Father Lawrence E. Frizzell will be honored for a lifetime of work and scholarship, receiving the first ever Sister Rose Thering Fund Award in Jewish Christian Understanding on Sunday, May 7, at the 24th annual Evening of Roses fundraiser. Father Frizzell is Director and Associate Professor of the Jewish-Christian Studies Graduate Program in the Department of Religion.

Also being honored for their commitment and dedication are Sister Rose Thering Fund Trustees Luna Kaufman, Pearl Randall Lehrhoff and Hattie Segal. In addition, there will be a guest appearance by Amy-Jill Levine, University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University.

"Our Evening of Roses will offer us an opportunity to acknowledge the scholarship of Father Lawrence Frizzell and the devoted support of Luna Kaufman, Pearl Randall Lehrhoff and Hattie Segal," said Deborah Lerner Duane, Board Chairman.

"For more than 20 years, the Sister Rose Thering Fund has fostered understanding and cooperation among Jews, Christians and people of other religious traditions through advocacy and education. Few have been more determined and influential in sustaining this mission than Father Frizzell. We are proud to honor him on May 7 with our first-ever Sister Rose Thering Fund Award in Jewish-Christian Understanding. We are also privileged to recognize Mrs. Kaufman, Mrs. Lehrhoff and Mrs. Segal, all of whom celebrated milestone birthdays last year, and whose perseverance and enthusiasm for our mission have made a great difference in our success," she added.

Father Frizzell, D.Phil. (Oxford University), S.S.L. (Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome), S.T.L. (University of Ottawa) is a priest of the Edmonton Archdiocese in Alberta, Canada. He came to Seton Hall University in 1974 to help found the master's program, which in 1979 became the Department of Jewish-Christian Studies. He was also Associate Director of the Institute of Judaeo-Christian Studies, founded in 1953 by Msgr. John M. Oesterreicher. Since 1993, he has served as director of this Institute, which promotes understanding of the Christian roots in the Jewish matrix of the Second Temple period and, through lectures and publications, strives to increase understanding and amity between Jewish and Christian communities.

Principles of Jewish-Christian dialogue may be applied to other communities seeking justice, peace and greater mutual understanding. For decades Father Frizzell has developed a personal interest in peace studies and, in a limited way, an appreciation of the cultures of East and South-East Asia. His doctoral dissertation was on the theology of the community that produced the Dead Sea (Qumran) Scrolls. Besides publications in biblical and Jewish studies, he wrote entries for the World Encyclopedia of Peace (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1986, revised 1999) and the Dictionary of Christian-Jewish Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2005).

"The mission of the Sister Rose Thering Fund is to rid the world of religious prejudice and build a more just and inclusive society, which Father Frizzell has dedicated his life to in service," said Professor David Bossman, SRTF executive director. "This event honors the memory of Sister Rose as the community comes together to provide complete tuition support for our teacher/scholars. We are gratified that each year hundreds of public, private and religious school students learn how to approach interreligious understanding because of the generosity and work of all of our honorees," said Professor Bossman.

The program begins at 2 p.m. in Jubilee Hall Auditorium on the Seton Hall University South Orange campus, 400 South Orange Ave, South Orange.

The Sister Rose Thering Fund for Education in Jewish-Christian Studies was created and named in honor of Sister Rose Thering, O.P., Ph.D., in recognition and appreciation of her exemplary dedication throughout her life and that continuing legacy to improving Jewish-Christian relations through teacher education, especially at the elementary and secondary school levels. The goals of the Fund's programs are to reduce prejudice born of ignorance and misperception, to promote means for conveying the richness of the Jewish and Christian traditions accurately and without bias and to foster cooperation among Jews and Christians in areas of common social welfare. More than 350 teachers throughout New Jersey have benefited from Fund scholarships for their studies at Seton Hall University's Jewish-Christian Studies graduate program during the past two decades, and have had an impact on more than 150,000 students in their classes.

For tickets and information, contact the Sister Rose Thering Fund office, (973) 761-9006 or srtf@shu.edu or click here. Tickets can be purchased at the event.