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Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Visits Oxford to Debate Contemporary Western Society

Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz Visits Oxford to Debate Contemporary Western Society

By Daniel Lowe
Steinsaltz 006.jpgRenowned speaker and thinker Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz visited Oxford's Chabad Society this week to deliver a lecture in honour of Sir Isaiah Berlin, considered by many to be one of the most prominent liberal thinkers of the twentieth century.

Not just content with simply presenting a lecture, the indefatigable Israeli rabbi and a group of students toured Jewish sites of interest in the world-famous university city, including the location where it is thought that Haggai of Oxford - a 13th century convert to Judaism - was executed by edict of the Church. There they prayed the afternoon mincha service with the traditional mourner&rsquo… Read More »

Oxford University Chabad Society reinstitutes pilgrimage to site of burning of Jew at Osney Abbey

DSC_0021a.jpgThe Oxford University Chabad Society organised one of the first formal pilgrimages in a few centuries to the site of Osney Abbey, where Robert of Reading, who changed his name to Haggai of Oxford, was burnt alive for his Jewish faith in 1222AD.

 

Osney Abbey, later Osney Cathedral, was founded after the Norman Conquest and originated as a house of Augustinian canons at Osney, west of Oxford. It was founded as a priory in 1129, becoming an abbey around 1154. It was dissolved in 1539 but was created a cathedral, the last abbot Robert King becoming the first Bishop of Oxford. The see was transferred to the new foundation of Christ Church in 1545 and the building fell into ruin. It was one of the four renowned monastic houses of medieval… Read More »

Inaugural Isaiah Berlin Memorial Lecture by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz

Steinsaltz_006.jpgThe Oxford University Chabad society inaugurated a new annual lecture in honour of the centenary of Oxford Jewish philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin. The Isaiah Berlin memorial lecture on Jewish philosophy was delivered by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz at the David Slager Chabad Jewish student centre in Oxford in the presence of about 100 people.

 

Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (1909 – 1997) was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century. He excelled as an essayist, lecturer and conversationalist; and as a brilliant speaker who delivered, rapidly and spontaneously, richly allusive and coherently structured material, whether for a lecture series at Oxford University or as a bro… Read More »

The problem with rationalising the prohibition for eating pork

The world is currently under threat of a major pandemic of Swine flu that has been detected in humans across the world. The flu refers to a virus that usually infects pigs and is common in the Midwestern United States, Mexico, Canada, South America, Europe, including the UK, and many other countries. However, transmission of swine influenza virus from pigs to humans is not common and properly cooked pork poses no risk of infection.

When transmitted, the virus does not always cause human influenza and often the only sign of infection is the presence of antibodies in the blood, detectable only by laboratory tests. When transmission results in influenza in a human, it is called zoonotic swine flu. People who work with pigs, especially people… Read More »

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