Interfaith Conversations in Manitoba Flourishing
The Manitoba Multifaith Council’s AGM will take place on May 30 at Mulvey school, an inner city location. We have chosen as our programme for that evening a panel discussion entitled Education, Religion and a New Canadian Pluralism. Our panelists include Tony Tavares, Manitoba Education Consultant for Diversity Education, Helen Settee-Robinson, Director, Manitoba Aboriginal Education Directorate, and Ruth Ashrafi, Director of Judaic Studies, Gray Academy.
The Muslim-Jewish Dialogue Group of Winnipeg is flourishing. Our events are now taking place on a monthly basis. We are exploring Sharia and Halacha topics; at the moment we are learning about family law in both traditions led by scholars – Dr. Ruth Ashrafi a Jewish scholar originally from the Netherlands and Drs. Rory Dickson and Ahmet Seyhun who teach at the University of Winnipeg. Our attendance is such that we have had to for the sake of space and discussion purposes, limited membership for the time being to those currently engaged.
The 15th Annual Holocaust and Human Rights Symposium took place at the University of Winnipeg with well over 1200 students in attendance. In addition to an inspiring keynote presentation from Toronto based survivor Pinchas Gutter, who spoke about faith in a very moving way, our afternoon presentation featured a young a Kurdish refugee who came to Canada at the age of 14 without any education and is a law student today. She spoke not only about her difficult 14 years in a refugee camp, at times desperate for even a sip of water, but of her struggle in Canada to wear her Muslim identity both within and without.