Religious Conflict: Rabbi Jack Bemporad on Scripture and Conflict
Interfaith Encounters
English - October 12, 2021 07:00 - 24 minutes - 22.7 MBReligion Religion & Spirituality Society & Culture Documentary interfaith dialogue interreligious faith religion religious freedom first amendment Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Rabbi Bemporad is the director of the nonprofit Center for Interreligious Understanding (CIU), which he founded in 1992. Its aim is to bring people of all religious faiths together to promote open dialogue, mutual respect, and theological understanding of the common foundations shared by the world’s religions. Rabbi Jack Bemporad began teaching at Vatican universities in 1998 and has been Director of the John Paul II Center and Professor of Interreligious Studies, both at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum), in Rome since 2009. Concurrently, he also serves as Rabbi of Congregation Micah of New Jersey, in Cresskill.
Fleeing the fascist takeover in Italy prior to WWII, Bemporad and his family traveled to the U.S. when he was five years old. Thus, having personally suffered as the result of persecution and prejudice, he has dedicated his career to improving relations among Christians, Muslims, and Jews worldwide. The Rabbi is recognized internationally for his diplomatic skill and leadership in matters of religious understanding and reconciliation. He is one of the rare Jewish leaders to have had a personal audience with Pope John XXIII, numerous personal audiences with Pope John Paul II, and was one of three rabbis to have blessed him shortly before his death. Most recently, he met with Pope Francis at the conclusion of the “Refugees and Migrants” conference, co-sponsored by the CIU in Rome this past November.
Rabbi Bemporad is the author of numerous books and articles, including Our Age: The Historic New Era of Christian-Jewish Understanding, published by New City Press. He also edited The Inner Journey: Views from the Jewish Tradition by Morning Light Press, and contributed the chapter on “Norms of War in Judaism” for World Religions and Norms of War, published by the United Nations University Press. Most recently, he contributed a memoir of the philosopher Hans Jonas in Giacobbe E L’Angelo (Jacob and the Angel), published in Rome in 2012.