Sharing a unique perspective on the Middle East

As the nation attempts to put the events of September 11 in perspective, Ron Kiener, associate professor of religion, finds himself again in a role with which he has become all too familiar, sharing his unique perspective and expert knowledge of the Middle East with the College, local, and national communities. For this scholar of medieval Jewish mysticism and a teacher of both the Jewish and Islamic traditions, the Middle East resonates far beyond the scope of the classroom.

An intimate knowledge of subject matter

Since coming to Trinity in 1983, Kiener has made a lasting impression on students who have taken his courses on Jewish and Islamic studies. Kiener, who is Jewish, has the task of teaching students not only about his own faith, but also about Islam.  

“I’ve found it beneficial for the teaching of both religious traditions that I am intimately involved with one and an alien to the other,” Kiener says. “Being an alien to Islam allows me to teach Judaism better, because I can understand what it’s like to approach Judaism for the first time. Being intimately involved with Judaism makes me more mindful of some of the details of Islam.” Kiener gives credit to Trinity and his students for allowing him to straddle these two religious traditions.

“I’ve had many situations where Muslim students will take my introduction to Islam course and tell me ‘I never thought I would ever learn anything about my tradition from a Jew.’ And then they take my introduction to Judaism course,” Kiener says. “Alternatively, I’ll have Jewish kids who take my Islam course.”

Toufic Haddad ’97, one of Trinity’s first Middle-Eastern Studies majors, won the College’s prize for excellence in Hebrew while a student of Kiener’s.

Now a writer/editor at Between the Lines, a progressive Palestinian English-language monthly publication based in Israel, Haddad became a close friend of Kiener’s through their unique relationship in the classroom.

“I’m really proud of him,” Kiener says of his former student. “We disagree, but we also agree, and I know that I’ve contributed at least a little bit to someone who identifies with the Palestinian cause.”

Haddad, who now lives in Ramallah in the Occupied West Bank, took three of Kiener’s courses and was the teaching assistant in his first-year seminar at the time.

“Kiener defies the traditional student-teacher relationship and expounds a human cynicism for the ivory tower that permits him to be approachable, friendly, and at times even comical with students,” says Haddad. Those students who put the most into Kiener’s classes, Haddad says, “were awakened with a completely new-found and unexpected interest in the diverse topics that Kiener is capable of discussing.”

Making sense of a tragedy

Since September 11, Kiener says he has devoted class time each day to discussing issues related to that event. His ability to make sense of the issues surrounding the tragedies, and the Middle East in general, recently earned him a weekly guest spot on the syndicated radio show “Doug Stephan’s Good Day USA,” which is broadcast to 200 stations nationally.

Kiener says one of the most common questions he hears from the American public and students alike is “Why do they hate us?”

“I think that is the wrong question,” Kiener says. “And who’s the ‘they?’ It isn’t the whole Islamic world, and that’s one of the points I try to make over and over again.

“I fall in with that camp that sees this a little less as Islamic rage and more as having to do with state-sponsored transnational terrorism,” Kiener says. “It’s right to say that we are not at war against Islam—we’re not—but we have to understand that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein very much want to portray us as involved in a clash of civilizations.

“It’s going to take a lot of intelligence to negotiate this in a way that allows people who are modern in their outlook—sympathetic to pluralism—to carry the day,” Keiner says.

A scholar of medieval Jewish mysticism

Despite his being an expert on current events in the Middle East, Kiener’s academic specialty is Jewish mysticism in the Middle Ages, a field he became deeply interested in during his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania. It was at this early stage in his academic career that Kiener’s simultaneous interest in Judaism and Islam was developed.

“I became interested in medieval Jewish thought and it quickly became apparent to me that all of the great medieval Jewish philosophers wrote their books in Arabic,” Kiener says. “So I knew I had to learn Arabic and I needed to learn about Islam.”

Kiener says his study of the medieval history of the Middle East provides a valuable context as he tries to come to terms with current events.

“When you study Islam over its 14 centuries, you see that we’re living in an aberrant moment—a strange moment. The entire history of Islam and its relation to Christianity and Judaism is one of tolerance and honor,” he says. “There have been moments of enmity—the Crusades, for example. We’re living in one of those moments.”

In June, Kiener and other members of the faculty traveled to Jerusalem to attend a Shasha Institute seminar sponsored by Hebrew University. Frank Kirkpatrick, professor of religion and a member of the search committee that brought Kiener to Trinity, also went on the trip.

“Ron’s knowledge and expertise of the subject and of Israel itself were immensely valuable to the whole group…and to me in particular,” Kirkpatrick says.

Kiener says the new $2.5-million Hillel House is further evidence of the College’s commitment to Jewish studies and culture.

“If creating a full-time Jewish studies position was step one, then this is clearly step two,” Kiener says. “It’s a really important symbolic statement. This facility says Jews are a welcome component of this campus.” Kiener says the new facility, funded by a gift from Henry Zachs ’56, will be “something that the community will be proud of and will be able to partake in—a welcome home for everyone.”

Kiener hopes that some good may come out of the tragedies of September 11 at Trinity and at other educational institutions.

“I’m trying to encourage students to think about Middle Eastern studies as a way of service to the nation—to humanity,” he says. “If Southeast Asia was the part of the world that drove my generation into a frenzy, the Middle East is going to be that for this generation. Trinity is in a position to cater to that [educational] need.”

–Michael Bradley