|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Address postal inquiries to:
Interfaith Youth Core
910 W. Van Buren Street, 4th Floor
Chicago, IL 60607-3575
Archive for the ‘News from our member organisations’ Category
Interfaith Youth Core IFYC Feb 2011
March 1, 2011Wisdom
October 23, 2010The latest edition of Wisdom , the newsletter of the Elijah Institue is now available admin@elijah-interfaith.org
> Council of Europe exchange on religion and media
September 22, 2010> Council of Europe exchange on religion and media
News from RELIGIONS for PEACE :
> Council of Europe exchange on religion and media
> On 13 and 14 September the Council of Europe invited representatives of
> religions and the media from across Europe for a conference in the ancient
> city of Ohrid in south eastern Macedonia.
> This was the third so-called Exchange through which the Council seeks to
> involve the religious communities of Europe in its process to promote
> intercultural dialogue on the continent. The two previous exchanges took
> place in Strasbourg in 2008 and 2009 and focused on religion and
> education.
The Macedonian minister of foreign affairs, Mr Antonio Miloshoski, who
holds the rotating presidency of the Council of Europe, focused his opening
statement on the recent threat by a pastor of a marginal Florida based
church to burn the Quran and asked what media mechanisms allowed this
incident to gain worldwide attention.
> To read the full text please visit
> http://www.rfp-europe.eu/index.cfm?id=313167
Cut Arms Spending
September 1, 2010News from RELIGIONS for PEACE : Arms Down! – Religions for Peace Youth Campaign for Shared Security The Global Youth Network of Religions for Peace is advancing a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that asks member states to cut military spending by 10% and redirect those funds toward achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This reflects an important and necessary progression from existing UNGA resolutions on ‘disarmament and development’ that are less specific in their demands. The resolution is the political counterpart to a petition being circulated via the Religions for Peace Global Youth Network and their Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security. Like the resolution, the petition calls on governments to reduce their military spending and re-allocate those funds toward development-related spending. Over four point seven million people have signed the petition, indicating its success as a tool for grassroots mobilisation and outreach. To read the full text please visit http://www.rfp-europe.eu/index.cfm?id=310495
URI – Europe
August 27, 2010The United Religions Initiative (URI) Europe’ s new Interfaith Dialogue Newsletter is now available at info@dmlbonn.de
URI Voice of Youth
July 26, 2010URI Voice of Youth is now available at www.uri.org
United Religions Initiative
P.O. Box 29242
San Francisco, CA 94129-0242
Tel: +1-415-561-2300 Fax: +1-415-561-2313>
P.O. Box 29242
San Francisco, CA 94129-0242
Tel: +1-415-561-2300 Fax: +1-415-561-2313>
Elise Boulding, matriarch of the peace studies, dies
July 8, 2010Elise Boulding, 89, a sociologist who was instrumental in establishing peace studies and conflict resolution as an academic discipline, died June 24 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at a nursing home in Needham, Mass.
Dr. Boulding, a Norwegian-born Quaker, taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder before retiring from Dartmouth College in the mid-1980s. AS a movement, she emphasized the role of women and families in creating a less violent world.
“Elise Boulding was to peace studies what Rachel Carson was to conservation and Margaret Mead to anthropology,” Colman McCarthy wrote. “She gave academic legitimacy to the study of pacifism as both a moral force and a practical alternative to violence–all the way from military violence to domestic violence.”
Dr. Boulding raised five children long before she entered academia, and her experience as a mother convinced her that people can be taught to wage peace just as they are taught to wage war.
Much of Dr. Boulding’s scholarly work was grounded in what she called the underside of history–the people and ideas that have been largely overlooked in narratives of the past. She wrote about important, little-heralded contributions by women from the Paleolithic period through modern times. As a counterpoint to studies of past wars and conflicts, she examined peaceful eras and cultures.
In her book, “Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History” (2000), Dr. Boulding said that peace is a daily and dynamic activity rather than a dull, static state. “Pacifism, which literally refers to the making of peace,” she wrote, “is often mistakenly understood as passivism.”
Dr. Boulding said one of her most important tasks was challenging people in workshops held across the country to envision a world in which quarrels are settled wtihout threats or weapons. “We cannot achieve what we cannot imagine,” she wrote.
Her husband died in 1993. Survivors include five children, 16 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
Gobind Sadan
July 8, 2010Dear friends of Gobind Sadan, I am very happy to tell you that a new website is now online: www.storiesfromparadise.org. Lovingly designed by Guntas Randhawa of Synaptix Systems in Chandigarh, it contains never-before-published stories, photos, and spiritual discourses from Baba Virsa Singh Ji, plus the entire book of “Everyday Miracles in the House of God,” children’s interfaith plays from our weekly interfaith education class, articles about our gardens, and articles I’ve written on the spiritual life from time to time. I’m continuing to add more stories and photos, so please do take a look now and in the future as well. Maharaj was giving us a great treasure during his physical lifetime, and I was mostly just storing and storing whatever I could. Now that we’re opening the treasure chest, we’re finding such great jewels in it.
If you like the site, please recommend it to your friends. And keep checking our main Gobind Sadan website, www.gobindsadan.org for new additions. We are also returning to putting out a quarterly newsletter for those who want print versions of the news. If you’d like to receive that but your address has changed, please notify priya@soon.com. With many thanks for your support, and may Maharaj keep blessing you, Mary Pat Fisher
International Council of Christians and Jews
July 8, 2010ICCJ Istanbul Conference
Please find below the link to the ICCJ E-Bulletin # 18 in which ICCJ-Consultant Ruth Weyl gives a brief reporton the 2010 ICCJ Istanbul conference held from 20-23 June. This E-Bulletin is only available in English.
Israel Interfaith Encounter
July 8, 2010The Israel Interfaith Encounter Association was covered by a nice article in the Go Jerusalem website. I am happy to share with you the link for this article and hope you enjoy reading it:
The 2nd youth group of Jerusalem-Hebron met in the Austrian Hospice on April 29 for an encounter surrounding the issue of the Holiness of Hebron in Judaism and Islam. The topic of this encounter, and that of the upcoming meeting the Holiness of Jerusalem in the two religions, came up in the preceding meeting when we decided that there are no issues more befitting to speak about than the two cities that our group represents.
We began the meeting with an overview of the origins of the holiness of Hebron in Judaism. We listened to passages from the book of Genesis; the descriptions of the purchase of the Cave of the Patriarchs and the burials of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. After that, we heard about the holiness of Hebron in Islam which is also connected to the Cave of the Patriarchs and to the same Patriarchs, who are considered prophets in Islam. Additionally, we saw that the name of the city in Hebrew and Arabic has identical meaning– it is named after our forefather Abraham, the friend (Haver) of G-d, and from here the name in Hebrew is “Hevron” and in Arabic; “Al-Halil” or “The Friend.” We understood that the foundation of the city’s holiness in both religions is actually almost identical. The main difference is that in Judaism, the belief is that the Patriarchs are physically buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, whereas in Islam, the Cave of the Patriarchs is thought of as a grave marker and a center of prayer, though there is no evidence that the prophets are buried there. In fact, in Islam the only prophet that we know with certainty of the location of his burial place, is the Prophet Mohammad, whose grave is in the city of Medina.
The discussion was very eye-opening since many people in the group admitted during or after that they did not know that in the other religion there was such significance to the city, and just how similar the foundation of its holy status is between the two religions.
Reported: Ayelet Hanfling
