Berkeley Hillel hosted \u201cThe God Talk\u201d at Li Ka Shing Center on Monday, drawing about 90 attendees.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Rich Lyons was among the three panelists discussing belief in God, academic expertise and the intersection of the two. The panel included Executive Dean of the College of Letters & Science Jennifer Johnson-Hanks and Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences professor Shafi Goldwasser. Goldwasser is also the director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing.<\/p>\n
Outside in the lobby, seven protesters held signs reading \u201cZionism is fascism\u201d and \u201cHillel is complicit in the Gaza Holocaust,\u201d among other messages.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are here today \u2026 to call into the light the hypocrisy of this event taking place while a genocide continues in Palestine, while a war is waged in Iran and while bombs drop in Lebanon,\u201d said an anonymous protester from Jewish Voice for Peace, a campus Jewish anti-Zionist organization.<\/p>\n
Some members of Jewish Voice for Peace have allegedly been blacklisted from Hillel, according to the anonymous protester.<\/p>\n
[EMBED PROTEST PHOTO] FROM ANNABELLE<\/p>\n
This is the first year that \u201cThe God Talk\u201d has been open to the wider campus community, according to campus sophomore Pearl Werbach, a student event organizer.<\/p>\n
The discussion was guided by Rabbi Adam Naftalin-Kelman.<\/p>\n
Among other topics, Naftalin-Kelman asked the panelists when they felt closest to God, how injustice under God\u2019s watch can be explained, and whether God, or \u201cthe divine,\u201d has a place in the classroom.<\/p>\n
The speakers expressed both agreement and disagreement throughout the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can, in some sense, bring God into a classroom, or any of us can, by distributing dopamine hits to people in that class (by) saying, \u2018That\u2019s a cool idea,\u2019 and that feels kind of godly,\u201d Lyons said, regarding the question of God\u2019s place in the classroom.<\/p>\n
Goldwasser noted that \u201caha\u201d moments and a general passion for learning are where godliness can be found.<\/p>\n
Berkeley Hillel plans to host \u201cThe God Talk\u201d next year as well, according to Werbach.<\/p>\n
\u201cBelief in God and spirituality can obviously be an uncomfortable, awkward and tense conversation (and inevitably will be at times), and yet we\u2019ve had Nobel laureates, and now the chancellor, all so happy to be a part of it,\u201d Werbach said in a text message.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Berkeley Hillel hosted \u201cThe God Talk\u201d at Li Ka Shing Center on Monday, drawing about 90 attendees. Chancellor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[117186,764,117180,51363,117181,48514,14876,340,117182,37488,30099,42744,72366,143,145,144,3783,117185,117183,84016,117184,149],"class_list":{"0":"post-269013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-adam-naftalin-kelman","9":"tag-berkeley","10":"tag-berkeley-hillel","11":"tag-chancellor-rich-lyons","12":"tag-college-of-letters-and-sciences","13":"tag-eecs","14":"tag-god","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-jennifer-johnson-hanks","17":"tag-jewish","18":"tag-jewish-voice-for-peace","19":"tag-lebanon","20":"tag-li-ka-shing-center","21":"tag-oakland","22":"tag-oakland-headlines","23":"tag-oakland-news","24":"tag-palestine","25":"tag-pearl-werbach","26":"tag-shafi-goldwasser","27":"tag-simons-institute-for-the-theory-of-computing","28":"tag-the-god-talk","29":"tag-uc-berkeley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}