On Tuesday, November 14 at 7:30 p.m., Fairfield University’s Open VISIONS Forum, Bennett Center for Judaic Studies, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County will welcome Susannah Heschel, PhD, the Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, for the 26th Annual Jacoby-Lunin Humanitarian Lecture. The lecture is entitled “Turning Inter-Religious Dialogue Into Prayer: Transformations of Abraham Joshua Heschel”and will be held at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Dr. Heschel pays tribute to her father Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the most eminent rabbinical scholars and humanists of our time. A famed rabbi who stood arm-in-arm with Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 during his voter rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Rabbi Heschel often spoke with Dr. King on civil and human rights issues. His philosophical journey, after being deported from Poland by the Nazis in 1938 and immigrating to the U.S., brought Heschel to the world of social and economic justice, fighting for the rights of oppressed minorities in the United States and beyond.

A current Guggenheim Fellow writing a book on the history of European Jewish scholarship on Islam, Dr. Heschel is chair of the Jewish Studies program at Dartmouth College. Her scholarship focuses on Jewish and Protestant thought during the 19th and 20th centuries, including the history of biblical scholarship, Jewish scholarship on Islam, and the history of anti-Semitism. The author of more than 100 articles, she has also edited several books, including Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus (University of Chicago Press), which won a National Jewish Book Award.

This OVF event is sponsored by Moffly Media, Delamar Southport, Delamar Spa, Artisan, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Fairfield County. Tickets are now on sale at quickcenter.com for $25 regular and Quick Members. For more information, contact the Quick Center Box Office at 203-254-4010, Monday through Friday, from 12 to 5 p.m.