Media Contact: Leanne Ingle, 360-704-4508, or outside Thurston County calling area: (877) 284-6237, ext. 2508; e-mail: lingle@trlib.org.

Heritage and history meet in Abraham, one of the most widely revered figures in world history. In a slide-illustrated lecture offered to the public, Professor Don Holsinger will discuss how Abraham's triple heritage has been formed and reformed through the ages by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The presentation will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, September 20 at the Elma Timberland Library, 118 N First St. Co-sponsored by the Friends of the Elma Timberland Library and Humanities Washington, this Inquiring Mind series lecture is free of charge.

With the aid of slides from Hebron, the traditional burial site of Abraham, Holsinger will take the audience to one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world, whose divided sanctuary edifice and divided neighborhoods are both a reflection of Abraham's contested legacy and a microcosm of the current Middle East conflict.

Dr. Holsinger is a professor of Middle Eastern, African, and global history at Seattle Pacific University. He taught English in Algerian secondary schools and received a Ph.D. in history from Northwestern University after conducting research on a Saharan Muslim community. After teaching for ten years at George Mason University, Holsinger moved to the Northwest in 1990 where he has lectured frequently on Africa, the Middle East, and Islam.

Timberland Regional Library serves Grays Harbor, Lewis, Mason, Pacific, and Thurston counties at 27 community libraries and 6 school-based cooperative library centers. For information on any subject, the public in Grays Harbor can telephone Timberland’s Central Reference Service librarians toll-free at 1-800-562-6022. Or they can "Ask a Librarian" online at http://www.trlib.org/asklib.htm. Anyone needing special accommodations to participate in a library’s program may contact the library 4 days in advance.