism and Islam and how is this right weighed against other legal rights?

David Novak and Jonathan Brown will discuss. The event will be moderated by Hafssa El- Bouhamouchi.

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

Video recording of the lecture The Right to Life; 8 March 2018; Jewish Museum Berlin 2018

David Novak

David Novak is a rabbi, theologian, and professor for religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto. His research interests include interreligious dialog, bioethics and the law of nature. His titles include The Sanctity of Human Life.

Jonathan Brown

Jonathan Brown is professor of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown University and director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. His titles includeStoning and Hand Cutting – Understanding the Hudud and the Sharia in Islam.

Two Portraits — Jonathan Brown (on the left side) and David Nowak (on the right side); photos: private

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Where, when, what?

When Thursday 8 March 2018, 7 pm
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Where W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)
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Entry fee
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Lecture Series: Jewish and Islamic Perspectives on Human Rights (6)

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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 (56)

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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)

Tying the Knot versus Bonds with God: Jews and Muslims in Interfaith Marriages

With Madeleine Dreyfus (psychoanalyst with a doctorate in cultural anthropology) und Imen Gallala-Arndt (lawyer and a lecturer at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology), in German

Lecture Series
Thu, 18 Jun 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«