Renaissance man Rabbi David Rosen kicks off ESRA winter lecture series

Israel's First School of Entrepreneurship will be officially opened this coming Sunday, December 22, at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
School of Entrepreneurship (photo credit: Courtesy)
School of Entrepreneurship
(photo credit: Courtesy)
ESRA, the English-Speaking Residents Association, this week began its winter lecture series with Rabbi David Rosen, who may have been pleased to escape Jerusalem’s cold to lecture at Yad Lebanim in Ra’anana.
On the other hand, Rosen, having grown up in England, is used to the snow, rain and cold – so it may not have affected him to the same extent as it did native Israelis.
A former chief rabbi of Ireland and one of the leading Jewish liaisons with the Christian world, particularly the Vatican, Rosen, an internationally recognized authority on Jewish-Christian relations, is the international director of interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee, and director of its Heilbrunn Institute for International Interreligious Understanding.
He is also an international president of the World Conference of Religion for Peace, the all-encompassing world interfaith body (incorporating 15 religions in more than 50 countries); honorary president of the International Council of Christians and Jews, the umbrella organization for more than 30 national bodies promoting Christian-Jewish relations, as well as dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews; and a member of the Executive Committee of the World Congress of Imams and Rabbis.
Moreover, Rosen is a charter member of the International Advisory Committee of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions ; and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s C-100, a council of 100 leaders working to improve relations and cooperation between the Muslim and Western worlds.
Rosen was one of the initiators of and participants in Egypt’s Alexandria Summit, the first Middle East Interfaith Summit, attended by leaders of the Holy Land’s three monotheistic faiths; a member of its Permanent Committee for the Implementation of the Alexandria Declaration; and a member of the Permanent Bilateral Working Commission between of the State of Israel and the Holy See, which negotiated the normalization of relations between Israel and the Vatican.
In 2005, Rosen received a Papal Knighthood in recognition of his contribution to Jewish-Catholic reconciliation, and in 2010 was made a Companion of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II for his work in promoting interfaith understanding and cooperation.
With that kind of background, which does not even tell the whole story, he was more than equipped enough to discuss the extent to which the Christian world has really changed in its attitude towards Jews and Israel.
Israel's First School of Entrepreneurship will be officially opened this coming Sunday, December 22, at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.
The establishment of the school was made possible by a generous donation by philanthropists Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson, who have already donated tens of millions of dollars to other Israeli projects and causes.
At the school’s cornerstone ceremony last spring, IDC founder and president Prof. Uriel Reichman said the aim of the school was to educate the next generation of entrepreneurs. Echoing something frequently said by President Shimon Peres, Reichman explained that as a small country without natural resources, its most important resource was its human capital, whose ability to think differently – or to use the current vernacular, think out of the box – has produced some amazing successes. Reichman is firmly convinced that IDC is flooded with budding entrepreneurs, who with the right support and education, will contribute not only to Israel’s success story, but to the success stories of the countries in which they live.
IDC has a relatively large foreign student population. Reichman is certain that the Miriam and Sheldon Adelson School of Entrepreneurship will create breakthroughs in multidisciplinary education, while giving students the tools they need for making choices, solving problems, experimenting with entrepreneurial projects and creating start-ups. In other words, a graduate of the Adelson School will be equipped for several careers, which will enable him or her to enter any number of fields of economic endeavor.