The
Mahatma Gandhi Program for Peace, Spirituality, Non Violence and Ethics
in the Middle East
The MGP is a program
established and directed by Dr. Ithamar Theodor for the teaching, research
and application of Peace, Spirituality, Non Violence and Ethics and
their interrelations. As the program is located at the University of
Haifa, Israel, it is concerned mainly with the application of these
ideas in the Middle Eastern milieu.
The Director
I am a scholar
of Hinduism, and my two major works have been on the Bhagavad gita and
the Bhagavata Purana. I was born in Israel and live in a vegetarian
village near the border of Lebanon. I have absorbed some ideas in the
area of Peace Studies and Comparative Theology, at the Theology Faculty,
University of Oxford, from which I have received a research degree,
and from the Divinity Faculty, University of Cambridge, where I have
been working as a Visiting Fellow. I believe that Hindu Patterns of
Thought have a potential for pluralistic and peaceful co-existence in
a multi-religious milieu, and I am committed to experimenting with these
ideas, following Mahatma Gandhi’s famous ‘Experiments with
the Truth’.
Teaching
The program
offers taught courses on related topics. Among these are:
‘The Spiritual
Traditions of the East’, Religious Studies Program, University
of Haifa, Spring Semester, 2007.
‘M.K.Gandhi;
Personality, Doctrine and Ethos’, Asian Studies Dept., University
of Haifa, Fall Semester, 2008.
Research
and International Relations
The program maintains
friendly relations and aspires to establish and further research connections
with various programs, institutions and individual scholars globally,
who share some similar interests. Among these are:
The Mahatma Gandhi
Center for Global Nonviolence, at the James Madison Universty:
http://www.jmu.edu/gandhicenter/index.shtml
The Jewish People
Policy Planning Institute:
http://www.jpppi.org.il/JPPPI/index.asp
Religion and Ethics
in War and Peace Making Program at the University of Cambridge:
http://relwar.wordpress.com/
The Woolf Institue
of Abrahamic Faiths, at the University of Cambridge:
http://www.woolfinstitute.cam.ac.uk/
Conflict Management
and Negotiation Program, Bar Ilan University:
http://www.barilan-conflict.com/index.php?Lang=2&PageID=1&MenuID=1
Institute for Conflict
Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University:
http://icar.gmu.edu/faculty_gopin.html
The World Council
of Religious Leaders:
http://www.millenniumpeacesummit.com/wc_about.html
Rabbi
David Rosen:
http://www.rabbidavidrosen.net/bio.htm
The Academy for
Quality Government in Israel:
http://www.ethicademy.co.il/Default.asp?Lang=Eng
The Centre for Research
on Peace Education, at the University of Haifa, Israel:
http://construct.haifa.ac.il/~cerpe/
Application
within the Middle Eastern milieu
The MGP aspires
to establish a Training Program for Ethical Officers, in cooperation
with the Academy for Quality Government in Israel and the Jewish People
Policy Planning Institute. This program will train ethical officers
in pluralistic spirituality, and furthering a Jewish-Hindu dialogue,
will seek to offer a new interpretation to the concept of Jewish priesthood
and Hindu Brahaminism.
A Call
for Cooperation
I welcome
various types of cooperation, and will be happy to correspond, think
together, cooperate and further various types of ideas according to
these and similar lines.
Please write
me at: theodor@research.haifa.ac.il
