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Welcome to the Soetendorp Institute
The Jacob Soetendorp Institute for Human Values has been founded by Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp. Honoring the name of his late father, the Institute is building bridges between the religions, cultures and generations. It is guided by the imperative of tikkun olam, repairing a world that is broken for those in need, for ourselves and our future.
The basic motivation for the projects of the Soetendorp Institute was derived in Rabbi Soetendorp's moving life story, his "memory beyond memories": Having survived World War II as a hidden childed, rescued by a righteous couple who risked their lives for him, Rabbi Soetendorp has come to the conviction: When the gaze of a baby can still reach the heart, even in the deepest depravity, nothing is lost.
The Institute therefore promotes an "education of the heart" that generates hope, inspiration and empathy with other cultures, religions, and forms of life. We believe that these skills are essential for eradicating xenophobia and creating just, peaceful and sustainable communities.
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Unpublished Interfaith Climate Summit
- Details
- Published: 06 January 2009
Interfaith Climate Summit
In December 2008, the Interfaith Climate Summit was held in Uppsala, Sweden that brought together climate experts, politicians, environmentalists, and leaders of diverse religious and spiritual traditions to explore the connection between religious traditions and perspectives and the struggle against climate change. At the summit, the Uppsala Interfaith Climate Manifesto was launched that had been drafted in a one year process and was endorsed by 30 distinguished leaders of the world's major faith traditions, including Rabbi Soetendorp. 
The purposes of the summit were;
• to communicate an urgent, hopeful, ethical-religious message to the global community about the need – especially for the developed countries – to slow down global warming, and to prevent and alleviate the effects of droughts, flooding, storms and other serious effects of climate change;
• to pledge commitment to the necessary, radical and far-reaching climate policy goals and measures in the “Post-Kyoto Process” , that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) determine, should be realised after 2012;
• to affirm this commitment in the Uppsala Manifesto 2008, and deliver the Manifesto to; the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), as well as to the Swedish government – prior to its Presidency of the European Union in 2009 – and to the world’s governments, and to different church networks and other religions.
Click here to read the Uppsala Interfaith Climate Manifesto 2008: Faith traditions addressing Global Warming
(foto credits: Magnus Aronson/IKON)