
Welcoming the Stranger
Abrahamic Hospitality and Its Contemporary Implications
Published by: Fordham University Press
224 pages, 152.00 x 228.00 mm, 30 color illustrations
Edited by Ori Z Soltes and Rachel Stern
Foreword by Endy Moraes
Contributions by Lindsay Balfour, Thomas Massaro, Craig Mousin, Carol Prendergast, Zeki Saritotprak, Ori Z Soltes, Rachel Stern, Mimi E. Tsankov and Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din
Published by: Fordham University Press
224 pages, 152.00 x 228.00 mm, 30 color illustrations
Embracing hospitality and inclusion in Abrahamic traditions
One of the signal moments in the narrative of the biblical Abraham is his insistent and enthusiastic reception of three strangers, a starting point of inspiration for all three Abrahamic traditions as they evolve and develop the details of their respective teachings. On the one hand, welcoming the stranger by remembering “that you were strangers in the land of Egypt” is enjoined upon the ancient Israelites, and on the other, oppressing the stranger is condemned by their prophets throughout the Hebrew Bible.
These sentiments are repeated in the New Testament and the Qur’an and elaborated in the interpretive literatures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Such notions resonate obliquely within the history of India and its Dharmic traditions. On the other hand, they have been seriously challenged throughout history. In the 1830s, America’s “Nativists” sought to emphatically reduce immigration to these shores. A century later, the Holocaust began by the decision of the Nazi German government to turn specific groups of German citizens into strangers. Deliberate marginalization leading to genocide flourished in the next half century from Bosnia and Cambodia to Rwanda. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, the United States renewed a decisive twist toward closing the door on those seeking refuge, ushering in an era where marginalized religious and ethnic groups around the globe are deemed unwelcome and unwanted.
The essays in Welcoming the Stranger explore these issues from historical, theoretical, theological, and practical perspectives, offering an enlightening and compelling discussion of what the Abrahamic traditions teach us regarding welcoming people we don’t know.
Welcoming the Stranger: Abrahamic Hospitality and Its Contemporary Implications is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.
Published by The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art and the Fordham University Institute on Religion, Law and Lawyer’s Work
Image List | vii
Foreword | xi
Endy Moraes
Preface | xv
Ori Z Soltes and Rachel Stern
Introduction | 1
Section One: Building on the Past: Theology, History, and Their Practical Implications | 9
1 Welcoming the Stranger in the Jewish Tradition | 11
Ori Z Soltes
2 Hospitality in Christian Traditions: A Key Virtue and its Applications | 27
Thomas Massaro
3 A Migrant 4 Life Journeys to the New Tower of Babel: Christianity and Immigration | 43
Craig Mousin
4 Welcoming the Stranger in Islam: Abrahamic Hospitality and Contemporary Implications | 72
Zeki Saritoprak
5 Epilogue: India and the Dharmic Traditions of Hospitality | 82
Ori Z Soltes
Section Two: Building the Present and Future: Programmatic Ideas and Realizations | 95
6 Fritz Ascher: A Jewish Artist in Germany | 97
Rachel Stern
7 Welcoming Beyond Offering Safe Heaven: Aspiring to Partner with Refugees | 125
Carol Prendergast
8 De-story to Destroy, Re-Story to Restore | 137
Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din
9 Immigration Courts in Need of an Article I Overhaul | 155
Mimi Tsankov
10 Epilogue: Future Strangers: Digital Life and Hospitality To-Come | 159
Lindsay Anne Balfour
Conclusions: An Unfinished Epilogue | 177
Ori Z Soltes
Bibliography | 181
Author Biographies | 189
Index | 193
Ori Z Soltes teaches at Georgetown University across a range of disciplines, from art history and theology to philosophy and political history. He is the former Director of the B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum.
Rachel Stern is the founding and executive director of the Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art in New York.
Endy Moraes, LLM, Director, Institute on Religion, Law, and Lawyer’s Work at Fordham Law School, is a Brazilian lawyer with extensive experience in interreligious and intercultural dialogue. Endy has an LLM, cum laude, from Fordham Law School, and is admitted to practice in New York. She is a member of the Focolare Movement of the Catholic Church, living in community.
Lindsay Anne Balfour, PhD is Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the Centre for Postdigital Cultures at Coventry University and works within the Postdigital Intimacies research cluster. Her research draws on the philosophical concept of hospitality to consider the relationship between humans and machines (HCI), and employs an intersectional feminist and cultural studies perspective to look at digital intimacies. Currently, she is conducting feminist analyses of surveillance capitalism and embodied computing including how hospitality works through the digital strangeness of tracking technologies such as wearables, implantables, and ingestibles (FemTech). Her recent books include Hospitality in a Time of Terror: Strangers at the Gate, 2017; The Digital Future of Hospitality, 2023; and the forthcoming FemTech: Intersectional Interventions, 2023.
Thomas Massaro, S.J., is Professor of Moral Theology at Fordham University. A Jesuit priest of the United States East Province, he has taught as professor of moral theology at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at Boston College, and at Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, where he also served as Dean. Father Massaro holds a doctorate in Christian social ethics from Emory University. His nine books and over one hundred published articles treat Catholic social teaching and its recommendations for public policies oriented to social justice, peace, worker rights and poverty alleviation. A former columnist for America magazine, he writes and lectures frequently on such topics as the ethics of globalization, peacemaking, environmental concern, the role of conscience in religious participation in public life, and developing a spirituality of justice. His most recent book is Mercy in Action: The Social Teachings of Pope Francis (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2018).
Rev. Craig B. Mousin is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, the University of Illinois College of Law, and the Chicago Theological Seminary. He previously served as University Ombuds at DePaul University and as the Executive Director of DePaul’s Center for Church/State Studies where he has taught Immigration, Asylum, and Refugee Law. He co-founded the Center’s Interfaith Family Mediation Program and co-founded DePaul’s Asylum and Immigration Law Clinic. He is a founding member of the DePaul Migration Collaborative. He also teaches in DePaul’s Grace School for Applied Diplomacy. In 1984, he founded and directed the Midwest Immigrant Rights Center (now the National Immigrant Justice Center), a provider of legal assistance to refugees. Reverend Mousin was ordained at Wellington United Church of Christ where he has served as Associate Pastor for Immigrant Justice. His podcast, Lawful Assembly, is at: https://lawfulassembly.buzzsprout.com/. Some of his publications can be found at: https://works.bepress.com/craigmousin/ or https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cfdev/AbsByAuth.cfm?perid=667812
Carol Prendergast has been a Senior Advisor to Alfanar Venture Philanthropy since 2017. Alfanar provides seed funding and technical support for social entrepreneurs in the MENA region, focusing on organizations that economically empower women, youth and refugees. Ms. Prendergast has developed and directed advocacy, policy and direct service programs for NGOs serving refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S. Since her appointment as Visiting Senior Fellow in Human Rights at the London School of Economics, she has served as a consultant to international NGOs and EU agencies addressing the needs of victims of forced migration. Ms. Prendergast is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and has pursued postgraduate study at NYU and the Centre for Refugee Studies at Oxford University.
Zeki Saritoprak, PhD, is the Bediuzzaman Said Nursi Chair in Islamic Studies and a Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. He holds a PhD in Islamic Theology from the University of Marmara in Turkey. His most recent books are Islam’s Jesus was published by the University Press of Florida in 2014 and Islamic Spirituality: Theology and Practice for the Modern World (Bloomsbury, 2017). He is currently working on a book on Islamic Eschatology.
Mimi Tsankov is the President of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ). In the past 15 years presiding at Immigration Courts in New York, Colorado, and California, she has held a variety of national leadership roles including Pro Bono Liaison Judge, contributing editor to the Immigration Judge Benchbook, Chair, Immigration Court -Board of Immigration Appeals Precedent Committee, Mentor Judge, and Juvenile Docket Best Practices Committee Chair. She is currently the elected President of the National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) (2021 -2023). Judge Tsankov completed her J.D. at the University of Virginia School of Law and was awarded an M.A. in International Relations at the University of Virginia Graduate School of Politics. She completed her undergraduate degree at James Madison University.
Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din is an artist, activist, and founder of the global nonprofit #MeWe International Inc. (#MeWeIntl). #MeWeIntl is a global network of artists, scientists, and community-builders who design methodologies and tools for creative expression and communication skills-building to advance the health, human rights, and representation of everyone. For over 15 years, Mohsin has scaled his methodology across more than 15 countries, from the valley of Kashmir to the Syrian refugee camps in the Middle East, to the mountains of Morocco, Honduras, and Mexico. His movement has supported more than 8,000 vulnerable youth and caregivers and dozens of community building organizations fighting violence, forced displacement, incarceration, and poverty. Mohsin previously worked for human rights organizations such as Human Rights First, and worked in the Strategic Communications Division for the MDGs and SDGs for the United Nations in New York. His work has received honors from SOLVE MIT at the UN, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, Open Ideo and others. In 2009, Mohsin received a Fulbright Scholarship to pilot his methodologies in Morocco. His words and visual pieces have been featured in VICE News, Al Jazeera, Huffington Post, and The Nation. Instagram: @meweinternational | Twitter: @Mohsindin and @MeWeIntl
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