Cecelia Fischer

Cecelia (Celie) Fischer is a fourth-year history student. Her interests concern religious pluralism in light of various cultural, political, and intellectual histories; as a student of Arabic and Hebrew, her interests lie at the nexus of Middle Eastern and Jewish History. Her honors thesis draws upon the latter specialization, Jewish History, in conjunction with her longstanding passion for the study of religion. Under the direction of Professor David Myers, she is writing her honors thesis on post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian reckoning from the perspective of Abraham Joshua Heschel: a remarkable Jewish philosopher of religious pluralism. She explores the ways in which Heschel integrated his understanding of an intertwined Jewish-Christian history into his ecumenical dialogue; specifically, she investigates the type of historical sources that Heschel draws upon to develop an inclusive, forgiving Jewish theology of Christianity. In
many respects, Heschel’s theological pluralism builds upon the potential of the common Biblical heritage that Jews and Christians share. How, then, does Heschel reconcile that the Holocaust–which he narrowly escaped–was perpetrated in the name of an ostensibly ‘Christian’ population? To what extent must Heschel separate a religion’s modern adherents from that religion’s history; if he does, how does that change his approach to Judaism and Christianity–two religions that are irrevocably grounded in a shared past? In the future, Celie will continue to explore the intersection of faith, history, and justice through a graduate degree in Jewish History. Outside of class, she is a research grantee at the UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, advocates for peace and reconciliation in Israel-Palestine, and is a member of Signature A Cappella.