The Assumption Chair in Jewish Contributions to
Western Civilization
(in development)

Assumption University and the Basilian Fathers
 

In 1870 when the Basilian Fathers came to administer Assumption University on a permanent basis they brought with them a spirit of openness and inclusiveness that was far ahead of their time.  It was this spirit that prompted them to remain in Windsor Essex when Church authorities pressured them, with threats, to move the University to London.  It was this spirit that allowed them to establish groundbreaking relationships with other Christian denominations, preceding Catholic ecumenism by at least a decade.  And it was this spirit that fostered a valued relationship with the Windsor Jewish community that has lasted to this day.
 
The Centre for Religion and Culture
 
It is this same spirit of openness that initiated and animates the Centre for Religion and Culture at this time in world history when understanding the role of religion and religious dialogue are of paramount importance.  The focus of the Centre is not primarily theological but will concentrate on those matters that fall under the umbrella of the “common good” of the human community as a whole, something that is much broader than the collection of individual goods or even the good as proclaimed by any particular religious tradition.
 
A Chair in Jewish Influences
 
While the focus on a particular religion is not the purview of the Centre the understanding of Judaism here is as an evolving religious civilization rather than a religion as normally understood.  What constitutes ‘Jewishness’ is a complex matter.  In reality it may be easier to define what ‘Jewishness’ is not.  It is not so much a creed as it is an observance; it is not a culture since it embraces many different cultures; neither is it a race nor a nationality.  Yet terms like “way of life’ or “family resemblance” are too vague to capture the concept of ‘Jewishness’.  One irrefutable fact, however, is the enormity of the influence of this evolving religious civilization on Western culture and beyond. 
 
The monumental ruins of the Egyptian and Persian Empires are a familiar legacy to the world of once great civilizations of the past.  But the living heritage that comes to us from the empireless Hebrews is much greater, though less well known.  In western culture we speak of our inheritance from the Roman civilization especially in the development of our legal system.  Yet the very notion of justice that this legal system serves comes to us from the Jews. And while the term democracy comes to us from the Greeks the idea of the human dignity of each individual deserving a democratic voice comes to us from the Jews.  The notion of human rights that in the modern era challenges the hegemony of nations and states’ rights is born primarily out of the story, struggle and suffering of the Jewish people.  Indeed our very notion of history as processive rather than cyclical, which is seminal to the idea and possibility of progress, is the legacy of the Jewish experience of reality.  These are the concepts that shaped and nourished western consciousness and in the ‘global village’ of the modern era they are now shaping the ethos of every culture and nation.  Christianity has sometimes eclipsed the Jewish contribution to the development of Western culture in the minds of many westerners.  But Christianity itself is steeped in a Jewish sensibility that makes the term Judeo-Christian possible and perhaps necessary for a correct understanding of Christianity.
 
At the level of specific contributions to human development the Jewish people have contributed in a variety of areas to a degree that far exceeds their proportion in the human community. While only .2% of the world’s population, Jews constitute 36% of the Nobel Prize winners in Economics; 25% in Chemistry; 24% in Biomedical research; and 12% in Literature.  The enormity of their contributions and the depth of their influence warrant a Chair devoted to exploring the human heritage drawn from the Jews.
 
In this context a Chair in Jewish influences would not focus on Judaism but rather on the contributions of this religious civilization to Law, Literature, Philosophy, Science and Economics.