Dr. Dror Bondi, 2025-2027 Corcoran Visiting Chair in Christian-Jewish Relations at Boston College, will examine how Abraham Joshua Heschel responded to his encounter with Martin Buber. Rather than comparing the two thinkers as parallel philosophers, this lecture will follow Heschel’s evolving engagement with Buber–from his early poetry and doctoral dissertation to his mature reflections on prophecy, symbolism, and interreligious dialogue. This lecture will suggest that Heschel’s distinctive understanding of prophetic response offers a fresh perspective on both the divine-human relationship and dialogue between religious traditions.   

Sixty years after Nostra Aetate, the landmark Vatican II declaration that inaugurated a new era in Christian–Jewish relations, the foundations of Jewish–Christian dialogue appear increasingly fragile. This lecture will examine how the changing political, cultural, and demographic conditions of the postwar world have transformed the reception of Jewish-Christian dialogue and complicated the assumptions on which it originally rested. Ben Johanan will explore why the legacy of Nostra Aetate has become increasingly difficult to sustain. The lecture will conclude by asking whether Jewish–Christian dialogue can be reimagined beyond the political and intellectual frameworks that originally enabled it, and what dialogue might mean in an age marked by globalization, and the declining authority of liberal Western consensus.

Amidst the current world-wide rise in anti-Judaism and antisemitism, Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski’s new book helps Christians become better equipped to recognize and respond to their tradition’s embedded and often unconscious animus toward Jews and Judaism. He first contextualizes this animus and then suggests alternative ways of approaching Scripture, preaching, praying, and teaching.  After Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski introduces his book, Philip A. Cunningham and Peter Ochs, prominent Catholic and Jewish voices in Christian-Jewish dialogue, will offer responses to it.

Elliott Jones, Boston College '26 and a 2024-2025 Center Student Fellow, recently had his fellowship paper published in LOGOS, Cornell University's Undergraduate Philosophy Journal and won first place for his article "Remedying the Malaise of Work: A Dialogue Between Abraham Joshua Heschel and Josef Pieper."

Jackson Slavny, Boston College '27, completed his student fellowship project with the Center, titled "Language, Law, and Belonging: Spain’s Sephardic Return." The project contributes to the field of Jewish-Christian relations by analyzing a Catholic-majority nation’s efforts to symbolically and legally atone for its antisemitic past. Jackson hopes his project will serve as a useful reference point for comparing future reparative laws and for informing more effective and inclusive policy design going forward. Prof. Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski served as his project advisor.