I was born a Jew sixty years or so ago In New York City, and grew up in northern New Jersey.  While often speaking out against anti-Semitism, I never felt so vulnerable as I did on my trip to Europe last week.

My wife and I went to visit our younger daughter, who is studying abroad for a semester, and we made a side trip to Venice.  Friends told us to make sure to visit the “old Jewish quarter” in Venice — and we did.

But it wasn’t a “quarter” — it was a ghetto…a small area in which the Jews of Venice were forced to live; where they weren’t allowed out at night.  Where 1,600 men, women and children were herded, sent to concentration camps and slaughtered.  Even cattle had more humane endings.  Of the 1,600 taken eight returned.

I couldn’t even find the place by asking where the old temple was, until someone said, “oh, you mean the ghetto.”  I had never visited a concentration camp or a ghetto, and was overcome by what I saw:  A few Chabad (orthodox Jews) had set up an office, to keep a presence perhaps; a wall of bronze sculptures (as way of an apology by the Venetians) depicted Jews being rounded up and slaughtered, and dozens of students were on tour, learning about the atrocities perpetrated on this minscule minority–my minority!

It was as if they were viewing panda bears before they became extinct.  All of a sudden I realized I was the bear in the zoo, the oddity who is on some “nearly extinct” list, but without any mandate, anywhere in the world to preserve me and my people, my daughters, my cousins and my grandchildren to be.

Then we went to Murano for some of the famed glass-art, and when the artisans boasted of their six and seven generations of blowing glass, I asked where they were when the Jews were being rounded up — and they suddenly lost their ability to speak English.

We returned just in time for two major events: Passover and the Pope’s visit to the U.S.

At our Passover seder, my cousins talked of how the Albanian Muslims saved 6,000 Jews during the Holocaust, and how Islam is not inherently intolerant.  I interjected rather forcibly, stating that while differences existed within Muslim communities, the Koran offers guidance on who to kill and how to kill them (Jews being among them).  I was  quickly branded a “defeatist” by one cousin, who does stellar work trying to bring Jewish and Muslim children together.

I didn’t have much time to continue the discussion, as an elder cousin diverted the conversation and told a joke, knowing I would push the issue.  So much for asking more than four questions on Passover, I thought.

While the do-gooder cousin tried to lecture that Iran, Egypt and other Muslim countries were different, before I was cut off, I managed to say they had two things in common: Islam and a hatred for Jews, a desire to extinquish us.

I didn’t get to say that, by my conservative estimate, if 10% of the Muslims wanted to annihilate the Jews, that means for every Jewish man, woman and child, there are 10 Muslims ready to kill us.  Double that to 20 or quadruple it to 40, and we may have a better estimate.

Ultimately, it made me thankful that we a have Jewish state, where no authority tells Jews where they must live, what fields they cannot enter, how late they may roam, and force us to wear yellow stars or bear tattoos with numbers.

Which brings me to the Pope…His Eminence.  For one, I must state that I actually relish his views on religion, morality, reason, secularism and moral relevancy.  I only wish that Judiasm had a singular voice that could be heard, that would resonate, but that is not in the cards for my people, who have a history, glorious as it is, that questions and debates virtually all issues.  We even questioned– and challenged – God about destroying Sodom and Gommorah because God couldn’t find 100 pure men.  We remain diverse, we cherish the questions as much as the answers, and, hence, have no singular beacon.

So, I find the Christian viewpoint welcome via the Pope (other Christian denominations, like the Jews, remain too divergent to have such a force), as a counterpoint to the secularism that has infected Eastern Europe and our own intellectual snobs.  It is the counter-weight to both moral relativism and Islam, as well as the greed element of capitalism.

And, as a Jew I must admit that welcoming the Catholic voice does not come easily.  For it was the Catholics, the apostles, Constantine and others who created anti-Semitism by blaming the Jews for killing another Jew named Jesus.  Rather than take responsibility for putting Jesus on trial and executing him, they decided — after realizing his popularity — they better blame someone else… in this case the supposed “jury” of Jews.  Never, never has a jury, except in this case, been stained with its verdict; neither Joan of Arc, nor the Rosenbergs.  It’s always been the governing power.

But foregiveness is both a Judiac and Christian tradition, and the Catholic Church has chosen to foregive us, and I choose to foregive the church.  I, however, have not in my readings learned of the power of foregiveness in the Koran.

So while I welcome Catholics as allies, and appreciate the fundamentalist Christian support of Israel (even though they ultimately want to convert us), I feel I am an endangered species.

A couple of years ago I was having a discussion with an engaging black businessman.  He blurted out that he somehow wished he were born white.  I couldn’t understand that comment, until I visited the ghetto of Venice.

So it is with a bit of  sadness, witnessing my remaining 13 million  brothers and sisters struggle to endure – and with great pride — that I say I was born a Jew and will die a Jew!

Alan Bromley