Lecture explores Islam, Jewish interactions

CARLSBAD — The Agency for Jewish Education continues its monthly Scholar Lectures on Jewish Studies with a new lecture series “Encounters Between Islam and Judaism,” in Carlsbad, with Professor Ghada Osman, director for the Center for Islamic & Arabic Studies at San Diego State. Osman’s lecture will take place at 7 p.m. Feb. 28 in the Schulman Auditorium of the Carlsbad Dove Library, 1775 Dove Lane.
As a monotheistic faith that originated in the Middle East, Islam, the second largest religion in the world, holds many beliefs and practices in common with Judaism. Yet today, the two religions appear to be in constant conflict. This lecture explores key encounters between Islam and Judaism. It begins by examining Quranic verses about the Jews of the time, and then continues to discuss both times of tension and of relatively peaceful co-existence between the two religions throughout the centuries.
Osman is a core faculty member and undergraduate advisor for San Diego State’s Center for Islamic and Arabic Studies. Osman holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University, and an M.A. in Islamic Studies from UCLA. She has authored many publications on a wide variety of topics including “Back to Basics: The Discourse of Muslim Feminism in Contemporary Egypt.”
Future lectures will feature professors speaking on their own areas of research.
In March, Professor Glenn Levine of UC Irvine will speak on “Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye through the Ages: From the Yiddish Mark Twain to Fiddler on the Roof.” Professor Rebecca Moore, of San Diego State, brings the series to a close with “Jews, Christians and Muslims in Apocalyptic Dialogue” in April.
The Scholar Lectures on Jewish Studies is a program of the Agency for Jewish Education made possible by the Leichtag Family Foundation and is free and open to the public. For more information on this or future talks in the series, contact the Agency for Jewish Education, (858) 268-9200, ext.102 or www.ajesd.org.