Aerial view of the Temple Mount, Jerusalem. (Credit: Andrew Shiva/Wikipedia Commons).CC BY-SA 4.0
On Jerusalem Day, Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller will explore the significance of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount in Jewish thought. Can Jerusalem be unique to Jews and Judaism while at the same time promote an aspirational vision of universality?
Monday, May 10, 202112:00 PM - 1:15 PM (Pacific Time)
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About the Event
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount have emerged as critical foci of the Arab-Israeli conflict. On the surface it appears that their significance to the Jewish world is as a symbol of our national sovereignty that emanates from their essential holiness. Despite the broad consensus embracing this view, there is a compelling Jewish tradition that imagines Jerusalem and the Temple Mount becoming the site of universal devotion.
We shall examine the sources that undergird both points of view and proceed to frame a position that affirms Jerusalem’s uniqueness to Jews and Judaism while at the same time promoting the aspirational vision of its universality.
Sponsored by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion and Hillel at UCLA.
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is a faculty member at Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He was executive director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA for 40 years, and currently is director emeritus and also director of the Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals. He is a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA and in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is also a faculty member of the Wexner Heritage Foundation and was a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. In 2014 he initiated a fact-finding mission for non-Jewish student leaders to Israel and the Palestine Authority which is now offered on 60 campuses across the country. The International Hillel Center granted him the Hillel Professional Recognition Award for "blending the love of Jewish tradition with the modern intellectual approach of the university." Rabbi Seidler-Feller was ordained at Yeshiva University where he completed a master's in rabbinic literature. Seidler-Feller was a rabbinic consultant to Barbra Streisand during the making of the film Yentl.
DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions of our guest speakers and the content of their presentations do not necessarily reflect the views of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Hosting speakers does not constitute an endorsement of the speaker's views or opinions.
Sponsor(s): Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, Center for the Study of Religion, UCLA at Hillel