He added that the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation — the main institutional Jewish partner in formal dialogue with the Vatican — was essentially “no longer in existence.”
The April 15 meeting of Jewish interfaith groups is being convened in New York by Rabbi A. James Rudin, interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, in direct response to Cassidy’s speech.
“The idea is to make an inventory of what we are doing. We need to take stock,” he said. “We’re looking for coordination.”
Rudin said he considered Cassidy’s criticism a matter of “concerns rather than crisis.”
But, he added, “Dialogue means you take the other side’s concerns seriously. I take it very seriously when our chief partner in dialogue raises such concerns.”