“I wear two hats, one representing the people of Israel, the other representing the Jewish people around the world." These are the words I was instructed to write into more remarks than I can remember over my eight and a half years working as the Strategic Outreach Director for the Consulate General of Israel to the Southwest United States. Carefully consider the gravity of that statement. The more time I spent conducting interfaith outreach efforts for the Israeli government, the more confused I felt about Judaism as a religion, its nature as an ethnic identity, how the contemporary state...

Though I do not personally identify as a libertarian, one of the things I admire about libertarians is their emphasis on protecting individual rights. Freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are among our most important rights. I’ve made no secret about not being a fan of religion, and I do think we need to be able to honestly criticize bad ideas. I could easily write this article to be a brutal condemnation of radical Islam and its danger to society; but to do so would be to tread on well-trodden territory. When it comes to how we treat our neighbors and fellow citizens, there are...