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

- David Novak

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.

- David Novak

The theological contacts between Jews and Christians during much of the premodern period are best characterized as disputations. Even when not engaged in face-to-face argumentation, Jews and Christians spoke about each other in essentially disputational terms.

- David Novak

The religious doctrine of traditional Judaism entails the acceptance of the nationhood of the Jewish people and the everlasting sanctity of the Land of Israel for them.

- David Novak

The common moral praxis of Jews and Christians is most definitely theologically informed by the doctrine we share in common: The human person, male and female, is created in the image of God.

- David Novak

The right to privacy has both positive and negative connotations for those who consider themselves part of the natural law tradition.

- David Novak

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

- David Novak

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

- David Novak

The community in which one hears the voice of God structures how one hears that voice and interprets what it says.

- David Novak

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

- David Novak

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

- David Novak

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

- David Novak

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

- David Novak

It has always been inevitable that, living as a small minority among a Christian majority, some Jews would convert to Christianity.

- David Novak

I first came to Jewish-Catholic relations in 1963, while studying for the rabbinate at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.

- David Novak

Historically, Jews only accept converts rather than actively seeking them.

- David Novak

God chose us to live both in body and in soul, but the body functions for the sake of the soul more than the soul functions for the body.

- David Novak

During the Middle Ages, Jews were members of a semi-independent polity within a larger polity.

- David Novak

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.

- David Novak

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

- David Novak