Christian vs Pharisee

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Originally uploaded by bobmendo.

I'm so impressed with this book and these two gentlemen who wrote each other. This is a series of 14 letters from Dr RT Kendall, a famous Christian author and pastor, to Rabbi David Rosen, formerly of Ireland and South Africa. Rosen is a main player in the world of Jewish-Christian dialogue .

Dr R T Kendall retired as Minister of Westminster Chapel in the centre of London in 2001. He originates from America where he was Pastor of a number of churches before moving to the UK. He and his wife Louise now live in Key Largo, Florida.

Rabbi David Rosen is the International Director of Interreligious Affairs of the American Jewish Committee. He was born and educated in Britain, continuing his advanced rabbinic studies in Israel, where he received his ordination (semichah). In addition to military service in the armored corps of the IDF, he served as Chaplain to the forces in Western Sinai.

From 1975 to 1979, he was the Senior Rabbi of the largest Jewish congregation in South Africa and rabbinic judge on the Ecclesiastical Court (Beth Din). He was also founder/chairman of the Inter-Faith Forum, the Council of Jews, Christians and Muslims.

From 1979 to 1985, Rabbi Rosen was Chief Rabbi of Ireland where he founded, together with the Christian Primates of Ireland, the Irish Council of Christians and Jews. He was a member of the Academic Council as well as lecturer at the Irish School of Ecumenics.

He returned to Israel in 1985 to take up the appointment of Dean at the Sapir Center for Jewish Education and Culture in the Old City of Jerusalem and subsequently became Professor of Jewish Studies at the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies.

Having served concurrently as the Anti Defamation League's Director of Interfaith Relations in Israel and as the ADL's co-liaison to the Vatican, in 1997 he was appointed to the position of Director of the ADL Israel office.

Rabbi Rosen is a founder of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel that embraces more than seventy organizations in Israel involved in interfaith relations. He is a member of the Permanent Bilateral Commission of the State of Israel and the Holy See that negotiated the normalization of relations between the two; and he serves as a member of the International Jewish Committee for Inter-Religious Consultations which represents organized World Jewry in its relations with other world religious bodies.

He is President of the World Conference on Religion and Peace (WCRP), the all-encompassing world inter-faith body (incorporating fifteen religions in over fifty countries), and is a charter member of the International Advisory Committee of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions (CPWR). He is Honorary President of the International Council of Christians and Jews (ICCJ), the umbrella organization for more than thirty national bodies promoting Christian-Jewish relations. The ICCJ's Abrahamic Forum promotes dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Author: R.T. Kendall, David Rosen
Format: Paperback
Published: January 2007
ISBN-10: 0446697346
ISBN-13: 9780446697347
Aussie price: $16 from the Jews for Jesus book shop. See it and order it online if you want at books