Preface

 

In 1994, Mr. Janiki Cingoli, Director of the CENTRO ITALIANO PER LA PACE IN MEDIO ORIENTE (CIPMO), Milan, approached Palestinian and Israeli institutions, inviting them to participate in a workshop on the topic of Jerusalem.

 

Following this first approach, intensive correspondence and consultation began between CIPMO, the PALESTINIAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS (PASSIA), Jerusalem and the ECONOMIC COOPERATION FOUNDATION, Tel Aviv.

 

After several coordinating meetings between the three institutions involved in this project, it was agreed that an academic seminar on the topic of Jerusalem-Religious Aspects would be held from May 9^th-11th, 1995 in Milan, Italy.

 

The papers published here are the presentations given during that seminar, which was arranged and hosted by CIPMO and financially supported by the European Union. The papers represent the free expression of the authors and do not necessarily represent the judgement or opinion of any of the three centres involved.

 

The three institutions agreed that CIPMO will publish these papers in Italian, while PASSIA will be responsible–independently from any other arrangement regarding the seminar–for translating the presentations into Arabic and publishing them bilingually as part of the PASSIA Research Studies Programme 1995, which is kindly supported by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), Jerusalem.