Dr. Levine is speaker for Rabbi Meyer Memorial Lecture

Staff report

youngstown

Dr. Amy-Jill Levine will be keynote speaker at the 2013 Rabbi Samuel Meyer Memorial Lecture planned for 7 p.m. June 5 at First Presbyterian Church, 201 Wick Ave.

Her topic will be “Jesus’ Parables as Jewish Stories: Hearing Jesus’ Parables through Jewish Ears.”

The lecture is free.

A clergy and educators’ workshop will be at 9:30 a.m. June 6 at the church. Levine’s topic will be “Understanding First Century Judaism: A Key to Understanding Jesus.”

The workshop is free but registration is required. Call 330-744-4307 by May 31.

Levine, who was the Meyer lecturer in 2005, is university professor of New Testament and Jewish studies, E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies and professor of Jewish studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and College of Arts and Sciences. She also is affiliated professor, Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Her recent books are “The Meaning of the Bible: What the Jewish Scriptures and the Christian Old Testament Can Teach Us,” which was co-authored with Douglas Knight, and “The Jewish Annotated New Testament” co-edited with Marc Z. Brettler.

She is a member of Congregation Sherith Israel, an Orthodox synagogue in Nashville.

The Meyer Memorial Lecture Series is made possible by the Rabbi Samuel Meyer Memorial Trust. The trust was established in 1994 to honor the memory of the late Samuel Meyer, rabbi emeritus of Temple El Emeth in Liberty, who died in 1992.

Rabbi Meyer served as rabbi of Temple El Emeth and its predecessor congregations in Youngstown from 1971 until his retirement in 1990.

He had an interest in Jewish-Christian dialogues and the lecture series is takes place annually to foster continuing interfaith discussion in the Mahoning Valley.

Rabbi Meyer and the Rev. George Balasko of the Diocese of Youngstown co-founded the local Jewish-Christian Dialogue group in 1974. It is now Jewish/Christian Studies.