FAIRFIELD—What are the limitations of interreligious dialogue? Are we really “all brothers?” Should we be wary of sibling rivalry? On Thursday, April 7, at 7:30 pm, Rabbi Burton Visotzky, Ph.D., will discuss Pope Francis’ “Fratelli Tutti” (All Brothers) encyclical, and share his thoughts on the pope’s extension of Vatican II’s famous “Nostra Aetate” declaration regarding the Church and non-Christian religions.
Rabbi Visotzky’s lecture,“Fratelli Tutti: the Good Samaritan and the Rabbi,” the 16th Annual Lecture in Jewish/Christian Engagement, will take place in Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business Event Hall. This in-person event is free and open to the public, and will also be live-streamed for virtual attendance. Register for the live stream at fairfield.edu/cs.
Director of the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), Rabbi Visotzky also serves at JTS as Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies, and the Louis Stein Director of the Finkelstein Institute for Religious and Social Studies.
With an EdM from Harvard and a Ph.D. from JTS’s Rabbinical School, Rabbi Visotzky met Pope Benedict in 2007 while serving as a master visiting professor of Jewish Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
He met Pope Francis in 2014 while serving as a distinguished visiting professor at Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum). He has been an adjunct faculty member at Union Theological Seminary since 1980.
Rabbi Visotzky is the author of ten books, editor of seven other volumes, and has written more than 125 articles and reviews. His book, Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It, was published in 2016.
Rabbi Visotzky served on the United States Holocaust Museum’s Committee on Ethics, Religion, and the Holocaust. He currently serves on a steering committee for the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Genocide Prevention and on the United Nations Inter-Agency Task-Force’s Multi-Faith Advisory Council. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
In 1995-96, Rabbi Visotzky collaborated with Bill Moyers on the ten-part PBS series, Genesis: A Living Conversation. In 1998, he consulted for DreamWorks on their film Prince of Egypt, and in 2012 he worked with Christiane Amanpour on her mini-series, Back to the Beginning.
Rabbi Visotzky has been repeatedly named to the Newsweek/Daily Beast list of “The 50 Most Influential Jews in America.”
Register for a Livestream viewing of the 16th Annual Lecture in Jewish/Christian Engagement at fairfield.edu/cs, or join us in person at 7:30 pm on Thursday, April 7 in Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business Event Hall, located at 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT 06824. Please visit the University website before arriving on campus, for the latest Covid-19 guidance: fairfield.edu/healthycampus.
Fairfield University is a modern, Jesuit Catholic university rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S. and across the globe are pursuing degrees in the University’s five schools. Fairfield embraces a liberal humanistic approach to education, encouraging critical thinking, cultivating free and open inquiry, and fostering ethical and religious values. The University is located on a stunning 200-acre campus on the scenic Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.
