{"id":29287,"date":"2026-03-23T14:19:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/?p=29287"},"modified":"2026-03-23T14:39:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T18:39:59","slug":"marshall-to-host-charles-hill-moffat-lecture-featuring-rabbi-victor-urecki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/2026\/03\/marshall-to-host-charles-hill-moffat-lecture-featuring-rabbi-victor-urecki\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall to host Charles Hill Moffat Lecture featuring Rabbi Victor Urecki"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Marshall University Department of History will welcome Rabbi Victor Urecki, retired rabbi of B\u2019nai Jacob Synagogue in Charleston, for the Charles Hill Moffat Lecture on Monday, March 30.<\/p>\n<p>Urecki will present his lecture, \u201cThe Journey of Life Through Dialogue and Encounter,\u201d from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Shawkey Dining Room of the Memorial Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n<p>Urecki, an Argentine-born rabbi, served as the spiritual leader of B\u2019nai Jacob Synagogue from 1986 to 2025. A passionate advocate for the Jewish diaspora, he has also spent considerable time working among Latin American migrants on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and in Central America. He is especially well known for his work promoting interfaith dialogue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve known Rabbi Urecki for six years, and in that time, I have grown as a professor, a friend and a human being,\u201d said Dr. Chris White, professor of history at Marshall and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/drinko\/\">Drinko Fellow.<\/a> \u201cIt\u2019s through his example as an interfaith promoter that I have become more open to learning about and spending time with people of all religious backgrounds. He is the definition of a true public servant, and I am proud to call him my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Urecki received the 2011 \u201cLiving the Dream Award\u201d and the 2014 West Virginia Civil Rights Award for his efforts to build bridges among faith communities. He is also a contributing editor to the Charleston Gazette, where he frequently writes about religious tolerance and mutual respect.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor nearly four decades, Victor Urecki has been far more than the rabbi of B\u2019nai Jacob Synagogue \u2014 he has been one of the moral voices of West Virginia,\u201d White said. \u201cThrough his leadership, empathy, openness and public engagement, he has reminded our state that faith should unite communities rather than divide them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Urecki also co-founded Root and Branch, an initiative promoting interfaith dialogue among Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities in the Kanawha Valley.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Marshall University Department of History will welcome Rabbi Victor Urecki, retired rabbi of B\u2019nai Jacob Synagogue in Charleston, for the Charles Hill Moffat Lecture on Monday, March 30. Urecki will present his lecture, \u201cThe Journey of Life Through Dialogue and Encounter,\u201d from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the Shawkey Dining Room of the Memorial [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29287"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29290,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29287\/revisions\/29290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}