Frankly, I was impressed by the willingness of the author to take on Jewish exceptionalism.

I had three questions for him:

1. Do you think that it's fair to draw a direct line from religious texts to the actions of particular individuals, if those texts are not generally acted on in that manner? Obviously, most orthodox do not go off on killing sprees.

2. Don't you think that kosher food or any other religious practices that do no harm to others are "weird" only from a modernist perspective? And that if some of these practices were looked at scientifically, they might have a rationale (say, health) we are just not aware of at present? Would you be open to the idea that there may be more science to so-called superstition than we now suspect.

3. Is there a necessary connection between a hierarchical religion and the killing of outgroups? Or could a perfectly egalitarian belief system lead to as much or more violence?