The new rabbinic group, the Rabbinic Committee for Interreligious Dialogue, includes several internationally respected Jewish theologians. What's odd about the new group is that, in a crucial sense, they're not representatives at all. In fact, the rabbinic committee was convened under the auspices of a Catholic college. Its founder, Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, is director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. That's a strange pedigree for a group purporting to represent Judaism.
Vatican officials are noncommittal on the significance of the new dialogue.
They haven't always been so open. The Vatican has rebuffed repeated efforts by Jewish groups to open a second channel. As for the new group's strange pedigree, Hoeckman dismisses it as a quibble. If it could be hosted by a Jewish university, fine. We are still waiting for it.