Jewish Theological Seminary Hosts Islamic Triumphalists

Sherman Jackson

Recently the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, which bills itself as “the academic and spiritual center of Conservative Judaism worldwide,” joined forces with the Muslim Brotherhood-founded Islamic Society of North America to host two apologists for radical Islam. Campus Watch was there, and our coverage appears today at American Thinker:

Audience members in the packed Jewish Theological Seminary auditorium just down the block from Columbia University might have been gratified to see hijabs and yarmulkes adorning the heads of Muslims and Jews coming together for interfaith dialogue on the evening of October 25. The title of the event, “Islam in America: Assimilation and Authenticity,” drew a large, mixed crowd, perhaps three hundred strong, eager for interreligious conversation. The anticipation of imams and rabbis in reserved front seats, or students filling other rows to the brim, was understandable -- isn’t this, after all, the conversation Muslims and members of other faiths need to start having?

This optimism at the prospect of dialogue between mainstream Muslim organizations and their Jewish and Christian counterparts resurfaces often, and rarely for good reason. Monday night was no exception.

The event, a joint project of the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Islamic Society of North America, featured several high-profile speakers, including JTS Chancellor Arnie Eisen; the Reverend Dr. Serene Jones, President of the Union Theological Seminary across the street from JTS; and two familiar faces from ISNA’s side: Ingrid Mattson, the immediate past president of ISNA who moderated the panel and said little, and Sherman Jackson, a professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Michigan and a convert to Islam who specializes in Islamic law and the black Muslim-American experience.

To read the rest of this essay, please click here.

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University of Michigan Hartford Seminary

Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.