Diaspora, Exile and Interreligious Dialogue (2024-2025)
This project explored how interreligious dialogue can serve as a pathway to peace by examining shared and divergent conceptions of exile in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Team members engaged with foundational texts to investigate themes of catastrophe, exile and restoration, and considered how these traditions inform understandings of freedom, justice, reconciliation and healing. Against the backdrop of longstanding diasporas and the entangled traumas of Israelis and Palestinians, the project sought to generate new scholarship on diaspora and exile while fostering civil discourse both within the team and across campus.
Through collaborative research and structured seminars, the interdisciplinary group produced 13 projects spanning biblical to contemporary contexts. Topics ranged from Jewish experiences of catastrophe to Christian exile and papal responses to migration, as well as Muslim cosmopolitan visions of community. While the team found conceptual development of “diaspora” in Muslim traditions to be lacking, the comparative work revealed that across the Abrahamic faiths, discourses of exile tend to encourage reflection and reconciliation rather than hostility. The team concluded that religious narratives, if brought into broader political dialogue, could open new avenues for peacebuilding in the Middle East.
The project’s impact extended beyond research. By initiating interreligious dialogue on campus and contributing to programs on free inquiry and pluralism, team members advanced efforts to reduce polarization around Middle East debates. Their work culminated in an international conference in Berlin and provide the foundation for a journal volume or book, amplifying Duke’s scholarship and model of civil dialogue across global academic and faith communities.
Timing
Fall 2024 – Summer 2025
Team Outputs
Diaspora, Exile, and Interreligious Dialogue: Israel and Palestine (Poster presentation at the Fortin Foundation Bass Connections Showcase, April 16, 2025)
Presentation at the International Conference in Berlin organized by the Katholische Akademie and INIRE (International Network for Interreligious Research and Education), July 2025
Online journal volume
Faculty Perspective: Malachi Hacohen