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Recently, Naomi Seidman, Director of the Center for Jewish Studies, traveled to Warsaw in commemoration of the uprising and the publication of her father's diary into Polish. Upon her return, the j profiled the important work her father did. An excerpt follows:

“My father was the archivist of the pre-war Warsaw Jewish community,” Seidman said in an interview. “He wrote in Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish, and was a Ph.D. of Jewish history.”

The Graduate Theological Union recently received a gift to support a competitive prize for graduates and faculty.

The motto of the Graduate Theological Union is “where religion meets the world,” but what does it mean? It’s easy to draw a line between what is “sacred” and “secular” (often whatever is not “sacred”), but that’s not quite it either since religion is part of the world we know and the world interacts with religion. Rather, our motto emphasizes where faith traditions purposefully encounter people and events, sometimes in unique ways — describing this encounter as crossroads, bridges, and dialogue.

For almost 40 years the GTU has been a significant part of my life, a part that underscored the theological notion of vocation that each of us is called in a particular way by God to enter a path that will enable us to grow and to use our skills and potentials to make a significant contribution to the world, along a path that will lead us to our own fulfillment.

By any standard, the Graduate Theological Union is unique. Envisioned as a grand experiment of cooperation and collaboration, the consortium overcame the early struggles of pioneering new ground in graduate theological education.

By Gabriella Lettini

Originally posted on Huffington Post for Veteran's Day

War does not end when peace is declared and the troops come home. It continues to affect the bodies, psyches, souls, lands and communities of everyone involved. War's tragic legacy passes on from generation to generation, more dangerously so when it is ignored and left unattended.

Josefina J. Card, Ph.D., who prefers to go by J.J., first learned of the GTU from her friend, Judy Larsen who serves on the Board of Trustees as the representative for the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary. Larsen approached Card to see if she would accept a nomination to the GTU Board of Trustees. Moved by the interfaith and multireligious mission of the GTU, Card agreed. In her first year as a Trustee, she has seen in action her belief that there are many roads to God, and that the GTU clearly helps articulate those roads.

Though much of our religious traditions are recorded and communicated through text or action, art has been a long-standing avenue for expression and instruction of things concerning the soul.

Given the continued prominence of economic recovery in public debate, two students and one alumna discussed with us the economy from a faith based perspective.

An Interview with Robert J. Russell, Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences

Science and Religion have always been thought of as diametric opposites, searching for different truths. One need only think of Galileo and Copernicus. How have these poles been brought closer together?