religion

( The Chukogu Shimbun ) – HIROSHIMA —The elegant art deco building of Ettefagh, Iran’s famous Jewish school, still stands on a leafy avenue adjacent to Tehran University. Originally established by prominent Iraqis who had settled in Iran following Jewish pogroms and expulsions of the 1940s and early 50s in Iraq, Ettefagh started as a […]

Antisemitism

“Stop Weaponizing Antisemitism:” Ex-Harvard Hillel Leader

Common Dreams

Jessica Corbett ( Commondreams.org) – “For the safety of Jews and Palestinians, stop weaponizing antisemitism.” That’s the headline of a Friday op-ed from Bernie Steinberg, who was the executive director of Harvard Hillel from 1993 to 2010. Harvard University is among many U.S. higher education institutions—including Brandeis University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), […]

Islam

With Palestinian Struggle in Gaza, Tiktok has opened Rare Spaces of Empathy and Learning about Islam

The Conversation

By Nahid Widaatalla, University of Toronto | – (The Conversation) – The ongoing conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel is playing out on screens like never before. Through social media, millions are witnessing the violence that has killed thousands since Oct. 7. People have turned to social media to learn about the history and […]

Christianity

Pope and Pastor: “Prince of Peace rejected by the futile Logic of War;” “Christ in the Rubble”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My mother was a Lutheran and the Coles were Catholics, though my grandfather fell away when he married a woman from the Brethren peace church. So it was striking to me that on this Christmas a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, Munther Isaac, and Pope Francis both made headlines with their […]

Christianity

A Merry Muslim Christmas from India’s Hyderabad, c. 1630: Jesus, the Dutch, and Diamonds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The nativity of the Christ child is not solely an occasion of Christian spirituality, but has been celebrated through the ages by Muslim writers and painters, as well. As I have pointed out, the story of the Annunciation and the birth of Jesus is told in the Qur’an: Verses 19:17-35: […]

Anti-intellectualism

The Other Israel-Gaza Conflict: On Campus (Juan at Dawn)

Juan Cole

Excerpted from Dawn (Democracy for the Arab World Now) Israel’s total war on Gaza, following Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on Oct. 7, has roiled higher education in the United States. The atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel two months ago have reverberated on many U.S. campuses, deeply traumatizing many Jewish students. But so too […]

Congress

US Scholars of Mideast dispute House Resolution 894’s Equation of anti-Zionism with Antisemitism

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom, North America, Middle East Studies Association | – Representative Mike Johnson Speaker of the House of Representatives Representative Hakim Jeffries Minority Leader, House of Representatives Dear Speaker Johnson and Minority Leader Jeffries, We write on behalf of the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association […]

Christianity

Juan Cole: Infidel or Pagan? Understanding Kufr (كفر) in the Qur’an | Muhammad the Prophet of Peace

Juan Cole

Gabriel Said Reynolds of Notre Dame writes: “In this video I interview Professor Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. We discuss the historicity of Muhammad’s raids as well as the picture of the messenger that is obtained when one focuses on the Qur’an alone. The bulk […]

Islam

Never Forget: Jews and Muslims have Often imagined themselves in History as Siblings and Allies

Anouar Majid

Excerpted from Tingis. Historically, and even theologically, Jews have always been closer to Muslims than they were to Christians. It was in Muslim lands, the late eminent historian Bernard Lewis told us, that Arabic “became the language of science and philosophy, of government and commerce, even the language of Jewish theology when such a discipline […]