The Children Left Behind by the “Caliphate”

During years of occupation within the urban center of Aleppo, militiamen from Jabhat al-Nusra, a jihadist group originally linked to al-Qaeda, and from the Islamic State, took local women for wives as well as kidnapped girls, often belonging to religious minorities, to make them their sex slaves. From these unions, thousands of children were born who – since their fathers […]

What Traditional Jewish Pedagogy Can Teach Us About Viewpoint Diversity

“What better way to disabuse oneself of the contemporary untruth that “life is a battle between good people and evil people” than to heed the heavenly voice proclaiming reassuringly that in a high-stakes debate concerning the most vital issues of existence, “these and those” are equally the words of the living G-d? An intellectual culture founded on the logic and […]

From Flesh to Flesh

“The foundation of (the) sacramental form in which the Gospel is transmitted is the Incarnation of the Word. The Spirit, who continually renews the deposit that has been transmitted, always acts within the framework inaugurated by the life of Jesus in the flesh.  Something analogous happens in marriage, where the loving relation of the spouses with the flesh does not […]

Wanted: A Muslim Reformation?

“The fury of the internal upheaval inside the Muslim world — the Muslim rage that is incomprehensible to non-Muslims — will eventually exhaust itself when a sufficiently large segment of the Muslim population reconciles reason and revelation to discover that God never meant any religion, including Islam, to be a burden preventing man from threading a relationship with Him in […]

Therefore We Declare

From a letter, Between Jerusalem and Rome: Reflections on 50 Years of Nostra Aetate, sent to Pope Francis by the Chief Rabbinate of Israel (CRI), the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), representing the vast majority of the world’s Orthodox Jews. Despite the irreconcilable theological differences, we Jews view Catholics as our partners, close […]

Islam and the West in Europe: Encounter or Clash?

The latest report by the Pew Research Center offers surprising data on the evolution of religions: Christianity currently represents 31.2 percent of the world’s population and Islam 24.1 percent. It is estimated that by 2060 Christianity will reach 31.8 percent, against 31.1 percent reached by Islam. The statistics predict that by mid-century the two religions will have roughly the same […]

A new Cold War?

“Separation might not be visible, there is no physical wall like in Berlin, but there is a virtual one, in our heads, and this could be even more dangerous.”  An interview with an expert on Christian-Muslim relations.

Copts and Muslims of Egypt

“In our visual era, which images are to be trusted? Those of Tahrir Square in January and February, where Muslims and Copts displayed their brotherliness, the other was accepted, and National Union was sacred? Or, conversely, those of last October 9th, with raging six-ton armoured vehicles, mercilessly crushing and killing Coptic protesters? The images of burnt churches?” An historian glances […]