Presented by Jonathan Marc Gribetz, an Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Gribetz who received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia, is author of Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter (Princeton University Press, 2014; paperback edition 2016).

This past May, a building in a small city in the Middle East was renamed and fitted with new signs. In anticipation of this change, demonstrations erupted throughout the world and the United Nations General Assembly held an emergency session, declaring the name change “null and void” by a vote of 128 to 9. On the day of the renaming, more than sixty people were killed in ongoing protests intensified by the change. In nearly any other city, such a fierce global reaction to renaming a building would have been surprising—but Jerusalem is not just any other city. What makes Jerusalem different? Why do people of such diverse backgrounds care so much about this city? In the first three sessions of this four-part course, we will explore the central place of the city of Jerusalem in the foundational stories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In our final meeting, we will consider how Zionism and Palestinian nationalism have related to Jerusalem and why Jerusalem may be the most complicated of all the issues hindering Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Open to the community!
The Jewish Center members: $72
Non-members: $108

For more information, please contact the synagogue office at 609-921-0100 Ext. 200 or info@thejewishcenter.org.