The staff and board of the ICJS entered its second decade by devoting more than a year to an intensive long-range planning process. We have poked and prodded and probed in every corner of the organization. The task was to take the measure of this educational enterprise -- identify strengths and weak-nesses, failures and successes, hopes and fears -- and to chart a course of action enabling the ICJS to meet the chal-lenges, new ones as well as ancient, that haunt Christians and Jews on the brink of another millennium. In conjunction with this self-study, we consulted approximately fifteen interna-tionally renowned Christian and Jewish scholars and invited them to reflect on the most pressing issues that they see confronting their respective religious communities. We then asked these scholars to consider the specific role that the ICJS might play in meeting the needs that invariably arise in a religiously plural world. The consensus was overwhelming:

1. Many seminaries fail to prepare future ministers, priests, and rabbis to handle the multiple challenges of living in a world where interfaith contact is both inescapable and disorienting. Enormous amounts of time and energy are spent in mastering one's own tradition, but the task of thinking through the difficulties that emerge when contrasting, if not conflicting, truth claims collide is largely neglected. The consequences are serious, for this neglect yields predictable results: the bad habits of the past are unwittingly replicated, and ignorance of the other seeps into the core of the seminary curriculum and eventually into pulpits around the nation.



2. The need to concentrate on the complex interplay of Christianity and Judaism remains the most important arena for interfaith exploration in America. The formative habits that crystallized between Christians and Jews in the earliest centuries of the Common Era determine attitudes that continue to shape our dealings with virtually every other tradition. Any attempt to develop new understandings of religious pluralism in the West must sooner or later come to terms with this vexing relationship.



3. The ICJS is uniquely poised to mediate cooperative learning between the academy and the congregation. Research in the field of religious studies often remains locked behind departmental walls. The ability to translate groundbreaking research so that it can invigorate clergy and educators is a vital service for our religious communities. The ICJS not only stands at the intersection where scholars, clergy, educators, and community leaders converge; it also stands at the crossroads where Christians and Jews meet. The ability of the ICJS to position itself where the traffic is the heaviest affords us an unprecedented opportunity to facilitate the exchange of ideas and expertise. Every scholar with whom we spoke insisted that the ICJS is serving as a catalyst among institutions by modeling how the community at large can tap its deepest wellsprings through the exchange of diverse religious perspectives.

In the wake of its strategic planning, the ICJS board validated a more expansive educational outreach. We continue to pro-vide opportunities for learning among audiences that range from high school and college students to seminarians and clergy, from educators to community leaders, from scholars to congregants in churches and synagogues. These educational initiatives stretch across the religious, racial, socio-economic, and educational divides that polarize the society. While firmly grounded in local soil, the ICJS will expand its efforts to assist communities around the country to replicate ICJS programs.

The task of extending and balancing local, regional, and national projects requires additional assistance, and the ICJS board has agreed to enlarge the endowment from five to seven and a half million dollars. This increase enables the addition of a Jewish scholar and support staff. Furthermore, a grant from the Strauss Foundation has made it possible for us to hire a part-time Development Officer, and I am delighted to announce that Barbara Breslau has already assumed this responsibility. Barbara knows the complexities of conflicting religious traditions, and her personal experience informs her efforts to engage new audiences in the work of the Institute. Our dynamo, Valerie Williams, was given an offer she could not refuse and is now taking the high-rolling corporate world by storm. Special thanks go to Lee Ann Tolzmann, who plugged the holes and battened the hatches during the transitions. She is off to General Theological Seminary in New York to pre-pare for the priesthood. While we are keenly aware, contrary to the market mentality, that our people are irreplaceable, an infusion of new excitement and energy has arrived with Laura Riger. Laura will serve as the Director of Programs and Admin-istrative Services, and the transformation of the third floor of 1316 Park Avenue must be seen to be believed! We hope that you will continue to participate in the life of the ICJS. Your commitment and support make it possible for us to raise a voice that calls Christians and Jews to make good on the promise to heal ancient wounds and repair a fractured world.