Israel and the Nations: The Bible, The Rabbis, and Jewish-Gentile Relations explores the Jewish theology and law (Halakhah) relating to non-Jews. It analyzes biblical, talmudic, medieval, and contemporary Jewish writings about gentiles and their religions.

The Bible challenges the Jewish people to be “a blessing for all the families of the earth.” Yet throughout history, Jewish experience with gentiles was complex. In the biblical and talmudic eras most gentiles were assumed to be idolators. In the Middle Ages most rabbis considered their Christian neighbors idolators, and Christian enmity sharpened the otherness Jews felt toward their Christian hosts. Muslims were monotheists, but Jewish-Muslim relations were sometimes positive and at other times difficult. With the advent secular tolerance in modernity, Jews found themselves in a new relationship with their gentile neighbors. How should Jews relate to gentiles today, and what are the bounds of Jewish tolerance and religious pluralism?

The book will interest both Jewish laypersons familiar with Jewish tradition as well as scholars of theology and interfaith relations

Introduction: Reassessing Jewish-Gentile Relations Today

Part One: Judaism, Jews, and Gentiles

1. The Covenant and Its Theology

2. Israel as Blessing: Theological Horizons

3. Extra Synagogam Nulla Salus? Judaism and the Religious Other

4. Revelation, Gentiles, and the World to Come

5. Idolatry Today

Part Two: Judaism, Jews, and Christianity

1. Rethinking Christianity: Rabbinic Positions and Possibilities

2. Esau Hates Jacob

3. The Man of Faith and Religious Dialogue

4. The People Israel, Christianity, and the Covenantal Responsibility to History

Bibliography

Index