WISDOM UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 17, 2007

WISDOM is happy to make the following announcements:

1) Monday, September 24th through Wednesday, September 26, 2007 at 7:15 PM at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, a showing of the documentary “Zeitouna: Refusing to be Enemies”. The movie profiles the twelve women of an Ann Arbor dialogue group called Zeitouna ("olive tree" in Arabic) and documents their developing relationship over a four-year period. Six of the Zeitouna women are of Arab descent and six are of Jewish descent. Some are native born and some are immigrants. What they all have in common is their humanity and their desire to bridge the gulf that has developed between their two communities. They chose the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the focus of the group and use the dialogue process as a means of personal transformation leading to socio-political transformation.The film includes personal narratives and dialogue footage from the group's spring 2006 "Journey of Peace" trip to Palestine/Israel.

2) The International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, located in the Pivnick Center for Humanistic Judaism at The Birmingham Temple 28611 West 12 Mile Rd., Farmington Hills, is sponsoring a colloquium entitled “Jews and the Muslim World: Solving the Puzzle.”

Friday, October 19th at 8:00 PM - Keynote by Fawaz A. Gerges, Sarah Lawrence College

Saturday, October 20th at 9:30 AM – “Islam: Then and Now” by Jacob Lassner, Northwestern University

Saturday, October 20th at 11:00 AM – “Jews in the Muslim World” by Jane Gerber, Columbia University

Saturday, October 20th at 1:30 PM – “Zionism and the Muslim World” by Derek Penslar, the University of Toronto

Saturday, October 20th at 3:00 PM – “Antisemitism and the Muslim World” by Yehuda Bauer, Hebrew University

Sunday, October 21st at 9:30 AM “What Can Be Done? The Muslim Response” by Amir Hussain, Loyola Marymount University

Sunday, October 21st at 10:30 AM “What Can Be Done? The Jewish Response by Yehuda Bauer, Hebrew University

For more information and registration call 248-476-9532 or go to this website to see the entire brochure: http://www.iishj.org/images/CLQM07.pdf


3) November 13th, Tuesday, The Faith Club authors are coming to the West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center Book Fair at 7:00 PM. WISDOM is one of the organizations sponsoring them. We are still waiting for specifics on the authors’ travel schedule to Detroit. We hope you will join us at the Center for this exciting event!!

4) Gail Katz, on behalf of WISDOM, was interviewed by Kartemquin Films on September 5th for a documentary that they are making about the religious pluralism of the Metro Detroit area, and the interfaith efforts taking place around town.

5) An interfaith women’s group, called “The Museum Group”, had a showing of the documentary “The Power of Good: the Nicholas Winton Story,” about what one British man did during World War II to save the lives of Jewish children living in Prague from the Nazis, at the Farmington Library on Sunday, September 16th. This might be a great documentary for a WISDOM event in the future. Gail talked about WISDOM to this group, and encouraged them to register on our WISDOM website and get involved with WISDOM activities as well.