The Consequences of Conflicts Overseas at Home:

Source: ICCJ

The Consequences of Conflicts Overseas at Home:

Lessons for Jewish-Christian Relations Today

Ed Kessler will reflect on the impact of international conflicts, particularly but not only in the Middle East. These conflicts are a major challenge to Jewish-Christian relations today, as well as to the wider Abrahamic encounter. Ed will discuss ways Jews and Christians, far beyond the areas of conflict, should respond.

Join us on Monday, May 18, 2026, 12 noon UTC

Dr Ed Kessler Ed Kessler is a leading scholar of Jewish-Christian relations and interfaith engagement. He is Founding President of the Woolf Institute and a Fellow of St Edmund’s College at Cambridge University.

His work focuses on relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, with particular attention to the role of religion in contemporary society and conflict.

Kessler is a frequent commentator in media and public forums, he brings both academic insight and practical experience to some of today’s most pressing interfaith challenges.

He currently chairs the newly launched Commission on Interfaith Relations: UK Faith Groups and Global Conflicts and has received numerous awards and been invited to deliver prestigious lectures. Among these is ICCJ’s Seelisberg Prize in 2024.

Moderator: Dr Katarzyna Kowalska nds, First Vice-President of the ICCJ

More:

• Woolf Institute
  The Woolf Institute is an independent interfaith charity founded in 1998, specialising in Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. We work closely with the University of Cambridge to fund postgraduate students, teach students in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and in the Cambridge Theological Federation, and work in partnership with St Edmund's College.
  We conduct research projects across a wide variety of academic disciplines, and engage with public partners in schools, healthcare, grassroots interfaith groups, community organising, and public policy. Through research, education, and public engagement we seek to better understand these faiths, build trust between people of different faiths, and increase understanding and cooperation in society between people of faith and those with other beliefs and worldviews. We are committed to asking the difficult questions, listening to the experiences of others, and creating opportunities and spaces for people to encounter one another across difference.
• Commission on Interfaith Relations: UK Faith Groups and Global Conflicts
  The Commission on Interfaith Relations is an independent, national initiative assessing the state of interfaith relations in the UK, with a particular emphasis on how current and emerging conflicts overseas can become points of tension within the UK. The Chair of the Commission is Dr Ed Kessler MBE and the Vice-Chair is Bishop Lusa Nsenga-Ngoy.
  The Commission considers how international conflicts (e.g. Kashmir, Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine) contribute towards fractured relations both between and within faith communities, impacting social cohesion and potentially deepening divisions in UK towns, cities and institutions. By learning from community experiences, the Commission also proposes ways to increase resilience and foster improved understandings as well as considering how UK local and national leaderships – religious and non-religious – might respond to present and future crises.