Contrary to expectations, religion continues to play an important role in the personal, social, and political life of the world’s citizens even in the 21st century. Its centrality also manifests itself in the many escalating conflicts throughout the world, which await solutions that require a change of perception and a new way of seeing.
The Burden of Tolerance: Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Pluralism offers ideological and cultural sources, anchored in the religious traditions themselves, that can serve as the basis for tolerance and coexistence between and within religions.
The papers in this book examine the resources for tolerance in both Islam and Christianity in the general context, and in Judaism in the historical and Israeli contexts. The combination of the two perspectives—the general and the local—is of great importance. It is important to show that the problem is not unique to Israel and to use general terminology and a general conceptual framework that are free of local connotations and struggles. The comparison to what is happening in other religions and frameworks is likely to enrich the discussion and increase the pool of ideas and solutions.
The authors of the papers—academics, clerics, psychologists, and educators of the three monotheistic religions—come from various disciplines and together weave a unique, thought-provoking work.