RRC Receives $300,000 From Henry Luce Foundation for Interfaith Education | July 19, 2007

Wyncote, PA, July 18 — The Reconstructionist Rabbinical College has received a $300,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support a unique and comprehensive initiative to improve understanding among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

The three-year grant—the first major award from the foundation to a rabbinical school for interfaith work—will allow RRC to put in place a groundbreaking program for interfaith education critically needed to address religious divisiveness in the post-9/11 world. The RRC program, unmatched by any other Jewish seminary, also will enable the rabbinical school to deepen its 20-year commitment to interfaith education.

“RRC has made this openness to other faiths and to other views a foundational element in the curriculum,” said Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, president and alumnus of the college. “The Luce Foundation grant will help us grow our work in this important area and allow us to fulfill one of our core missions—to ensure that all of our graduates have the capacity to collaborate with their peers of other faiths.”

Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Ph.D., director of RRC’s religious studies program and a 1982 gradate of the college, will lead the interfaith initiative. “I have believed for a number of years that it is a moral imperative for our students to understand the tenets not only of their own religion, but also of the religions of others who live in the communities where they lead and serve. The events of 9/11 only heightened my convictions. Now, as religious extremism raises fear and distrust in even liberal communities, it is imperative that we redouble our efforts.”

RRC was the first—and for many years the only—rabbinical school to require its students to take courses in other religious traditions. The requirement reflects the Reconstructionist movement’s philosophy that no religion, including Judaism, has a monopoly on the interpretation of religious truth.

The effort will have three major goals: to develop new models for training RRC students and other seminarians to engage with peers of other faiths; to infuse interfaith understanding into the culture of RRC through courses, programs and seminars; and to share our work with leaders of other seminaries.

Henry Luce, the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Time Inc., created the Henry Luce Foundation in 1936. Higher education and religion and theology have been persistent areas of focus for the foundation.

RRC is the rabbinical training institution of the Reconstructionist Judaism movement. Founded in 1968, the rabbinical college is a fully accredited academic institution that offers a five- to six-year curriculum leading to a master’s degree in Hebrew letters and the title of rabbi.

Contact: Gerald S. Cohen
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