Steven Reece

On July 24, right after the closure of the Leadership Roundtable 2019, Steven Reece defended his dissertation titled “The Third Space: The Meeting of Jew and Christian in the Act of Remembering, Restoring, and Reconciling — A Case Study of the Matzevah Foundation.” The Matzevah Foundation was founded by Steven before he entered the Leadership Program with the purpose to restore Jewish cemeteries in Poland, the country that was used by the Nazis to build some of the most notorious extermination camps in human history. Alerted by a Polish Jewish woman to this tragic reality while working in Poland in the language learning phase of his missionary assignment, Steven was faced with an unusual call that took him on a journey he describes in his dissertation. The third space is a liminal space where both, Jew and Christian, enter something new even as they have to leave something behind in order to create a new space of genuine encounter with new possibilities for mutual understanding and reconciliation. Steven documents this sensitive process in his dissertation. As a trained photographer, he also provided a photographic record of some of the incredible projects his foundation has organized in different parts of Poland.

The dissertation was chaired by Erich Baumgartner. Shirley Freed served as the methodologist and was present by Zoom. Thom Wolf, a graduate of the Leadership Program and the Director Founder of University Institute in New Delhi, India, served as the content specialist. The external examiner, Dr. Annamarie Orla-Bukowska, is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative scholars on Jewish Christian relations in Poland. She joined the defense also via Zoom. This defense required some special technical help via Zoom provided by our Graduate Assistant, Jacob Romero. Steven is now working on the completion of his portfolio. He plans to graduate in May of 2020. Congratulations to a path-breaking dissertation plowing new ground on one of the most disturbing chapters of human history.