Live Panel Discussion - "Muslim and Jewish Relations in a Climate of Change"

Muslim and Jewish peers and MPs, including the former Conservative Leader Michael Howard and shadow cabinet member Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, will meet students of both faiths and take part in this live panel discussion.

The event, which is free and open to all, is entitled “Muslim and Jewish Relations in a Climate of Change”. It forms part of a nationwide campus tour arranged by the Coexistence Trust, which promotes good relations between Muslim and Jewish communities around the world.

Lord Parry Mitchell, Labour Peer and Chairman of the Coexistence Trust, said: “In addition to promoting positive relations between young Muslims and Jews at UK Universities, we hope the tour will address the aspirations of Muslim and Jewish students as they integrate into society; their values and life-goals.”

The tour aims to promote closer relations between young Muslim and Jewish students both by bringing them together to discuss inter-faith relations, and specifically by focusing on the common experiences of their two communities in the UK.

Panellists of both faiths will talk about their own experiences as students and how the relationship between the two religions has developed over recent decades. They will examine what they think are the key issues affecting Jewish-Muslim relations in Britain today and discuss how Jews and Muslims can understand themselves as British citizens.

Members of the audience will have the opportunity to question the panel, which will also include Lord Mitchell; the Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, Trust founder Lord Greville Janner, the Liberal Democrat Peer Baroness Kishwer Falkner and Sir Gulam Noon OBE.

“Jewish and Muslim people work together in all walks of life, yet we seem to live apart,” Baroness Falkner said. “This tour will finally give us an opportunity to get beneath the skin and to talk of all the things that bring us together in this country and where we might make common cause. It’s long overdue.

“Muslim and Jewish relations in a climate of change” will take place at the University of Cambridge Law Faculty, 10, West Road, Cambridge. Doors open at 5.45pm. The event will start at 6pm.

The Coexistence Trust was founded by Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan and Lord Janner of Braunstone in 2005 to promote dialogue, co-operation and good relations between Muslim and Jewish communities internationally. For more information contact:

Tom Kirk, Communications Office, University of Cambridge, Tel: +44 (0)1223 332300, mobile +44 (0)7917 535815, Email: tdk25@admin.cam.ac.uk

Dana Sender, The Coexistence Trust, 25, Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9BU, Tel: +44 (0)20 7976 8443, Email: researcher@coexistencetrust.co.uk