Originally broadcast at 2:00 p.m. ET Friday, July 1, 2022.

This program is made possible by The Presbyterian Association of Chautauqua Religious Lectureship Fund

Dr. Georgette Bennett is an award-winning sociologist, widely published author, popular lecturer, and former broadcast journalist. An innovative and entrepreneurial leader, she is an active philanthropist focusing on conflict resolution and intergroup relations. In 2013, Bennett founded the Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA) and has since worked to raise awareness and mobilize over $225 million of humanitarian aid on behalf of more than two million Syrian war victims. In 1992, she founded the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She is also a co-founder of the Global Covenant of Religions/Global Covenant Partners, which focuses on delegitimizing the use of religion to justify violence and extremism.

Georgette Bennett served in the U.S. State Department Religion and Foreign Policy initiative’s working group on conflict mitigation, tasked with developing recommendations for the U.S. Secretary of State on countering religion-based violence. She is Immediate Past Chair of the Jewish Funders Network, and Honorary President of Religions for Peace. She serves on the Board of Third Way, Muslim Jewish Advisory Council, and the Advisory Boards of the International Rescue Committee and the Milstein Center for Interreligious Dialogue at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Among many honors, Bennett was awarded the AARP Purpose Prize for her work with MFA and recently received an Extraordinary Women Award from the 92nd Street Y. In 2021, she was included in Forbes 50 Over 50 Women of Impact, and cited, along with Condoleezza Rice and Susan Rice, as women who helped shape the course of modern American foreign policy and human rights. Her book, Thou Shalt Not Stand Idly By: How One Woman Confronted the Greatest Humanitarian Conflict of Our Time was published in late 2021. Her next book, Religicide, co-authored with Nobel Peace Prize Co-recipient Jerry White, will be released in September 2022.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.