Dr. Tobias will discuss his new book, Jewish Conscience of the Church: Jules Isaac and the Second Vatican Council, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. It is the backstory of how the Catholic Church came to clarify and embrace its relationship with Jews and Judaism at the behest of an unlikely personality: Jules Isaac. This embrace put to an end a nearly two millennia old tradition within Christianity of anti-Jewish rhetoric, a tradition from which racial antisemitism had drawn its sustenance. Prior to Isaac’s thought and activism, this contemptuous tradition had never been denounced in so compelling a manner that the Church was forced to address it. It is a story of loss and triumph, and ultimately, unlikely partnership.