The College Commons Podcast

Rabbi Michael Marmur explores the way language influences how we think and speak about God.

Dr. Michael Marmur is the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. Previously, he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem. In recent years he has taught courses in Theology, Homiletics, and Pluralistic Jewish Education.Born and raised in England, Rabbi Marmur completed a BA Degree in Modern History at the University of Oxford before moving to Israel in 1984.

Mohammad Darawshe discusses co-existence and equality, two ends of the spectrum in Israel.

Mohammad Darawshe is the Director of Planning, Equality and Shared Society at Givat Haviva, the Center for Shared Society in Israel. Mohammad is Arab with an Israeli passport — a Muslim Palestinian citizen of the State of Israel. Like 20 percent of Israel's population, he is, as he puts it, a child of both identities. He brings an unexpected way of seeing inside the Middle Eastern present and future.

Previously, from 2005-2013 Mohammad served as the Co-Director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives. Before that he served as the Elections Campaign Manager for the Democratic Arab Party and later the United Arab List. Mohammad holds a B.A from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, an M.A. in Public Administration from Hartford University, and an M.A. in Peace and Conflict Management from Haifa University. Mohammad is considered a leading expert on Jewish-Arab relations and has presented lectures and papers at the European parliament, NATO Defense College, the World Economic Forum, Club de Madrid, US Congress, the Herzlia Conference, and Israel's Presidential Conference.

Is the American Jewish Vote Still Liberal? Join Dr. Windmueller and Dean Holo as they unpack the Jewish political landscape.

Dr. Steven Windmueller served as the Dean of the Los Angeles Campus of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from 2006 to 2010. In March of 2009, he was appointed to the Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk Chair in Jewish Communal Service.

Prior to coming to HUC-LA, he has held a number of prominent positions within the Jewish community over the course of a thirty-year professional career. Most recently, he served for ten years as the Executive Director of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles.

Professor Firestone uses the Bully Pulpit to explain Muslim violence through a Jewish lens.

Rabbi Dr. Reuven Firestone is the Regenstein Professor in Medieval Judaism and Islam at HUC-JIR/Los Angeles.

Since 1993, Dr. Firestone has served as associate and then full professor of Medieval Judaism and Islam at HUC-JIR. He founded the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (CMJE), a joint program of Hebrew Union College, the Omar Ibn Al-Khattab Foundation and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California.

In 2012-2013 he was appointed DAAD Visiting Professor in Jewish and Islamic Studies at Universität Potsdam/Geiger Kolleg in Berlin-Brandenburg. Chosen to be a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 2002, he received the Fulbright CASA III Fellowship for study and research at the American University in Cairo in 2006. In 2000, he was awarded the fellowship for independent research from the National Endowment for the Humanities for his research on holy war in Judaism. In 1992 he was awarded the Yad Hanadiv Research Fellowship at the Hebrew University to conduct research on holy war in Islamic tradition.