More often than not, what passes under the name of “interfaith dialogue” is little more than an exchange of platitudes. At times it amounts to an invitation to clergymen to dilute the distinctive principles of their respective faiths in the name of mutual understanding. This conversation, by contrast, between Rabbi Mark Gottlieb and the Catholic writer R.R. Reno, manages to be both high-minded and respectful without involving any compromise. Their subject is Gottlieb’s recent article about the Viennese-Israeli scholar and diplomat Pinchas Lapide, author of some highly idiosyncratic writings about Christian teachings on resurrection. (Audio, 35 minutes.)

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.