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" Jewish status is defined by the divine election of Israel and his descendants. One does not become a Jew by one's own volition. "

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" In deciding among theological views, one should be something of a consequentialist: the choice of one theological position over another should be, if not actually determined, at least heavily conditioned by the fact that it implies a better ethical outcome than the alternatives. "

" Theology always has moral implications, and morality is always undergirded by theology. "

" Many of us, both Jews and Christians, want the public square to be pluralistic, which is neither partisan nor naked. "

" Cultural synthesis is how a compromise between various opinions is worked out. But truth does not change, and truth is not arrived at by some sort of compromise. "

" Perhaps the main stumbling block to a better, and more fruitful, theological relationship with Judaism and the Jewish people has been the tendency of many Christian theologians to see the Christ event as the end of history. "

" The one and only time I met Pope Benedict XVI was when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. "

" The rabbi is often the regular preacher in the synagogue, the man whose sermons offer his community more general theological and moral guidance. "

" Christianity and Judaism are united above all in their common affirmation and implementation of the moral teaching of the Hebrew Bible, or 'Old Testament,' and the traditions of interpretation of that teaching. "

" The Vatican's recognition of the State of Israel in 1997 could not have occurred without John Paul's leadership. "

" Jews have not only become equal citizens in Western democracies, they have become leading citizens. And, of course, the reestablishment of the State of Israel has given Jews a political presence in the world they have not had since biblical times. "

" If human language, with its logic, is the way God has given us to understand the world, then the Torah must be understood in that same language and with that same logic. "

" Most Jews, like most rational persons, know that their personal identity and their ethnic identity are not one and the same. "

" One cannot accept Christ and still be part of the normative Jewish community; one cannot live by Torah and still be part of the Church. "

" Modernity has been largely shaped for Jews by three momentous experiences: the acquisition of citizenship by individual Jews in secular nation-states, the destruction of one-third of Jewry in the Holocaust, and the founding of the State of Israel. "

" The Jewish tradition presents itself as the greatest revelation of God's truth that can be known in the world. That is why we call ourselves 'the chosen people.' It is not that we choose ourselves. It means that we have been elected by God and given the Torah. "

" As a practicing Jew, I have studied with Christian teachers whom I respect for who they are and what they are, including their positive concern with Jews and Judaism. "

" It seems unavoidable that history will always link the reestablishment of the State of Israel with the tragedy of the Holocaust. "

" Even when God chose Israel, he did not create the people of Israel as he created its human members, as natural beings. Instead, God formed the people of Israel from individual human beings already living in the natural world, calling them into a new historical identity. "

" Religious traditions are in a constant state of development and renewed self-understanding. "

" To be a Jew, essentially and not just accidentally, is to regard the Jewish people as one's sole primal community. Election by the unique God requires total and unconditional loyalty to one people. "

" In a very real sense, Jews have to believe that Christians have missed the point about how to wait for the end, and Christians have to believe something quite similar about the Jews. "

" The work of man is to respond to the Covenant by obeying the commandments of the Torah, those commandments that can be obeyed here and now. "

" At the political level, most Jews and most Catholics have accepted the liberal idea of religious freedom. "

" For those who have envisioned the State of Israel to be a democracy, which although primarily a Jewish polity for Jews is one in which non-Jews can become citizens and enjoy equal civil rights with the Jewish majority, the question of natural law is the question of human rights. "

" Christians and Jews alike are the new exiles of the contemporary world, struggling with how to sing the Lord's song in a strange land. "

" The slogan 'Never Again!' that emerged after the Holocaust implies that the Holocaust has a universal moral meaning, which, if properly learned, can provide at least a theoretical prophylactic against its repetition against anyone. "

" It was in the early 1960s that my late revered teacher, Professor Abraham Joshua Heschel, became the first major Jewish theologian in America to enter into dialogue with Christian theologians on a high theological level. "

" Jews have long experience with Christians who have tried to help us in putting our Judaism behind us. "

" The relationship between God and his people was always the one having absolute primacy, the one that had basically to determine all human relationships, whether those within the covenanted community itself or those between the covenanted community and the outside world. "

" As a traditional Jew, I have benefited personally from the hospitality of Chabad Hasidim on many occasions, and I marvel at how many Jews Chabad has brought back to their primordial home. "