For the State of Alabama, Istanbul Center’s 2010-2011 Art & Essay Contest Awards Ceremony was held  on Saturday, March 19th at 2:30 p.m. at the 10th floor of the Auburn University Library Tower at Montgomery. Read the full story

Birmingham, AL. The Istanbul Center and the Peace Valley Foundation presented the historic Ladino Exhibition of images commemorating 500 years of Jewish-Turkish history in Birmingham, Mobile, Auburn and Huntsville. In Birmingham the exhibition was held at Birmingham International Center, the program started with the opening and welcoming by Jesse Hernandez, President of the BIC. Then, Peace Valley Foundation Vice President Yasin Oduk greeted the guests.

Keynote speaker Dr. Arnold Reisman, a retired university professor, discussed the invitation and settlement of 150,000 Sephardic Jews in the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Sultan Beyazid II. Jews were fleeing persecution from King Ferdinand of Spain and gladly accepted the Sultan’s help. Dr. Reisman also discussed the many thousands of Jews who were saved from the Nazis by Turkish bureaucrats and the German-Jewish academicians who were invited to Turkey to lay the foundation for Western style universities in Turkey. The program ended with the BIC executive Director Iris Gross’s closing remarks.

Birmingham, AL. Peace Valley Foundation hosted the 4th Annual Dialogue Dinner on Thursday, January 21^st, 2010 at the Harbert Center in Birmingham, AL. The theme of the dinner is “Who is my neighbor?”

Distinguished speakers of the program were:
Dr. Beverly Hawk, Director of Crossroads Community Center at University of Alabama
Dr. Edward LaMonte, Howell Heflin Professor of Political Science at Birmingham Southern College
Mr. Gurkan Ekicikol, Outreach director, Istanbul Center, Atlanta,GA

The dinner attracted approximately 100 special guests including people from churches, synagogues, mosques, educational institutions, media organizations, government agencies, and other community groups and religious organizations. People came together at one table, and they have proved that this is a situation of great richness, with remarkable opportunities for mutual understanding and for creating a society rooted in common values.

The special guest of the program, Ms. Mine Calik, performed Ebru (or water marbling) which is one of the most unique and beautiful forms of Turkish art.

Birmingham, AL. Dr. Jill Carroll gave a lecture on her recently published book “a Dilaogue of Civilations: Gulen’s Islamic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse“.

Peace Valley Foundation and Howard College of Arts And Sciences at Samford University hosted a lecture and discussion on “Islam and Humanistic ideals” on October 29^th, 2008 in Birmingham,AL.

Her new book explores the progressive Islamic ideals of Turkish intellectual and philosopher Fethullah Gulen. His theories, alongside those of well-known philosophers – Kant, Confucius, Plato, Sartre, and John Stuart Mill – provide an open conversation across time and culture on such subjects as freedom, education, and inherent human dignity.

Dr. Carroll is the Associate Director of the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance at Rice University. She is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Rice. In addition to teaching at Rice, she has taught widely in the Houston area, including at all campuses of the University of Houston system, The Women’s Institute of Houston, The Jung Center of Houston, and in the Texas State prison system. She is the author of 4 books and has been a columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education. Through her own company and in collaboration with other organizational consultants, she has done religious diversity training for corporations, groups and individuals.