In a now-famous 1964 essay, the great American Jewish sage Joseph B. Soloveitchik sought to put firm limits on interfaith dialogue, encouraging social and civic engagement with followers of other religions while forbidding open-ended efforts to find theological common ground. When Yitzchok Adlerstein, after a career as an Orthodox rabbi and educator, began engaging in conversations with priests, pastors, and imams on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal center, his main goal was to advance the good of the Jewish people and the Jewish state. This remains his “first and foremost” purpose, but he has also come to appreciate these conversations as an end in themselves. (Interview by Elie Mischel.)

For the first time in 2,000 years, we have an opportunity to speak our minds as believing Jews and provide guidance to others who wish to know the word of God about pressing social issues.

Often, these groups are embattled in their own ways, and are looking for someone to hold their hand or pat them on the back and say, “Listen, we are theologically incompatible with each other. But we share in our gut and our minds a firm conviction in the existence of a Creator, of His communication with man, of normative demands that are immutable and without which man and mankind will not be happy.”

I have learned a number of things in doing this work. The assumption with which many of us grew up, that every Christian is out to convert us, and that converting us is at the very top of their list of priorities, is simply not true. There are tens and probably hundreds of millions of Christians who are neither anti-Semitic nor particularly zealous about recruiting others. . . . But history has taught them that direct proselytizing is often counterproductive and not as effective as trying to live as exemplars of their faith and hoping that others will be attracted to it.

So much of our vocabulary coincides. We talk about God in intimate terms, as One Who surrounds us 24/7, a God we feel responsible to, [Who guarantees that] there are consequences to our actions and not everything is up for grabs, and a God Who cares about us. This instantly gives us things to talk about, without having to get into theological points that separate us.

Robert Satloff has some harsh words for the U.S. government in this regard, words I take especially seriously because Satloff is someone inclined to political moderation. Why, he asks, have American diplomats failed to achieve anything in their endless rounds of talks in Doha and Cairo? Because

there is simply not enough pressure on Hamas to change course, accept a deal, and release the remaining October 7 hostages, stuck in nightmarish captivity. . . . In this environment, why should Hamas change course?

Publicly, the U.S. should bite the bullet and urge Israel to complete the main battle operations in Gaza—i.e., the Rafah operation—as swiftly and efficiently as possible. We should be assertively assisting with the humanitarian side of this.

Satloff had more to say about the hostages, especially the five American ones, in a speech he gave recently:

I am ashamed—ashamed of how we have allowed the story of the hostages to get lost in the noise of the war that followed their capture; ashamed of how we have permitted their release to be a bargaining chip in some larger political negotiation; ashamed of how we have failed to give them the respect and dignity and our wholehearted demand for Red Cross access and care and medicine that is our normal, usual demand for hostages.

If they were taken by Boko Haram, everyone would know their name. If they were taken by the Taliban, everyone would tie a yellow ribbon around a tree for them. If they were taken by Islamic State, kids would learn about them in school.

It is repugnant to see their freedom as just one item on the bargaining table with Hamas, as though they were chattel. These are Americans—and they deserve to be backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.