I recently attended an interfaith conference in Rome, where an unnamed  Jewish Professor startled the audience by declaring: “I would like to thank the Trinity for preserving Judaism throughout the Middle Ages.” He went on to explain that the dogma of the Trinity, is so foreign to Jewish monotheism, that it strengthened the resilience of embattled Jewish communities, to remain loyal to their faith despite enduring relentless persecution and pressure from the Church to convert.

One of the great blessings of our time is that much of this enmity has been overcome, thanks to profound changes in Christianity’s attitude toward Jews and Judaism. In 2000, during his visit to the Western Wall, Pope John Paul II placed a note in the Kotel expressing a prayer to God and a commitment to “genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant.” In a 2015 Church document, The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable, it was affirmed that God’s covenant with the Jewish people has never been revoked, that Judaism is not obsolete, and that the Church does not support missionary efforts directed at Jews.

Whereas in the past the survival of the Jewish people often required emphasizing the divisions between Judaism and Christianity, these developments invite a different question: might there now be a basis for cooperation in advancing shared biblical visions? The prophet Zephaniah, for example, envisioned a humanity united in calling upon the name of God and serving Him together. The hope of realizing such a vision within the context of Judaism and its relationship with other religions animates my work at the Ohr Torah Blickle Center for Interfaith Dialogue.

Yet such a vision also requires us to engage seriously with the Christian understanding of God and to reconsider its relationship to Jewish belief, not least by exploring whether, and in what sense, the doctrine of the Trinity can be reconciled with monotheism. Jesus himself, in the Gospel of Mark (12:29), responds to a scribe who asks, “Which commandment is the first of all?” by affirming the essential Jewish creed of the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.” The scribe replies, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘He is one, and besides Him there is no other.’” Clearly, within Christian self-understanding, the Trinity is not seen as contradicting the oneness of God. But how is this so? And how does this claim relate to the Jewish understanding of the divine and to our core affirmation that God is One?

A Jewish Reading of Christian Theology

It was therefore with great joy and gratitude that I read my mentor, Rabbi Professor Alan Brill’s latest book, A Jewish Trinity: Contemporary Christian Theology through Jewish Eyes (Fortress Press, 2025). Rabbi Brill is uniquely qualified to produce this book: he holds a chair in Jewish–Christian studies at Seton Hall University, a Catholic institution, while possessing deep knowledge of Jewish theology. Most important to me, however, is my trust in his intellectual and theological integrity. When engaging scholars or clerics on sensitive topics beyond my own expertise, I am often concerned that their agendas, or their desire to tell me what I........

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