A Rutgers University student who has found a unique way to promote dialogue between Jews and Muslims says she hopes she’s “planting a seed” that will flourish elsewhere. Danielle Josephs persuaded school officials to set up a living environment that includes a handful of students from various backgrounds. The Middle East Coexistence House has 11 female residents with diverse backgrounds including Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Christian and agnostic. Josephs says she got the idea after being “positively shocked” by the campus tensions between Jewish and Muslim students. She admits they do have heated discussions at the Coexistence House, but she says “when it’s over, it’s over” and they are all still friends.

-AP

You could call Earlene Scott a Bible detective. The Ohio retiree buys Bibles at auctions and estate sales and then tracks down descendants of their original owners. Scott says she has reunited about a dozen families with the treasured information about their family histories. Scott notes that many Bibles not only have names but also dates of births and deaths, marriages and locks of hair. She takes that information and then uses her computer to find descendants of the original owners. Scott says her efforts help families piece together their histories and provide a long-lost treasure that they can hold, touch, and share. She says, in one instance, she gave a man a German Bible that had been purchased by the man’s great-great-great grandfather in 1830.

-AP