Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding 

The Kraft-Hiatt fund supports campus and community-wide educational initiatives that foster understanding of Judaism and Jewish culture, and dialogue between Jews and Christians.  The fund is administered by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, with the assistance of a Kraft-Hiatt faculty Advisory Committee whose members include:

Alan J. Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor in Judaic Studies
Patricia Bizzell, Professor, English
Noel Cary, Associate Professor, History
Maurice A. Geracht, Stephen J. Prior Professor of Humanities
Osvaldo Golijov, Loyola Professor of Music
Roger Hankins, Director, Cantor Art Gallery
Ed Isser, Associate Professor, Theater
Amy Wolfson, Associate Professor, Psychology
Thomas M. Landy, Assoc. Director, CREC; Lecturer, Sociology

2008-2009

February 22, 2009 - A.J. Levine and Philip Cunningham - "What are Jews and Catholics to Make of Jesus the Jew?" 3:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

2007-2008
Tuesday, September 25, 2007 - Max Michelson, Holocaust survivor, will share his story. Michelson, born in Riga, Latvia was forced into the Riga Ghetto after the nazi invasion of Latvia. Following the liquidation of the Ghetto in December 1941, he was constrained in numerous concentration camps and was finally liberated in Germany in May, 1945. 7:00 p.m. in the Hogan Campus Center Ballroom

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - "The Catholic Church, the Holocaust and the Silence of Pius XII" - Frank Coppa, Professor of History at St. John’s University, author of the Papacy, the Jews, and the Holocaust (2006), and Encyclopedia of the Vatican and Papacy. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, November 19, 2007 - "Israel: Facing an Uncertain Future" Michael Eisenstadt, Senior fellow and Director, Military and Security Studies Program, Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Cosponsored by Worcester Interreligious Forum. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008 - "Broken Homes, Broken Hearts: The Holocaust and its Languages" - Alan Rosen, lecturer in English and Holocaust Literature at Bar-Ilan University and the International School for Holocaust Education at Yad Vashem. He is most recently the author of Sounds of Defiance: The Holocaust, Multilingualism and the Problem of English and is working on a book entitled That Great Mournful Past: David Boder and the
Ethnography of Holocaust Testimony. 7:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

Monday, March 10, 2008 - French professor Stephen Shapiro, who visited Yad Vashem this summer with support from the Kraft-Hiatt fund speaks on "Finding My Family at Yad Vashem" 7:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

Sunday, March 16, 2008 - Kraft-Hiatt Program for Jewish-Christian Understanding - Yehezkel Landau, Faculty Associate in Interfaith Relations, Hartford Seminary, and Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim chaplain at Georgetown University, discuss Roads to Peace in Israel and the Relationship between Jews and Muslims. 3:00 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

March 25, 2008 - Faculty Author Discussion: Alan Avery-Peck, Kraft-Hiatt Professor and Chair, Dept. of Religious Studies, editor of The Encyclopedia of Judaism. 4:00 PM in Rehm Library.

2006-2007
Sunday, September 17, 2006 - First Annual Kraft-Hiatt Symposium on Jewish and Roman Catholic Relations: "Jews and Catholics in Dialogue: What's on the Agenda?" Rabbi Irving Greenberg, president of Jewish Life Network and author of  For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter between Judaism and Christianity (2004) and Dr. Eugene Fisher, Associate Director of the American Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. 3:00-5:00PM Hogan Ballroom, Hogan Campus Center.

Thursday, November 16, 2006 - “Effects of the Passing of Shoah Survivors: what happens to memory when the witnesses are gone?” Michael Berenbaum, Director, Ziering Institute and professor of philosophy, University of Judaism, Los Angeles. Author of a dozen books and award winning films. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, November 20, 2006 - “Jesuits and Jews: The Holocaust and the search for forgiveness” - James Bernauer, S.J., Boston College. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Wednesday, February 7, 2007 - “An Evening with Madame F” a one-person play about Fanja Fenelson, a young prisoner who performed in a women’s orchestra at Auschwitz. Actress and musicial Claudia Stevens, daughter of holocaust survivors, takes the role of the elderly “Madame F,” reminiscing as an adult on the time at Auschwitz. 4:00 PM, Fenwick Theater.


2005-2006
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 - Stephen J. Whitfield, the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization, Brandeis University: "Religion and Culture in the New World: Why America Was Different for Jews." Prof. Whitfield has taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Catholic University of Louvain, the Sorbonne (University of Paris IV), and the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich. He is the author of eight books, including most recently A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (1988), The Culture of the Cold War (1991, rev. and expanded ed. 1996) and In Search of American Jewish Culture (1999). Professor Whitfield is also the editor of A Companion to 20th-Century America (2004). 4:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 - Thomas Kuehne, Associate Professor and Strassler Family Chair in the Study of Holocaust History, Clark University: "Belonging and Genocide. A German Story, 1914-1945" - 4:00 PM in Rehm Library.


2004-2005

Wednesday, January 26, 2005 - Prof. Maier Bar-Ilan, Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Jewish Magic and Jewish Witches: How and How Many? 7:30 PM, Rehm Library .

Tuesday, February 8, 2005 - Prof. Ithamar Gruenwald, Tel Aviv University, returns to Holy Cross for a talk, "How Holy Are Holy Wars?" 7:30 PM, Rehm Library, and a faculty seminar on the Zohar, a book of Jewish Kabbalistic teachings Tues, Wed, Thurs 12 noon- 1:30 PM.

2003-2004

Tuesday, February 10, 2004 - Prof. Ithamar Gruenwald, Professor of Jewish Mysticism, Department of Jewish Philisophy, Tel Aviv University, "Early Jewish Mysticism" The author of From Apocalypticism to Gnosticism and Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism, Gruenwald is one of the foremost authorities on Jewish mysticism and philosophical thought. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, March 18, 2004 - "Holocaust Denial: the Argument and the Evidence" - Robert Jan van Pelt, Visiting Professor at the Strassler Family Center for Holocaust Research, Clark University, expert witness on Holocaust denial, and author of The Case for Auschwitz: Evidence from the Irving Trial
(Indiana University Press, 2003). 7:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Wednesday, April 21, 2004 - Prof. José Sanchez, Saint Louis University - "Pope Pius XII and the Historians: Who will Win?" 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.



2002-2003

January 27, 2003 - "Israel Today: Contexts and Commitments." Hannah Rosenthal, Executive Director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs; four Jewish Holy Cross faculty - Daniel Bitran, Patricia Bizzell, Edward Isser, and Amy Wolfson - will speak about what Israel means to them. 4:00-5:30 PM, Rehm Library in Smith Hall.

February 12, 2003 - "Israel Today: Young People's Perspectives" - Tsee'la Shmuely and Ayelet Handler, two young Israeli women living in Worcester, will meet with students to talk about Israeli life today from their perspectives. 4:30 PM, Rehm Library.

February 10, 2002 - Kraft-Hiatt Fund for Jewish-Christian Understanding in cooperation with theJewish Federation of Central Massachusettsand the office of Student Programs and Leadership Development presents the Klezmer Conservatory Band . 3:00-6:00 PM, Ballroom, Hogan Campus Center . Free Admission.