Student Grants

There are restrictions and prohibitions around the time of menstruation in both Judaism and Islam. This project continues Jewish studies research already begun to reinterpret the purification categories of tumah and taharah in the context of reinterpreting niddah through a queer lens. This project also begins research into feminist Islamic scholarship about menstruation. By exploring questions around holiness and potential spiritual, relational, and physical health benefits of menstruating through feminist and queer reinterpretations of practices and law around menstruation in Judaism and Islam, this project seeks to open new pathways to meaning, relevance, and greater well-being for menstruators.

Carey Averbook grew up in North Carolina, lived in Washington, DC and Bolivia, and moved to the Bay Area in 2019. They have background in anthropology and international development, photography and video production, storytelling, human-centered design, emotional hygiene and spiritual resiliency coaching. All their work has come back to questions about “what’s a good life?” and “what it is to be well as human beings given climate collapse and systems of violence and domination?” Carey is currently an MA student in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Theological Union and is completing an Earth-based Judaism certificate with the Alliance for Jewish Renewal. She works at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco doing community building and spiritual care work and is on the Ner Shalom Synagogue Nitzanim B. Mitzvah Academy Faculty. They teach Jewish spiritual practice as a community member with congregation Sha'ar Zahav and at Moishe House Rockridge. 

This training event features a panel of experts followed by discussion groups on best practices for supporting jail inmates who are Muslim and Jewish, or are interested in conversion. There are about three thousand inmates in Santa Clara County jail. Eight staff Chaplains and hundreds of volunteers who are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddist and other faiths interact daily with prisoners. For several years, many jail prisoners have had access to county-provided electronic tablets offering education, entertainment, and a range of religious and spiritual scriptures. Discussions with inmates wanting to talk about Islam and Judaism seem to have increased since tablets became available. This event will promote better interfaith understanding in these evolving circumstances.

Katy Dickinson is the Founder of Mentoring Standard and an award-winning Process Architect. Starting in 2001, she was the Process Architect and manager of successful global mentoring programs – while holding a variety of senior executive roles in the Silicon Valley. She was a lecturer on entrepreneurship for 12 years for a University of California at Berkeley – Engineering class. In 2010-2011, Katy Dickinson was the Process Architect for the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen mentoring program. In 2017, Katy Dickinson became a Certified Interfaith Speaker for the Islamic Networks Group. Since 2015, she has been a jail chaplain. In 2021, she was graduated with a Master of Arts – Theology from the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), and in 2022, Katy Dickinson graduated in the first cohort of GTU’s Interreligious Chaplaincy Certificate program. She continues studies in the Berkeley School of Theology – Doctor of Ministry program.

This project explores the theme of the Messiah as it appears in the Hebrew Bible and the Qurʾān. It is designed to present a multifaceted understanding of the Messiah in both corpora, independently and comparatively. This project identifies the most authentic interpretation and comparison of the Davidic Messiah in both religions primarily dependent upon their respective scriptures and the earliest and most agreed-upon interpretations of the relevant verses therein. This project engages with many different facets of Messianism in the respective faith traditions and incorporates the major secondary commentaries to present these two ideas of the Messiah and identify how compare. Summarily, this project is a brief yet immersive study of the scriptures of Judaism and Islam, focusing on the role of the Messiah in eschatology and soteriology.

Omar Naisan is a Ph.D. student in the Historical & Cultural Studies of Religion program at the Graduate Theological Union. He holds a Master of Arts in New Testament also from the Graduate Theological Union. His MA thesis is titled “Decrypting the Son of Man Problem: An Inquiry into the Dominant Approaches to the Son of Man Problem and its Conspicuous Application in Mark 8:27-31.” His interests include comparative theology, philology in religious corpora, and historical-critical studies of religious canons.

Khamsa, an Islamic amulet, serves as a focal point in my interdisciplinary study, primarily employing iconography and socio-anthropology, to examine its profound social impact on Muslim societies. This symbolic object, with its diverse shapes, meanings, and functions, assumes varying roles in Islamic contexts, such as serving as finials for mourning ceremonies within Shi'i Muslim societies and possessing a talismanic value imbued with divine significance in the broader Muslim world. By exploring the historical and cultural significance of Khamsa, this research aims to facilitate inter-religious dialogue between Muslim and Jewish societies and foster a deeper understanding of the shared material cultural heritage on this object. Moreover, it seeks to elucidate how shared cultural objects are interpreted divergently across societies, thereby promoting stronger inter-religious and collaborative bonds through the medium of material conversation.

Zeinab Vessal is a Ph.D. student in Art and Religion Program at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Her primary field of research is Islamic material culture and Shiʿi iconography, paintings, emblematic, and ritualistic objects in early modern to modern Iran. Her second concentration as a professional Islamic calligrapher is studying Persian and Arabic manuscript traditions. She also looks at the Shiʿi visual culture of post-revolutionary Iran.

Our research focused on two main areas: how hospital Chaplains used art and creativity in engaging with patients, as well as how they leaned on it to cultivate their own self-care and resilience. While some of our findings showed how Chaplains directly connected to their Jewish and Islamic traditions through Hebrew song, melodious recitation of the Qur’an, appreciation of the Creator and Creation (nature-based reflection, poetry, etc.), other explorations of art and creativity were more open / secular in nature – playing creative games, water-color expressions of their inner emotional and spiritual state, free-flow and prompted prose/poetry writing.
A notable value we realized was that when artistic expressions were facilitated by a Chaplain, in a non-judgmental, accepting and spiritually-reflective approach, it seemed to allow for more freedom and creative empowerment for the patient. We look forward to sharing more of our findings and inviting Chaplains onto a panel webinar in the Madrasa-Midrasha program this Fall.

Do motherhood, caretaking and nurturing practices and traditions give women a role as co-creator?

To answer that question, I hoped dispel that the Fall in the Old Testament meant a lifetime of penance for women. Rather, that motherhood is seen by both Jewish and Muslim women and men as a blessed act. A privilege.

I researched articles, books and sacred texts, interviewed women, and read literature and poetry. While none of my research uncovered the language of “God’s Co-Creator,” what I kept hearing again and again was the essence of co-creating; it was a feeling that motherhood deepened a connection with the Divine no matter the technicalities or beliefs of how the women (Eve, Mary, Hagar, myself) were impregnated. Playing a role in creation binds us to God, leads us to love unconditionally, and presses our hearts with gratitude.

I learned semantics are important. No human or animal can truly know the mystery behind the source of all creation. Yet the miracle of conception and birth, all the knowledge one gains caring for a child continue to interest our humble, spiritual selves.

Perhaps that is why we listen for truth in the words of poets.

This research examines the contemporary fashion system in Egypt and the rising second generation of designers in the post-Arab Spring period. I look at the changing nature of dress in Egypt in the century between 1850 and 1950 as a time characterized by political, economic, and cultural transformations, prompting gradual yet major alteration in dress among urban populations, mainly in Cairo. There is no trace of a local mass fashion industry akin to or competing with Euro-American ones, at least not before 1930. During that period, Egypt adopted the industrialization of textiles on a large scale characterized by the cultivation of long-staple cotton as part of a broader national movement against British imperialism. Therefore, it is worth centering the role of department stores and the printing press as platforms for marketing and selling Western imported clothes, which served as an arbiter, classifier, and educator of taste and style.

This series of essays will examine the black/African Muslim and Jewish diaspora experiences, alongside their historical significance and impact on each group’s plight for self-determination. The implications of a shared diaspora experience, yet different socio-political and economic outcomes, will be explored through current-day relations between black/African American Muslim communities and Jewish communities. The first essay will introduce the historicity of blackness as a fluid concept and signifier. The next part of the first essay will define and examine diasporic frameworks and the historical significance of the African and Jewish diasporas. The second essay maintains that blacks and Jews are historically diasporic populations while delving into a closer examination that reveals points of convergence and divergence. The third and final essay probes further into the points of convergence, which have created bonds of empathy and solidarity, and points of divergence, which have caused underlying tensions and sometimes led to conflict and estrangement. These essays intend to promote inter-and intra-religious and cultural introspection and discourse among black/African American Muslim and Jewish communities.