Biography
Dr Edward Kessler MBE is Founder Director of the Woolf Institute and Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. He is a leading thinker in interfaith relations, primarily, Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations. In 2007, Dr Kessler was described by The Times Higher Education Supplement as 'probably the most prolific interfaith figure in British academia' and was awarded an MBE in 2011 for services to interfaith relations. Kessler is also Vice-Chair of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, chaired by Baroness Butler-Sloss. The Commission, which will issue its report in the summer 2015, considers the place and role of religion in contemporary Britain. Dr Kessler sits on the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s Advisory group on Freedom of Religion and Belief and regularly teaches FCO staff on how and why religion can fundamentally affect policy.
He is a prolific author, having written or edited nine books and dozens of articles. Dr Kessler's most recent book is entitled Jews, Christians and Muslims (SCM, 2013) and a new book on Jesus is due to be published in 2016. Other publications include Bound by the Bible: Jews, Christians and the Sacrifice of Isaac (Cambridge University Press, 2004) which was called a 'landmark in Jewish-Christian Relations' by the former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks and A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations (Cambridge University Press, 2005) which Lord Williams, Master of Magdelene College and former Archbishop of Canterbury, has called 'an invaluable guide to Jewish-Christian Relations'.
