Rabbi Irving (Yitz) Greenberg, the President of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, will be the featured speaker on February 8, 2005 at the ICJS public event. He served as Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council from 2000 until 2002, and has written extensively on the theory and practice of pluralism and on the theology of Jewish-Christian relations. From 1974 through 1997, he served as founding president of CLAL -- The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, a pioneering institution in the development of adult and leadership education in the Jewish community and the leading organization in intra-Jewish religious dialogue and the work of Jewish unity.

During his ICJS lecture Rabbi Greenberg will discuss his book For the Sake of Heaven and Earth: The New Encounter be-tween Judaism and Christianity (Jewish Publication Society, August 2004). In his book he argues from a Jewish point of view that it was the will of God that Christianity be born out of Judaism and that the two faiths separate and work side-by-side to perfect the world. He believes that Jews and Christians should be seen as two branches of this one people. He also calls upon Jews to revise their views of Jesus and to consider him a "failed" or "unfinished" messiah for the Christians rather than a "false" messiah.

An ordained Orthodox rabbi, a Harvard Ph.D. and scholar, Rabbi Greenberg has been a seminal thinker in confronting the Holo-caust as a historical transforming event and Israel's assumption of power as the beginning of a third era in Jewish history. In Interpreters of Judaism in the Late Twentieth Century, Steven T. Katz wrote, "No Jewish thinker has had a greater impact on the American Jewish community in the last two decades than Yitz Greenberg." Rabbi Greenberg has pub-lished numerous articles and monographs on Jewish thought and religion. He also contributed two chapters to ICJS's book Christianity in Jewish Terms and was one of a handful of Orthodox rabbis to sign Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity.

Goaded by his encounter with the Holocaust, Greenberg joined the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the 1960s, initially to chal-lenge Christians to overcome the legacy of the teaching of contempt. In the course of this dialogue, he was moved to a new appreciation of Christianity and began a decades-long project of developing a positive Jewish theology of Christian-ity. His new book challenges both Jews and Christians to understand each other as two branches of the people Israel -- an idea sure to spark debate within and between both communities.

The ICJS will also host Rabbi Greenberg for an intensive afternoon workshop for clergy and religious educators. For information visit www.icjs.org or call 410-523-7227.