Feinberg Lecture Discusses Jewish-Moslem Interaction

The history of Jewish-Moslem relations is of vital importance to how Jews and Moslems will interact in the years to come. Professor Steven M. Wasserstrom, a world-renowned expert on Jewish-Moslem relations in the middle ages will discuss "The Secret Truth of Public Revelations: Shared Learning Between Jews and Muslims in the Age of Maimonides" at the University of Cincinnati's 2002 Feinberg Lecture.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Rabbi Louis Feinberg Memorial Lecture. The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 7, in Room 329, Dyer Hall.

Wasserstrom is professor of Judaic Studies and the Humanities and Chair of the Religion Department at Reed College in Portland Oregon. His "Between Muslim and Jew: The Problem of Symbiosis under Early Islam" (1995) won the Award for Excellence in Historical Studies from the American Academy of Religion.

The late 12th and early 13th centuries is said to mark not only the celebrated high point of the so-called Golden Age of the Jews of Spain but also the apex of Islamic-Judaic philosophy and mysticism. This lecture will explore that brief cultural opening when mysticism, philosophy and the occult sciences made rival claims respectively on the centers of Jewish and Moslem authority. To achieve and sustain their authority, mystics, philosophers and practitioners of the occult science often were constrained to learn "secrets" from adherents of their sibling religions. These "shared secrets" resulted simultaneously in important advances in philosophy and mysticism on the part of both Jews and Muslims.

For more information, call the Department of Judaic Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at (513) 556-2297, or e-mail judaic.studies@uc.edu.