About the Abraham Institute
An educational institution promoting interfaith & intercultural dialogue and understanding.
Welcome to the Abraham Institute, an educational organisation which promotes interfaith and intercultural dialogue and understanding.
The Abraham Institute has the following goals:
To promote intercultural understanding, respect and trust by working with people from diverse cultural backgrounds to encourage dialogue and education.
To develop an ongoing dialogue among religious leaders and congregants of the World Religions, which will encourage them to work together to establish greater bonds of trust and respect by acknowledging our common humanity and a common goal to build a more peaceful and accepting world.
To encourage greater understanding and acceptance of religious, cultural and racial minorities.
To educate the greater community about the precepts and practices of world religions through school programmes and guest speakers.
Our History
In 2003, the Jewish Community Council of South Australia and the Adelaide Muslim community joined together to create Project Abraham, a program dedicated to creating a model for peace and reconciliation between Muslims and Jews. In 2005, the South Australian Council of Churches, as a fellow Abrahamic faith, joined Project Abraham. The initiative was supported by the Australian Government’s Living in Harmony program during its inception and initial stages, from 2003-2007, with grants totalling over $300,000.
Project Abraham hosted a series of seminars and school programmes and also staged an exhibition, which included religious artefacts and sacred writings from the three Abrahamic faiths. The program toured South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
In 2011, the Jewish Community Council of South Australia and Beit Shalom Synagogue established the Abraham Institute, which is based in Adelaide and continues to promote the original ideals of Project Abraham. The new organisation has now expanded to include other World Religions.
The 2016 Golden Rule Exhibition was a huge and successful undertaking, which saw artists from diverse cultural and religious backgrounds create works that reflected both their personal and their cultural interpretations of the Golden Rule. These works were displayed at the Adelaide City Library, along with artefacts from the different groups. Educators from each faith came in to talk to the public and school groups about the Golden Rule and belief in their communities.
Since 2018 the Abraham Institute has grown to include Intercultural Understanding as one of its key objectives. To that end, in partnership with Together For Humanity, the Abraham Institute delivers workshops in schools with both students and staff to help overcome any intercultural challenges they may be facing.
The Abraham Institute’s key partner is Together For Humanity.