“It’s common for historians and the general public to say that there are little to no sources about women from the past. There’s actually a ton of material, but it hasn’t been integrated into the way that we tell the history of the city,” said Gribetz, an associate professor of theology who was recently awarded a $60,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant to work on her book. 

“I want to shift our focus away from the usual suspects—King David, Emperor Constantine, Sultan Salah ad-Din—and toward the many women who made contributions to the city,” she said. 

Jerusalem: A Feminist History will serve as a historical account of the city from Biblical times to the present—a period that spans more than 3,000 years. Instead of focusing on the city’s male leaders, it will highlight women from all social classes, from the queens of Jerusalem to enslaved women and servants from wealthy households, said Gribetz. 

A Heroine from the First Century

Among the featured women will be Helena of Adiabene, a first-century queen. A native of modern-day Iraqi Kurdistan, Helena converted to Judaism and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. When she arrived, the city was suffering from famine. She used her wealth to import figs and other agricultural products from nearby countries. Thanks to her philanthropic efforts, she became a beloved figure in Jerusalem, said Gribetz.

“Helena is a woman from outside of the city who becomes a hero within Jerusalem. In the many centuries after her death, Jews and Christians continue to tell stories about her,” Gribetz said. “She’s actually a relatively minor character in the first century, but she helps us see new things about the city’s history.”

The city of Jerusalem itself is often personified as a woman and depicted in feminine terms, Gribetz said. 

“In our earliest written sources about Jerusalem, people imagine the city as a sister, mother, partner, or widow. That personification of Jerusalem often happens when the city is in danger of coming under foreign rule or destruction in times of war,” Gribetz said. 

New Insights From Tombstones and Old Records

Gribetz said the inspiration for her book emerged during her first years at Fordham, when the Center for Medieval Studies asked her to teach a course on medieval Jerusalem. 

“I kept noticing women in ways that I had never thought about, in terms of Jerusalem’s history,” said Gribetz, who taught the course for several years, beginning in 2016. “At a certain point, I realized that the way I constructed my syllabus was in line with this very standard narrative of Jerusalem’s history, but there were many other ways to tell that history.”

In the following years, she received research grants and support from Fordham, including the theology department’s Rita Houlihan grant, which allowed her to research topics that led to her book. She is currently living in Jerusalem, where she is interviewing scholars and locals, participating in city tours, and studying texts at libraries, museums, and archives. The texts include funerary inscriptions on tombstones from the Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods, as well as other archaeological remains, including from synagogues, churches, and mosques. 

“Our literary sources often focus more on men than women, so we have to get creative with the kinds of sources that we use to reconstruct history,” said Gribetz. “But there are still many ways to find traces of these women.” 

‘This History Belongs to Many Different People’

Through her book, Gribetz said she aims to push back against the idea that we’re limited in the kinds of stories we can tell. 

“If we’re creative with the questions we ask and the sources that we use, then we can tell history in a way that incorporates the stories of a much broader segment of the population, whether it’s in Jerusalem or in other cities or contexts,” said Gribetz, who has also written Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism (Princeton University Press, 2020). 

Gribetz will spend the coming few years writing the book, which will be published by Princeton University Press. In addition to exploring the history of women in Jerusalem, Gribetz said she also hopes that her book weaves together the stories of Jews, Christians, and Muslims and shows that the city’s diversity is a strength, rather than a liability. 

“I would like to think that my book may help encourage people in all these different communities to appreciate what a beautiful thing it is to share such a deep history with the city, rather than to compete over who has exclusive claims to it,” Gribetz said. “I hope that my book conveys how complicated, interesting, and beautiful this history is, and that this history belongs to many different people.”

ASIF SIDDIQI
50 Years Ago, a Forgotten Mission Landed on Mars
Discover Magazine 12-1-21
“The Soviet space program was under a lot of pressure in the 1960s to achieve ‘firsts,’” says Asif Siddiqi, a Fordham University history professor who’s penned multiple books on the Soviet side of the space race.

CHERYL BADER
Rittenhouse Verdict Sparks Split Reactions, Fears of Vigilantism
Bloomberg.com 11-19-21
“I am afraid that as people are empowered by this verdict to weaponize the public spaces, we will see more fatalities,” said Cheryl Bader, a former assistant U.S. attorney and associate clinical professor at Fordham University School of Law.

ZEPHYR TEACHOUT
‘I Want to Be a 21st-Century Trustbuster’: Zephyr Teachout on Her Run for A.G.
New York Magazine 11-24-21
Teachout is currently a professor at Fordham Law School, where she specializes in constitutional and antitrust law.

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY

Capital Campaign Watch: Dickinson, Fordham, Springfield, Tulane
Inside Higher Ed 11-22-21
Fordham University has announced a campaign to raise $350 million, probably by 2024. The university has raised $170 million so far.

Museum of American Finance to Present Virtual Panel on “SPACs: The New IPO?”
BusinessWire 11-30-21
“SPACs: The New IPO?” is sponsored by Citadel Securities and Vinson & Elkins. It is presented in partnership with the Fordham University Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis.

Study Abroad Programs Reopen To Eager College Students
Gothamist.com 12-1-21
This fall, Fordham University only re-opened its London program. Joseph Rienti, director of the study abroad office, said the enrollment for that campus was higher than usual.

LAW SCHOOL FACULTY

CHERYL BADER
Rittenhouse Verdict Sparks Split Reactions, Fears of Vigilantism
Bloomberg.com 11-19-21
“I am afraid that as people are empowered by this verdict to weaponize the public spaces, we will see more fatalities,” said Cheryl Bader, a former assistant U.S. attorney and associate clinical professor at Fordham University School of Law.

JOHN PFAFF
In Depth Podcast: Why Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted
Audacity.com 11-19-21
This week’s guests include Kim Belware, John Pfaff (sic), and Charles Coleman Jr.
… Pfaff (sic), an author and law professor at Fordham University, breaks down how self defense laws, open carry laws, and the burden of proof contributed to this case.

OLIVIER SYLVAIN
FTC Chair Khan Brings on AI Policy Advice From NYU Researchers
Bloomberg Law 11-19-21
They join Olivier Sylvain, a law professor from Fordham University, who is serving as Khan’s senior adviser on technology.

DORA GALACATOS
The future of geographic screens for NYC’s high schools is up in the air amid concerns over diversity, commutes
Chalkbeat.com 11-19-21
Dora Galacatos is the executive director of the Fordham Law School Feerick Center for Social Justice, which recently released a report calling for a number of reforms to make the admissions process more fair.

CHERYL BADER
Rittenhouse’s Winning Strategy Rested on Tear-Filled Testimony
Bloomberg Law 11-19-21
Cheryl Bader, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Fordham University School of Law, said there didn’t appear to be any obvious errors in the state’s case.

CHERYL BADER
Rittenhouse verdict raises stakes in Arbery trial
SFGATE 11-20-21
Cheryl Bader, a former assistant U.S. attorney and a professor at Fordham University School of Law, said that while people of any race can claim self-defense, implicit bias means that race will inevitably factor into who can successfully claim it.

RICHARD M. STEUER
The congressional debate over antitrust: It’s about time
The Hill 11-20-21
Richard M. Steuer is an Adjunct Professor at Fordham Law School

ERIC YOUNG
Who Was Watching Over The CEO Of Activision Blizzard?
Forbes 11-22-21
Eric Young, a former chief compliance officer at a number of large global investment banks, and currently an adjunct professor for compliance at Fordham Law School, said about this matter, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

OLIVIER SYLVAIN
Hochul tops new poll
Politico 11-22-21
Olivier Sylvain will be senior adviser on technology to [FTC Chair Lina] Khan. He is a law professor at Fordham University and is considered a Section 230 expert.

CHERYL BADER
Table Topics: Oil Prices, Rittenhouse, and Ethical Debates
Player.fm 11-23-21
Cheryl Bader, clinical associate professor of law, Fordham

OLIVIER SYLVAIN
FTC Chair Lina M. Khan Announces New Appointments in Agency Leadership Positions
MyChesco.com 11-24-21
Olivier Sylvain will serve as Senior Advisor on Technology to the Chair. Sylvain joins the FTC from Fordham University where he has served as Professor of Law.

ZEPHYR TEACHOUT
‘I Want to Be a 21st-Century Trustbuster’: Zephyr Teachout on Her Run for A.G.
NY Mag 11-24-21
Teachout is currently a professor at Fordham Law School, where she specializes in constitutional and antitrust law.

BRUCE GREEN
Jan. 6 panel faces double-edged sword with Alex Jones, Roger Stone
The Hill 11-26-21
“Even people that have a tendency to lie in a lot of different contexts have strong motivation not to lie under oath because it puts them at risk,” said Bruce Green, a law professor at Fordham University and a former federal prosecutor.

BRUCE GREEN
Ahmaud Arbery trial shines a light on prosecutorial misconduct
DNYUZ 11-30-21
Bruce A. Green is the Louis Stein Chair at Fordham Law School, where he directs the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics.

BRUCE GREEN
10 Things in Politics: Kamala Harris’ Big Tech problem
Business Insider (subscription) 12-1-21
Bruce Green, who leads the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law School, said it would be “misleading or irresponsible” to make such a commitment.

JOEL COHEN
When a President Comments on a Pending Criminal Case
Law & Crime 12-1-21
He is the author of “Broken Scales: Reflections On Injustice” (ABA Publishing, 2017) and an adjunct professor at both Fordham and Cardozo Law Schools.

TANYA HERNANDEZ
A college law professor who teaches critical race theory worries that educators are living through another ‘Red Scare’
Business Insider 12-1-21
Tanya Katerí Hernández feels fortunate to be a tenured professor at Fordham University School of Law, a private Catholic institution in New York City that she said supports her teaching on critical race theory.

FORMER LAW SCHOOL FACULTY

ALISON NATHAN
Who Is Alison Nathan? Ghislaine Maxwell Trial Judge
Newsweek 11-29-21
From 2008 to 2009, she was a Fritz Alexander Fellow at New York University School of Law and before that, from 2006 to 2008, a visiting assistant professor of law at Fordham University Law School

ANNEMARIE MCAVOY
From Serious to Scurrilous, Some Jimmy Hoffa Theories
NewsNation USA 11-24-21
Former federal prosecutor and adjunct law professor at Fordham University Annemarie McAvoy discusses history and fascination of the Hoffa case.

GABELLI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS FACULTY

FRANK ZAMBERELLI
How does the Impact Index support sustainable fashion?
Sustainability.com 11-19-21
Frank Zambrelli, Executive Director of the Responsible Business Coalition at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business, says, ‘it is not a green light or a red light. It’s merely a platform. Nobody’s saying this is a better skirt than this one; we’re just saying, “This skirt was produced this way, with these certifications”’.

BARBARA PORCO
Companies Are Falling Short Measuring Environmental Performance Against Goals: Report
Forbes 12-2-21
As I wrote last month, “All elements of ESG reporting are really based on proper risk management,” according to Barbara Porco, director for the Center of Professional Accounting Practices at Fordham Business School.

LERZAN AKSOY
Aflac Lands Top-15 Spot on the 2021 American Innovation Index
PR Newswire 12-1-21
“The pandemic continues to challenge companies to adapt their business models at a faster rate than in normal times,” said Lerzan Aksoy, Ph.D., professor of marketing at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business.

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SERVICES FACULTY

Aging Behind Prison Walls
WFUV-FM 11-30-21
Tina Maschi, PhD, LCSW, ACSW Professor, Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service

ARTS & SCIENCES FACULTY

BRYAN MASSINGALE
Christians must develop an anti-racist spirituality, Mennonite authors argue
National Catholic Reporter 11-24-21
Among that year’s honorees was Fr. Bryan Massingale, who was then on the faculty of Marquette University in Milwaukee and now teaches at Fordham University in New York.

JACK WAGNER
In Their 80s, and Living It Up (or Not)
New York Times 11-26-21
Dr. Katharine Esty has the right idea. I am 85 and my wife is 80. I work out six times a week at my local gym, and I teach mathematics at Fordham University. We are fully vaccinated, including boosters.

KATHRYN REKLIS
Telling Native stories on TV
The Christian Century 11-19-21
Kathryn Reklis teaches theology at Fordham University and is codirector of the Institute for Art, Religion and Social Justice.

SHELLAE VERSEY
Forever Young: Seniors Dance in the Bronx
The Villiage Voice 11-24-21
“Even before COVID, we were already noticing the squeeze of gentrification on the social lives of older adults who were living in these communities,” Shellae Versey, an assistant professor of psychology at Fordham University, tells the Voice in a phone interview, referring to members of racial minority groups being priced out of their neighborhoods.

CHARLES CAMOSY
Takeaways from the USCCB’s General Assembly
National Catholic Register 11-20-21
To help shed some light on the broader scope of what happened in Baltimore, and the general assembly’s true significance, the Register spoke with Charles Camosy, a moral theologian at Fordham University;

CHRISTINA GREER
Eric Adams, off on the right foot
Marietta Daily Journal 11-20-21
The rubber’s yet to hit the road and I’ve written plenty already about my doubts and concerns about Adams and what Fordham University political science professor and my FAQ.NYC co-host Christina Greer calls his “nervous cop energy.”

CHRISTINA GREER
Thanksgiving is upon us
Amsterdam News 11-25-21
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University, the author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream,” and the co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC.

BRYAN MASSINGALE
Bryan Massingale wins social justice award from Paulist Center
The Christian Century 11-29-21
He currently teaches ethics at Fordham University, where he also serves as the senior ethics fellow for the school’s Center for Ethics Education.

ARISTOLTLE PAPANIKOLAOU
Jan. 6 panel faces double-edged sword with Alex Jones, Roger Stone
National Catholic Reporter 11-30-21
Looking ahead to the pope’s time in Cyprus and Greece, Aristotle Papanikolaou, co-director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University, told NCR that “the symbolism is key.”

CHRIS RHOMBERG
Fattest Profits Since 1950 Debunk Wage-Inflation Story of CEOs
Daily Magazine 11-30-21
“Workers may be tired of seeing the fruits of their labor go to corporations making record-breaking earnings,” Chris Rhomberg, a professor of sociology at Fordham University, said at that point. “The Deere workers evidently felt that the company could afford more.”

SARIT KATTAN GRIBETZ
Yeshiva University Museum Receives NEH Planning Grant
Yeshiva University 11-20-21
Additional consultants on the project are Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Associate Professor of Classical Judaism at Fordham University, who has particular expertise on the Jewish calendar and its development during the rabbinic period and on aspects of the calendar as they relate to the historical experience of Jewish women;

ASIF SIDDIQI
50 Years Ago, a Forgotten Mission Landed on Mars
Discover Magazine 12-1-21
“The Soviet space program was under a lot of pressure in the 1960s to achieve ‘firsts,’” says Asif Siddiqi, a Fordham University history professor who’s penned multiple books on the Soviet side of the space race.

DAISY DECAMPO
The Ethics of Egg Freezing and Egg Sharing
The Cut (subscription) 12-1-21
Daisy Deomampo, a medical anthropologist and associate professor at Fordham University who has researched donor egg markets.

NICHOLAS JOHNSON
School Board Finds Anti-2A Bias In Elementary School Textbook
Bearing Arms 12-1-21
As Fordham professor Nicholas Johnson brilliantly pointed out in his book Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms, the Second Amendment has long played a role in advancing the cause of freedom in the United States.

CHRISTINA GREER
December is upon us
New York Amsterdam News 12-2-21
Christina Greer, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Fordham University, the author of “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream,” and the co-host of the podcast FAQ-NYC.

FORMER ARTS & SCIENCES FACULTY

ROGER PANETTA
Houston highway project sparks debate over racial equity
MyNorthwest.com 11-23-21
Roger Panetta, a retired history professor at Fordham University in New York, said those opposing the I-45 project will have an uphill battle, as issues of racism and inequity have been so persistent in highway expansions that it “gets very difficult to dislodge.”

ATHLETICS

KYLE NEPTUNE
Early returns on the Kyle Neptune era at Fordham University positive
News12 New Jersey 11-19-21
The early returns on the Kyle Neptune era at Fordham University have been pretty positive.

Red Bulls Pick Up New Players In Super Draft
FirstTouchOnline.com 11-28-21
Janos Loebe, a German-born Fordham University product, will start to move from forward to attacking wingback, a key position on the field for New York.

ALUMNI

40 Under 40: Kyle Ciminelli, Ciminelli Real Estate Corp.
The Business Journals (subscription only) 11-19-21
[Kyle Ciminelli] Bachelor’s, finance, Fordham University; master’s, real estate and finance, New York University.

Devin Driscoll to Host Christmas Gathering
The Knoxville Focus 11-21-21
Devin Driscoll graduated from Catholic High School and went on to earn a degree from Fordham University.

Columnist Judith Bachman Captures The Spirit Of Sister Mary Eileen O’Brien, President Of Dominican College
Rockland County Business Journal 11-23-21
Sister O’Brien has dedicated herself to education for over 50 years. Sr. Mary Eileen earned a doctorate degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from Fordham University and holds a master’s degree in Adult and Higher Education from Teachers College of Columbia University and a master’s in Mathematics from Manhattan College.

Lacerta Therapeutics Appoints Min Wang, PhD, JD and Marc Wolff to its Board of Directors
BusinessWire 11-24-21
Dr. [Min] Wang received her PhD in Organic Chemistry from Brown University and a JD from Fordham University School of Law.

Teva Attorneys Leave Goodwin Procter For Greenberg Traurig
Law360.com (subscription) 11-24-21
He earned his law degree from Fordham University School of Law.

She went through foster care. Now she leads one of the oldest U.S. child welfare organizations.
MSNBC 11-29-21
[Kym Hardy] Watson, who holds degrees from Fordham University and Baruch College, CUNY, began her career in the 1980s after a summer job working with youth at St. Christopher’s Home.

FreedomCon 2021 – Native Lives Matter
Underground Railroad Education Center 11-27-21
[Loriv Quigly] earned her bachelor of arts in Journalism and Mass Communication from St. Bonaventure University, and a master of arts in Public Communication and Ph.D. in Language, Learning and Literacy from Fordham University.

The Hall case in the Poconos and malice in the US | Moving Mountains
Pocono Record 11-27-21
Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo holds a doctorate in Catholic Theology from Fordham University and authored a column on religion for the Washington Post from 2008-2012.

The Success Of Emmy Clarke, Both In And Out Of The Camera
The Washington Independent 11-29-21
[Emmy Clark] decided to attend Fordham University. She finished her studies in 2014 and received a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Media Studies.

Paraco’s CEO puts business lessons, family experiences in print
Westfair Communications Online (subscription) 11-19-21
…was born in Mount Vernon, the oldest of four sons He attended Fordham University, graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in…

Greenberg Traurig Further Strengthens Pharmaceutical, Medical Device & Health Care Practice
PR Newswire 11-19-21
In addition, [Glenn] Kerner has experience in complex commercial litigation, antitrust, real estate litigation, and other civil litigation. He has a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and a B.A. from Cornell University.

Three Universities Have Announced the Hiring of African Americans to Diversity Positions
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Ed 11-19-21
[Tiffany Smith] holds a master’s degree in education, specializing in counseling services, from Fordham University in New York.

President Biden nominates second out woman to federal appellate court
LGBTQ Nation 11-21-21
[Alison Nathan] has clerked in the Supreme Court and taught at Fordham Law School and NYU Law.

GOTS ramps up oversight on product claims in North America
HomeTextilesToday.com 11-22-21
[Travis Wells] earned his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) in Corporate Law from George Washington University Law School and his Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Global Sustainability and Finance from the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University.

Malcolm X’s 5 surviving daughters: Inside lives marred by tragedy and turmoil
New York Post 11-23-21
[IIyasah Shabazz] graduated from the elite Hackley School, obtained a bachelor’s degree from SUNY New Paltz and a master’s degree in human resources from Fordham University.

Michael R. Scoma is recognized by Continental Who’s Who
PR Newswire 11-24-21
From a young age, Dr. [Michael] Scoma knew he wanted to pursue a career helping others. He started off earning his Bachelor of Science from Fordham University.

STODDARD BOWL: 2021 game will honor the former greats, Maloney’s Annino and Platt’s Shorter
MyRecordJournal.com 11-24-21
After Platt, [Michael] Shorter did a post-grad year at Choate, where he was an All-New England running back, then went on to play four years at Fordham University, where he earned a degree in Economics.

Local performer returns to state with ‘Fiddler’
HometownSource.com 11-24-21
From there [Scott Willits] went to The Ailey School and Fordham University and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in dance in New York.

The Singer Who Calls Himself Sick Walt
Long Island City Journal 11-24-21
After graduating from Fordham University with a degree in communications and a minor in German and singing in a cover band, Sick Walt set out on a traditional (he means boring!) career path, taking what he calls a corporate “suit job” in a financial institution.

Aleksander Mici files to run for U.S. Senate
Bronx Times 11-24-21
[Aleksander] Mici, 46, is a practicing attorney with a law degree from Fordham Law School.

Robert Hughes
Citizens Journal 11-20-21
Bob [Robert Hughes] has a MA in economics from Fordham University and a BS in business from Lehigh University.

Grassroots solutions and farm fresh eggs
The Bronx Free Press 11-27-21
[Jack] Marth first connected with POTS when he was a Fordham University student in 1988, as he volunteered to help in the soup kitchen.

Suozzi enters governor’s race
The Daily Star 11-29-21
A graduate of Boston College and Fordham Law School,, [Thomas] Suozzi lives with his wife, Helen, in Nassau County.

Latino students succeed in graduate school with the support of the Hispanic Theological Initiative
FaithandLeadership.com 11-30-21
The Rev. Dr. Loida I. Martell recalls a critical, do-or-die moment she faced while pursuing a Ph.D. in theology from Fordham University.

Governor Hochul Announces 2021-2023 Fellows
Governor.ny.gov 11-30-21
[Shaquann Hunt] received a B.A. in Philosophy and Psychology from Colby College and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

With Graduate Degree She Worked At McDonald’s, She Now Owns Three
Patch.com 11-30-21
Just after Sara Natalino Amato received a graduate degree at Fordham University, she went to work at an Orange McDonald’s.

Lamont nominates Nancy Navarretta as Mental Health and Addiction Services Commissioner
Fox61.com 12-1-21
[Nancy Navaretta] earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Boston College, and a Master of Arts degree in clinical psychology from Fordham University.

United Way Board of Directors Appoints Four New Members
Patch.com 12-1-21
[Marjorie] De La Cruz was awarded the Fordham School of Law 25th Annual Corporate Counsel Award; Latino Justice 2019 Lucero Award and was featured in Hispanic Executive in March 2019.

Jasmine Trangucci, LCSW-R is Meritoriously Named a ‘Top Patient Preferred Psychotherapist’ Representing the State of New York for 2022!
DigitalJournal.com 12-2-21
[Jasmine Trangucci] then went on to complete her Master of Social Work degree at Fordham University in 2005.

Hamilton Re-Signs Anderson as General Manager
OurSportCentral.com 12-2-21
A 2006 graduate of Fordham University, [Jermaine] Anderson earned his Master of Business Administration from the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in September of 2019.

Hers Is a Filmmakers Festival
The East Hampton Star 12-2-21
Ms. [Jacqui] Lofaro grew up in Greenwich Village and graduated from Fordham University.

Connell Foley elects new managing partner
ROI-NJ 12-2-21
[Timothy] Corriston earned his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law and his B.A. from Hobart College. He also holds an LL.M. in environmental law from Pace University School of Law.

OBITUARY

Walter Miner Lowe, Jr.
Auburn Citizen (subscription) 11-24-21
Born in NYC, he was the son of late Walter Sr. and Florence Lowe. Walter was a 1958 graduate of Fordham University and an Army veteran serving his …

Denis Collins
Legacy.com 11-24-21
He graduated from Gonzaga High School in 1967, and attended Fordham University, with various mis-adventurous detours to Trinity College in Ireland, Talladega College in Alabama, and Stony Brook University in Long Island.

Sr. Marie Vincent Chiaravalle
Legacy.com 11-29-21
She attended St. Elizabeth Teacher College, Allegany, Fordham University in New York City and graduated from St. Bonaventure University, Allegany, with a bachelor of science degree in education.

Frank J. Messmann III
The Enterprise 11-26-21
He received a doctorate from Fordham University.

Roderick Dowling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 11-28-21
He received his law degree from Fordham Law School as the President of his class in 1965, paying for his tuition through multiple jobs as a waiter, lifeguard, and a Fordham scholarship.

Mary Waddell
The Atlanta-Journal 12-1-21
Mary was born in Manhattan, New York to James and Anna McHugh McGuinness on August 18, 1927. She attended St. Barnabas High School in the Bronx and graduated from Fordham University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry before joining the global headquarters of the New York City-based public relations firm Carl Byoir & Associates.

This conversation is more critical than ever, said keynote speaker, Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society. In the wake of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal, it is important to recognize that sexuality has a sacred meaning in each religion.

“I want to draw your attention to how very human forces, male and female, interact with each other in the imaginative creation of worlds of faith, worlds of spirituality,” Father Ryan said. “How, in particular, do our understandings of human sexuality color how those of us who are Jews, Christians, and Muslims think about God?”

The Bible says that God created Adam, the first human being, as both male and female. (Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs.) This duality continues to be found in all aspects of life, including marriage, Father Ryan said. It can also be seen in male and female images in the Book of Genesis and the Song of Songs. But one of the most important texts in Judaism, the Zohar, takes a step further and suggests that humanity itself “mirrors and magnifies the Lord God,” he said.  

In the same vein, Christian texts show spirituality through sexuality. For example, an autobiography by Saint Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century Christian mystic and writer, portrays the soul and God as passionate lovers, Father Ryan said. She uses graphic imagery to show the angelic piercing of her heart with the spear of God’s love: “When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them  [her entrails]out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love for God.”

The Quran also denotes spirituality through sexual language, he said. The basmalah blessing, which begins every chapter of the Quran but one, uses words that associate “the mercy of God” with a mother’s womb.

“To connect the mercy of God with a feminine physical characteristic is to understand God’s perfection as including all that is most tender in created reality, including the generative and loving characteristics of others,” Father Ryan said.

Although much of the main lecture focused on heterosexual love, respondent Amir Hussain, Ph.D., professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University, took a detour from the night’s discourse to reflect on the dangers faced by the LGBTQ community.

“I think of Islamic psychologists from Los Angeles, where I live, who worry about losing their license if they are anything but heteronormative,” he said. “And I wonder how we got to that place where we can hate people for the love that God has put between them.”

For Hussain, it’s a personal issue, as he was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto during the “plague years” of the ’80s, when he said he attended one too many funerals for his friends who died of HIV and AIDS.

“We have to speak out when our gay, lesbian, queer, trans, and bisexual brothers and sisters are threatened,” Hussain said. “We have to lift up the work and voices of LGBTQ scholars and activists, such as Scott Kugle at Emory University, who remind us of the inherent dignity of all of us—regardless of our sexuality.”

The scholar who delivered the Jewish response, Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology at Fordham, compared two Biblical texts from the Old Testament: Song of Songs and Ezekiel 16. Both stories use the metaphor of a romantic partnership to show God’s relationship with Israel, she said. Only one relationship is healthy though, while the other is marred by manipulation and abuse.

Gribetz’s juxtapositions were often stark. In Song of Songs, the narrator portrays a romantic relationship between a man (God) and a woman (Jerusalem as the spouse of the Lord). Gribetz described the scenes that unfold between the lovers: “A series of kisses, love described as sweeter than wine, fragrant oils, and secluded chambers.”

Ezekiel 16, by contrast, takes a tragic turn. In it, God (a man) saves the people of Jerusalem (a woman) from slavery in Egypt, but is betrayed by the very people he rescues. The text is fraught with dark imagery: an unbathed newborn lying in the blood of her after-birth, nakedness, suffering, and violent threats.

But in these two texts, there is something to be said about humanity, Gribetz said. The stories paint a realistic portrait of the possible intersections among sexuality, spirituality, and love of God—both positive and negative.

“I chose to share with you this evening not only the positive but also the negative, not only the benevolent but also the malevolent, to highlight the empowering dimensions of religious texts, but also to acknowledge those parts of our traditions that are most problematic,” Gribetz said.

“So that we can imagine and construct together models of partnership—human and divine—that are based on mutual love and consent, rather than abuse of power and violation of dignity.”

Photos by Bruce Gilbert

Six distinguished faculty members were honored on March 13 for their achievements in securing externally funded research grants at the third annual Sponsored Research Day on the Rose Hill campus.

The University Research Council and Office of Research presented the Outstanding Externally Funded Research Awards (OEFRA) to recognize the high quality and impact of the honorees’ sponsored research within the last three years and how their work has enhanced Fordham’s reputation—both nationally and globally.

Faculty were honored in five separate categories and were given awards by Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., interim provost, associate vice president, and associate chief academic officer.

Humanities: George Demacopoulos, Ph.D., professor of theology and the Father John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies, and Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., professor of theology and the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture

Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, co-directors of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center, shared the award for the Humanities category. Demacopoulos has received awards totaling $928,000 in the past three years, while Papanikolaou has received a total of $888,000. Last April, they secured two grants totaling $610,000 that will be used to fund a multiyear research project devoted toward the issue of human rights.

Interdisciplinary Research: Su-Je Cho, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Childhood Special Education at the Graduate School of Education.

Cho, an expert in the field of special education, has received two external grants totaling more than $2.7 million from the U.S. Department of Education and other foundations in the past three years. Her interdisciplinary project will produce approximately 40 professionals in special education and school psychology, which are the greatest shortage areas in the field of education.

Junior Faculty Research: Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology

Gribetz has received six external grants totaling $55,000 from the prestigious National Endowment for Humanities and other foundations in the past three years. Her research focuses on the history of time in antiquity and the important role that religious traditions and practices have played in the history of time. In 2017, she received the Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise, alongside nine other young scholars, from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

Sciences: Steven Franks, Ph.D., Professor in Biological Sciences

Franks has received five grants totaling more than $5.3 million from the National Science Foundation in the past three years. The results of the studies funded by these grants have been published in 17 peer-reviewed scientific publications since 2016. The papers, which are in high impact journals such as Evolution, Molecular Ecology, and American Journal of Botany, have been widely cited. His work has helped to advance our understanding of responses of plant populations to climate change and the genetic basis of these responses.

Social Sciences: Janna Heyman, Ph.D., Professor of Social Service and Endowed Chair of the Henry C. Ravazzin Center on Aging and Intergenerational Studies at the Graduate School of Social Service

Heyman, who is also director of Fordham’s Children & Families Institute center, has received 10 grants totaling more than $3 million from a variety of external foundations in the past three years. Last year, she co-edited, along with Graduate School of Social Service Associate Dean Elaine Congress, D.S.W, Health and Social Work: Practice, Policy and Research (Springer, 2018). She has taught social work research, advanced research, and social welfare policy courses in Fordham’s master of social work program, as well as policy implementation in the doctoral social work program.

Organized by the Office of Research and the University Research Council and sponsored by the University Research Compliance Council and the Office of Sponsored Programs, the daylong event featuring a keynote speech by Denise Clark, Ph.D., Associate Vice President for Research Administration, University of Maryland at College Park.

A forum of science researchers featured Thomas Daniels, Ph.D., director of the Louis Calder Center, Deborah Denno, Ph.D, director of the Neuroscience and Law Center, Silvia Finnemann, Ph.D., director of the Center for Cancer, Genetic Diseases, and Gene Regulation, J.D. Lewis, director of the Urban Ecology Center, Amy Roy, Ph.D., director of the Pediatric Emotion Regulation Lab, and Falguni Sen, Ph.D., director of the Global Healthcare Innovation Management Center.

But this concept of authority and impartiality, according to Patrick J. Ryan, S.J., evolved a great deal over the years. In “Judging Justly: Judgment in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Traditions,” Father Ryan, Fordham’s Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, explored how Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths contributed to that idea through their own unique traditions.

He framed his discussion of judgment with the tragic story of how three High Court judges in Ghana were murdered in 1982 precisely because they had given judicial redress to people convicted by a kangaroo court under a military regime.

In remarks delivered on March 28 and March 29 as part of the annual Spring McGinley Lecture,

Father Ryan delved into examples from scripture that illustrated how the faithful have struggled with concepts such as mercy and justice. In the Book of Genesis, he noted that God, whom Jews regard as the supreme judge, had a “crowded docket”: Weighing in on the fratricide of Cain, and condemning the corrupt and violent contemporaries of Noah yet sparing the ark-builder and his family.

In Christian scripture, he recalled an account in the Gospel of John, where Jesus is confronted by “the scribes and the Pharisees” asking him to judge a woman caught in the act of adultery. Jesus play-acted the role of judge, writing on the ground, and finally declaring, Jesus’ declaration “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” illustrates the importance of impartiality and fairness.

“When Jesus finally rises from his play-acting, he finds that all the guilty accusers of the woman have departed, ‘one by one, beginning with the elders,’” Father Ryan said.

“One possible reason that the placement of this Gospel passage in the New Testament has proven so problematic may be that the discipline of the early church, in cases of adultery, was much less merciful than that of Jesus.”    *       

In Islam, as in Christianity and Judaism, God is also the ultimate judge, he said. His command and judgment are closely associated with the commands and judgments issued by the Messenger, the Prophet Muhammad. That practice continued after Muhammad’s death via judges who were concretized as the caliphs’ appointees in the Sunni tradition from the seventh to at least the 13th century, and the appointees of the imams in the Shi‘i tradition.

A qadi, or judge in the Sunni Muslim tradition, was appointed by the caliphs in the seventh century, and gradually began to exercise judicial functions in the eighth century, said Father Ryan. When the Turkish government suppressed the caliphate in 1924, however, a central religious-political institution was lost. Since then, Muslim judges are often appointed by national or regional governments. This has led to some controversial rulings in Nigeria, in particular, he noted, involving the amputation of hands for sheep-stealing, as well as overly zealous accusations of adultery against women based on circumstantial evidence only.

“Better trained Muslim judges, with expertise in comparative law and a broader vision of Islamic jurisprudence, can be found in many of the Gulf States,” he said. “But there have been highly problematic judgments handed down by judges, not only in northern Nigeria but also in Saudi Arabia and Egypt in recent decades.”

Respondents to Father Ryan’s lecture included Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology at Fordham, and Ebru Turan, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Fordham. Gribetz highlighted two passages from Genesis Rabbah and the Babylonian Talmud and one from the Torah that illustrate the ongoing debate between mercy and justice in God’s mind. God is compared to a king who holds up two empty cups and notes that they will crack when filled with cold water and burst when filled with hot water. The temperatures are stand-ins for too much mercy and too much justice.

“[They] represent radical extremes-order and chaos, suffocating restriction and unbounded freedom. Each on their own is assumed to be too dangerous—so dangerous that it will shatter, crack or deform the world,” she said.

Turan further developed Father Ryan’s history of how the role of judge developed historically in the Muslim tradition. The Ottoman Empire, from the 13th to the early 20th century, developed a system of training legal scholars for such posts. With the break-up of the Ottoman Empire after 1918, modern Turkey appoints judges with a much more secular orientation.

Father Ryan said offered three conclusions from the faith traditions’ experiences with justice:

-Judges need protection from manipulative politicians, established ruling classes, and populist demagogues. He cited as examples the Roman-dominated Hebrew sanhedrins, Pope Urban II commanding Christian knights to go on Crusade, and modern “Muslim muftis” who “declare every military adventure of a Middle Eastern dictator a jihad.”

-Judges should have excellent legal credentials, a deep understanding of the law in their own tradition, and a sense of comparative law. There is no room in the courtroom for mediocre judges.

-Judges benefit from differences in legal opinion, or “ikhtilaf,” an Islamic concept being promoted by movements concerned with the status of Muslim women. This contrasts with the generally approved idea of Islamic  legal consensus, or “ijma,” relied on by Orthodox Jews, Catholic Christians, and the various Eastern Christian Churches.

Valentina Izmirlieva, Ph.D., chair of the department of Slavic languages at Columbia University, came across the history while conducting research on the phenomenon of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire who adopted and adapted their Muslim neighbors’ custom of undertaking a pilgrimage, or hajj. These Christian pilgrims traveled not to Mecca but to Jerusalem. Upon return to their homes, those who completed the trip were given the honorific title of hajji—one who has completed the hajj— which conferred respect and permitted them a privileged position within their own communities and among their Muslim neighbors, even as religious minorities.

Historians of the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire have long been familiar with the Christian hajjis, Izmirlieva said. But, like so many aspects of history, the Christian hajj has been understood as an exclusively male endeavor.

“You may ask: How come no one noticed these women before? It’s partly because the available hajji sources hide their women well,” said Izmirlieva, whose work focuses on religious and cultural exchange in the Ottoman Balkans. “In short, recovering these traces, and the experiences they stand for, is a laborious task of cultural archeology that requires much archival digging and then some creative detective work. But most of the problem lies elsewhere, in a disciplinary inertia: No one really expects these women to be there—so no one has been looking for them.”

Through painstaking research, Izmirlieva uncovered the existence of dozens of women—grandmothers, wives, pregnant women, teenage girls—in the beginning of the 19th century alone, who traveled with their husbands and sons. By the later part of the century the arduous trip had been simplified by steam ships and reduced taxes, and the number of hajjis, male and female, skyrocketed. There is documentary evidence of women making the Christian hajj as early as 1682, but by the early-19^th century the family journeys had taken on a distinctly feminine cast, Izmirlieva said.

These women travelers visited many sites in Jerusalem pertaining to Mary, mother of Jesus, in the hopes of boosting fertility and solidifying a connection to the life of Christ. They became conduits of the sacredness of Jerusalem to their families and communities, Izmirlieva said. On the months- and years-long hajj, it fell to the mothers to enforce orthodoxy—to make sure their families prayed at the correct times and observed the appropriate rituals, even in foreign places. When they returned home, their social status had changed. Even a young wife, she said, generally a person of little respect and subject to the authority of her mother-in-law, was now addressed with deference, called hajji even by old men. By distributing to churches, monasteries, and extended family the relics and Holy Land mementos the family had spent most of its money to acquire, the mama hajji burnished the family’s reputation. She also positioned her sons to be respected members of the community, ready to step into positions of secular leadership when the Balkan nations gained independence from the Ottomans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Izmirlieva believes the “hajji mama” story is worth considering during the current moment of heightened nationalism and fraught interaction between Christians and Muslims because it offers a historical example of successful interaction and negotiation between cultures.

“We think of coexistance of groups in two polar opposite models: It’s either clash of civilizations or a ‘Kumbaya’ model of erasing difference. In reality it’s more complicated. It’s in the middle,” she said.

Fordham history professor Ebru Turan, Ph.D., offered a response focusing on the geopolitical antecedents and implications of the Christian hajj. She wondered how Balkan Muslims, watching their own empire fade as Christian European nations expanded their political and economic influence in Jerusalem, felt about their Christian neighbors appropriating the title of hajji. “To what extent were the new hajji part of the general European, Christian expansion into Jerusalem?” Turan asked. “What did the Muslim neighbors think, seeing Christian merchants usurp this title and come home with all this status?”

Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., a Fordham theology professor, offered a response focusing on the biblical language used to describe Jerusalem as a woman, a mother, a grieving princess. She recounted the ancient queens who ruled the city and the female philanthropists—from St. Helen, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine and founder of the true cross, to early modern heiresses—who funded the preservation of historic sites. She argued the mama hajji story is but one in a history of Jerusalem as a city of women. Kattan Gribetz praised Izmirlieva for uncovering a piece of women’s history and providing a fuller and more accurate picture of a period and a society.

“The project of recovery is part of a larger historiographical effort to repopulate the histories we write, and the stories we tell, with those who were there, and who played important roles, but who were left out of the narrative,” Kattan Gribetz said.

–Eileen Markey

Eric Daryl Meyer, GSAS ’14, has been offered a position as an assistant professor of theology at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. Since fall 2015, he’s been working as a post-doctoral fellow at Loyola Marymount University.

Emily Cain, GSAS ’16, has been offered a position as an assistant professor of theology at Loyola University Chicago. For the past year, she has been working as a visiting professor there.

Paul Schutz, who will graduate in August, has been offered a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University.

Department of Theology Chair J. Patrick Hornbeck, D.Phil., said the appointments demonstrate that Fordham is instilling in students the skills that other institutions of higher learning are looking for in their own professors. Cain’s appointment is especially notable, as she is the first theology doctoral student in at least a decade to be invited to join another Ph.D.-granting department.

Although sought-after areas of theology wax and wane over time (scholars of Islam were in demand after 9/11, and recently there was a high demand for scholars of Buddhism), Hornbeck said, the department has deliberately focused its resources on five distinct areas: The Bible, Christianity in antiquity, the history of Christianity, systematic theology, and theological and social ethics.

He said that doctoral students also receive guidance from Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., an assistant professor of theology who has served as a jobs placement officer since 2015.

“As someone who is relatively close to the academic job market herself, she brings recent real-world experience and a tremendous amount of infectious enthusiasm for the good of each of our students,” Hornbeck said. “She mentors them individually, from the beginning of the academic year to when they begin applying to academic institutions outside of Fordham, and all the way through the end of the process.”

Finally, Hornbeck noted that national data shows that equal numbers of Ph.D. graduates in theology and religious studies now go from a doctoral program into a post-doctoral fellowship, visiting position, or some other full-time opportunity as move directly into a tenure track position. With that in mind the department has doubled its efforts to track and advertise such openings.

On average, the department confers doctoral degrees on seven students each academic year. In recent years, graduates have received full-time appointments at at Purdue University, Bucknell University, and several small Catholic colleges and seminaries.

But Kattan Gribetz had come across a curious fact: Many Koreans read the Talmud.

Kattan Gribetz had seen a news article and one television clip on the Talmud’s immense popularity in Korea. On a whim, she ordered copies of the Korean translation, even though she didn’t speak or read the language.

As chance would have it, Kim went to Kattan Gribetz’s office to pick up a paper from class, and Kattan Gribetz asked her if she had ever heard of the Korea-Talmud connection. Kim, who grew up in Southern California and went to a Korean school on the weekends, said she told her professor that the perception of popularity must be overblown.

Later that day, however, she called her mother and asked if she had heard of the Talmud.

“She told me that everyone in Korea has a copy of the Talmud, though she didn’t realize it was a religious text,” said Kim.

Thus began a two-year research project of translating and comparing the Korean versions to the Babylonian Talmud and other ancient rabbinic texts.

The project was fostered through the University’s Undergraduate Research Program (LINK). Together, Kim and Kattan Gribetz attended two conferences in two countries and produced a paper, “The Talmud in Korea: A Study in the Reception of Rabbinic Literature,” that will soon be published by the Association for Jewish Studies Review.

Along the way, Kim said the project also brought her closer to her parents and her culture.

“I called them a lot more because I had so many questions about certain words or nuances I couldn’t pick up on, because I wasn’t born and raised in Korea,” said Kim. “I pride myself on being a part of two different cultures, but this was definitely a wakeup call; there are a lot of things I don’t know about Korea.”

Kattan Gribetz said their research explored the roundabout journey of the Korean Talmud. In the late 1960s, Rabbi Marvin Tokayer, who had been stationed in Tokyo and Seoul as a chaplain with U.S. Air Force earlier in his career, returned to Japan as a rabbi.  There, a Japanese historian convinced him that a translation of the Talmud could be popular in Japan because people were curious about Judaism and Jewish history. In his book, Tokayer dispensed with the Talmud’s specifically Jewish laws and rules, and focused on themes that would resonate with a Japanese audience, such as hospitality, education, and kindness.

At some point, said Kattan Gribetz, Tokayer’s highly edited anthology of Talmudic stories found its way into a Korean translation. Illustrations and aphorisms were added, making the Korean version closer to Aesop’s Fables than to the rabbinic texts with which most Jews would be familiar.

“It’s strange that there’s such a small connection between the Babylonian Talmud and these books, and we were curious to see who was writing them and where they came from,” said Kim.

The two read through dozens of Korean versions and presented their findings at the 2016 international conference of the Society of Biblical Literature—which happened to be taking place in Seoul, South Korea. This past December they presented the research again in Kim’s hometown of San Diego at the Association for Jewish Studies conference.

“I couldn’t read the text without Claire, and she didn’t know enough about rabbinic sources to connect the two,” said Kattan Gribetz. “Ours was the perfect collaboration.”

Kim, who double majored in English and art history, graduated on Feb. 1. She is now interning in the education department at the Guggenheim Museum and at the Asian American Arts Alliance. She said the project was a highlight of her time at Fordham.

“I know that it is rare for a university professor to be working with an undergraduate student on a research project like this, as well as to continue fostering me through submitting the article after graduation,” she said. “Being able to experience all of it with Dr. Kattan Gribetz and my parents was just lovely.”

But it’s just the sort of portrayal found in the Toledot Yeshu texts, Jewish narratives from the medieval and early modern periods that tell the story of Jesus’ life with a Jewish—and anti-Christian—twist.

Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., an assistant professor of theology, is researching these stories and believes that doing so can help foster interfaith dialogue and understanding. She said that, given the hostile climate in which Jews lived during the medieval period, the stories represent a textual response from a community frequently under physical or ideological threat.

“It’s often difficult to look at the histories of our traditions and identify where our narratives may have been offensive to others, but I think it’s important to acknowledge that such difficult moments existed in order to work toward more meaningful understanding and cooperation between Jews, Christians, and Muslims,” she said.

Some of the stories found in Toledot Yeshu don’t appear in the New Testament but do appear in Christian infancy gospels and the Qur’an, she said. One tale, for example, features a young Jesus transforming clay figures of birds into living creatures.

“Those who composed these editions of Toledot Yeshu don’t deny these miracles, rather they present them as an illicit form of magic,” said Kattan Gribetz. “Miracles are part of the way medieval Jews and Christians experienced and thought of the world. But the way that Jews refuted them was to say that Jesus’ miracles were the wrong kind of magic.”

In the texts, Jesus’ miracles take on a sinister twist, with the young prophet stealing the Tetragrammaton, the name of God, from the Jewish temple. He then cuts his thigh open, inserts the name into his wound, and escapes from the temple undetected. It is the Tetragrammaton, the text claims, that allows him to perform the illicit magic.

“In Toledot Yeshu, Jesus animates the birds on the Sabbath, so he’s also violating the holy day, another critique of his behavior,” she said.

Similarly, in some versions of Toledot Yeshu, Judas likewise steals the name of God and then challenges Jesus to an aerial battle. The two fly up into the sky and try to outdo one another’s magical abilities.

By the eighth or ninth centuries, the earliest versions of Toledot Yeshu had become a comprehensive story of Jesus’ life from birth to death, said Kattan Gribetz.

“It draws, as folklore often does, on traditions and ideas circulated orally and in written form in communities,” she said. “No one knows exactly where the earliest versions of the stories were written, or by whom.”

The texts of Toledot Yeshu, written at first in Aramaic and Hebrew, were translated into Latin, German, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Persian, and Yiddish.  Some of the latest manuscripts resemble long-form novellas.

“They served different functions in each case that they were written and told,” she said. “But one of the reasons, in my opinion, is that Jews were attracted to Christianity, and retelling these stories was an effective strategy to convince Jews not to convert to the Christian faith.”

As a scholar of religion, Kattan Gribetz said she approaches the text more as a historian than as a theologian. Although she recognizes that her work can be controversial, she remains steadfast that it’s work that needs to be done.

“It’s not uncontroversial to write about a text that doesn’t portray Jews in the most positive light, poking fun at the beliefs of their Christian neighbors,” she said. “But a deeper historical perspective, one that takes into account both uplifting and challenging moments of religious diversity and conflict, is necessary if we are to work towards creating a more religiously tolerant society.”

Time is also the focus of a dissertation by Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Ph.D., that has won the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. Kattan Gribetz, an assistant professor in the Department of Theology, is a scholar of ancient Judaism and rabbinic literature, texts written between 200 and 600 C.E. in Roman Palestine and Sasanian Babylonia.  Her research examines how the ancient rabbis sought to distinguish Jewish rhythms of time from Roman time.

Even though they lived under Roman rule in the first centuries of the common era (C.E.), Jews used a different calendar. Romans organized their time according to a solar calendar and, instead of a week, they had a “nundial cycle” of nine days. Jews used a lunar calendar and a seven-day week with a weekly day of rest on the Sabbath. Jews started their days at sundown, while the Romans started their days at midnight.

Yet, Jews needed to work with the Roman calendar for practical reasons even as they sought to distinguish their beliefs.

“One of the big questions that my work asks is: how do people structure time to create commonality, and how do people structure time to create difference?” Gribetz said.

For example, rabbinic laws mandated when Jews could and could not engage with other Romans. For three days before major Roman festivals, Jews were discouraged from participating in any form of business transactions with their Roman neighbors.  The rabbis feared that they might inadvertently join in the celebrations.

“The [rabbinic]idea was to create communal boundaries between themselves and their neighbors,” she said. She compared it to someone abstaining from shopping during the holiday season so as not to participate in the Christmas festivities.

Jewish texts went well beyond avoiding Roman festivals; they also provided stories about the origins of the Roman calendar.

Some texts reinterpreted stories about Roman festivals, inserting Jews into the stories to make sense of the celebrations, said Gribetz. One narrative explains that the Roman festival commemorating Rome’s expansion in the East came about because the Jewish King Solomon married an Egyptian princess and practiced idolatry. As a result, the angel Michael stuck a reed into a “muddy alluvial deposit,” out of which emerged the geological foundations of the city of Rome.

“The rabbinic story goes on to explain that each time an Israelite king sinned, another part of Rome was built,” said Gribetz. “This sort of narrative blames the Jews for the political and military success of the empire that had conquered them, claiming that idolatrous Roman festivals were a direct result of past Jews’ sins of idolatry.”

These stories served as warnings to ancient Jews not to participate in the festivals because of the “cosmic effects” such participation might have on the course of history. But the stories also had a counterintuitive effect: they inserted the Jewish past into Roman history and made Jews integral members of the Roman Empire.

“It claimed that the Israelite kings were responsible for the founding of Rome!”

Along with rabbis, Christian bishops also expressed concerns about Roman festivals. On January 1, 404 C.E., the Roman New Year, St. Augustine addressed a congregation at Carthage for several hours while the New Year’s celebrations raged nearby.

“He warned his congregants not to leave the cathedral and join the rituals and festivities with the non-Christian Romans, but rather he told them to mark the time through prayer and piety,’” she said. “It was a way to cultivate a Christian identity distinct from other Romans.” The rabbis also warned against celebrating the festival, to which they refer by its Latin name, the Kalends of January.

“January 1 was a day on which Christians, Jews, and other Romans discussed what it meant to be a Christian, a Jew, and so on,” said Gribetz. “Eventually, once the Roman Empire fully Christianized, January 1 became a Christian holiday.”

Beneath the philosophical arguments was a deeply personal connection to the discussion, via the bloodshed that engulfed Ireland a century ago.

In Making War, Making Peace: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Attitudes, Patrick J. Ryan, SJ, the Laurence J. McGinley Professor of Religion and Society, explored the ways in which Judaism, Christianity and Islam balance the  fraught issue of when people have a right to wage war, and when not.

Divine Authorization

Regarding war in ancient Israel, Father Ryan said that Israel’s faith centered not only on liberation from bondage but also on divinely authorized territoriality. This meant the settlement of Abraham’s descendants in erez Yisrael, “the land of Israel.”

At the same time, Father Ryan said that Jewish faith also embraces a vision of God who has compassion not only for the people of Israel but also for their enemies. In the Talmud, God admonishes angels celebrating the Exodus, saying of the dying Egyptians, “My handiwork is drowning in the sea. Would you utter a song before me?”

Christian Principles for Just War

In the 5th century, Augustine was the first Christian theologian to develop a concept of just war, said Father Ryan. Medieval definition of just war, however, sometimes involved a certain “fatal subjectivity,” especially when Crusaders took up arms to fight Muslims as a form not of war but of doing penitential pilgrimage for their sins.

Thomas Aquinas offered three principles to define just war in the 13th century, said Father Ryan. One principle, “rightful intention,” presumed that just wars avenge injuries inflicted, a principle that is vulnerable to immense possibilities for misuse.

Father Ryan also quoted Aquinas to the effect that sometimes “‘war is declared by a legitimate authority and for a just cause, but is nevertheless rendered unlawful through a wicked intention.’”

As examples of wicked intentions and the wicked actions that flow from them, Father Ryan pointed to “enhanced interrogations” by the CIA in 2002 and the water boarding and sexual humiliation of enemy combatants by U.S. army personnel at Abu Ghraib in 2004, as well as the deployment of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The Meaning of Jihad

Regarding Islamic faith, Father Ryan disputed the notion that jihad means “holy war.” Jihad originally denoted “struggle,” especially the struggle to recuperate what was lost when the prophet Muhammad and his companions had to leave Mecca for Medina. Jihad cannot justify terrorist violence, nor is it ever to be waged against fellow Muslims, as is done by ISIS.

Father Ryan singled out Bacha Khan, a 20th-century Pushtun from Pakistan, as the greatest Muslim pacifist struggler of the past century. Inspired by Mahatma Gandhi, Khan formed an unarmed Pashtun Muslim militia that practiced non-violence even when confronted with lethal force by the British in India.

Respondents to Father Ryan’s lecture included Sarit Kattan Gribetz, assistant professor of theology at Fordham, and Mehnaz Afridi, assistant professor of religious studies at Manhattan College. Professor Gribetz spoke about the homelessness war so often produces, citing the example of her own father’s lonely departure from Baghdad for Israel at the age of 8. Professor Afridi, a Muslim specialist on the Holocaust, spoke of the way Holocaust victims have tried to cope with the horrors of war they have experienced and have even thought of themselves as waging war to make peace.

A Family Narrative on the 100th Anniversary of the Irish Republic

Father Ryan began and ended his lecture with a family narrative about war and peace dating back to the Irish struggle for independence a hundred year ago. Because of wrongs inflicted against the Irish under British rule, the leaders of the 1916 Easter uprising argued that their struggle was just, said Father Ryan. They ascribed to the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic what Aquinas called “the authority of a ruler.”

“Both making war and making peace are arduous tasks,” Ryan contended. To illustrate this he detailed the history of a father in Tipperary taken hostage in the Irish war of independence by Harry Biggs, a much-hated British District Inspector, in retaliation against the father’s two IRA sons.

Biggs was ambushed and killed while driving on a country road on May 14th, 1921. A civilian passenger was also killed by accident—Winifred Barrington, the 25-year-old daughter of local British settler gentry. The man who killed Biggs, said Father Ryan, was the older son of the hostage Biggs had maltreated.

Elected to Dail Eireann in the subsequently created Irish Free State, the man who shot Biggs refused to take the required oath of allegiance to the King. Emigrating to New York in 1929, he married and started a family, but died in 1944, just after his 45th birthday.

Father Ryan concluded his presentation with a prayer for the dead. “May the souls of the signers of the Proclamation executed a century ago this spring, the souls of Winifred Barrington and Harry Biggs, and the soul of the man who shot Biggs in May 1921—my father, Paddy Ryan ‘Lacken’—rest at long last in peace.”