Memory and Hope

This book tackles the core problem of how painful historical memories between diverse religious communities continue to impact--even poison--present-day relations. Its operative notion is the healing of memory, developed by John Paul II. Chapters explore how painful memories of yesteryear can be healed and so address some of the root causes. Strategies from six different faith traditions are brought together in what is, in some ways, a cross-religious brainstorming session that identifies tools to improve present-day relations.

At the other pole of the conceptual axis of this book is the notion of hope. If memory informs our past, hope sets the horizon for our future. How does the healing of memory open new horizons for the future? And what is the notion of hope in each of our traditions that could lead to a common vision of good?

Between memory and hope, this book seeks to offer a vision of healing that can serve as a resource in contemporary interfaith relations.

Contributors:
Rahuldeep Singh Gill, Alon Goshen-Gottstein, Maria Reis Habito, Flora A. Keshgegian, Anantanand Rambachan, Meir Sendor, Muhammad Suheyl Umar, and Michael von Bruck

""A great and often-neglected human challenge is how to manage individual collective memories of wrongs suffered and committed. World religions face the challenge, too, as violence has marked their internal and external relations. This book, unique in many ways, contains rich resources drawn from diverse world religions for figuring out how to remember rightly and hope boldly in a violent world.""
--Miroslav Volf, Yale University, author of The End of Memory: Remembering Rightly in a Violent World

ALON GOSHEN-GOTTSTEIN is founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute. A noted scholar of Jewish studies, he has held academic posts at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University and has served as director of the Center for the Study of Rabbinic Thought, Beit Morasha College, Jerusalem.