You might find that statement puzzling, although some of you who’ve known me for a long time, maybe not so much.

I just finished reading a remarkable historical novel entitled, The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah, published two years ago and retrieved from my local library. Look it up on Amazon. There are over 34,000 customer reviews and the average is a full five stars. Completely warranted. The story of two French sisters living in Nazi-occupied France, the Holocaust is only one theme of many but it doesn’t take a lot for me to remember who I am.

Yes, the fact that my father was a Jew does not make me a Jew. Technically, authentic “Jewishness” is inherited through one’s mother, which makes me goyim. Yes, my last name is clearly Jewish, as is recognized by Jews who encounter me and sometimes remark that I must be from the “Tribe.” However, as I’ve never practiced as a Jew (aside from participating in the twice annual rituals of Passover and Hanukah with my paternal grandparents as a child) and am now a professed follower of Jesus, my standing as a Jew clearly doesn’t hold up.

So, why do I make such a bold statement?

Because, truly, I can’t escape it, nor do I want to.

I say this for reasons that are historical, theological and, perhaps, psychological.

I may have said this before but of all the eras I have studied, of all the civilizations and their cultures and philosophies and economies and political structures (ancient, near east, far east, African, Latin American, US), I have to say that my greatest concentration has to have been 20^th century western civilization. I have taken multiple courses on Russian history and French history. I have studied in great depth the communist revolutions in Russia and China, as well as the Fascist revolutions in Germany and Italy, with all of their offshoots in other countries. And, I have studied and read widely of the Holocaust, with all of its causes and effects, including the establishment of the modern state of Israel. I have learned of the fate of relatives and the relatives of friends who were unfortunate enough to be European Jews in the last century. For some reason I don’t fully understand, all of this strikes me deeply, tugging at ways that are far greater than mere academic interest would suggest.

I expect, as young children, we are mesmerized by mystery. And, some of these mysteries take hold, affecting our imaginations and, later, our identities. We may learn wonder through the small coin left under our pillow by the Tooth Fairy or the presents, brought magically by Santa and his reindeer, via our chimneys and delivered on Christmas morning. I can’t testify to any sense of wonder from going to church and experiencing their liturgies and Sunday School lessons because, of course, I never went to a church until college. I’d be interested to hear what wondrous experiences my life long church-going friends had in their developing years. I say this as a lead in to my earliest connection with faith.

Of course, as seculars, we celebrated Christmas and we hung Christmas cards over the fireplace, many of which had scenes of the manger, angels, wise men and the sort. Sometime in my childhood, my mother obtained a modest crèche and put it outside in the backyard, visible through a window. But, honestly, none of these things created wonder in me, which is now sort of ironic.

Instead, I sat wondrously as my father read Hebrew from such strange looking letters as I followed along with the English translation, wearing my yarmulke during the Passover Seder. I mean, who was this man, who could read this peculiar and ancient language once a year, with its intonations that resonated with something deep? And, the story. What a story! As sons, my younger brother and I had small roles to play in the ceremony and we understood this was important. We were connected to something well beyond ourselves. It was a story of a people who had survived for thousands of years, knowing great tragedy but also, great redemption. It was not a story that, to me, was about pictures on Christmas cards, conflated with a strange haloed baby who had some sort of unique standing. It was about faith in things unseen and incomprehensible, about persistence and trust and love and fear. About living on the edge. About survival against all odds.

Strange men with wild hair (at least pictured in the one picture book of Old Testament stories we had at home that helped me broaden my understanding of these things), such as Abraham and Moses and Samson, and heroes such as David, vanquishing the evil giant, Goliath, or others in this cast of characters such as Joshua and Gideon and Solomon (offering to split the baby) or women such as Sarah or Ruth or Rebecca … all captured my imagination. And then there was Elijah, this man my father and grandfather called a prophet, set apart, who sipped from the small glass of wine we set for him at the Passover table, leaving the front door slightly ajar so he could invisibly enter. As children, we studied the glass intensely, trying to determine the exact moment he took his ceremonial drink.

I was mesmerized by the lamb’s blood on the doors, signaling the Angel of Death to pass over the houses of the faithful while enslaved in Egypt, thereby preserving their sons. This deliverance continued as the people passed over out of slavery and later passed over into the Promised Land … the period we now call The Exodus. I was reminded that it was never easy for these people, who struggled with their faith, living a cyclic life between building a homeland for themselves with the one true God and living in exile and under oppression. Later, of course, I learned of the Diaspora, the great migrations out of a hostile Palestine, mostly to Europe and America, suffering the constant attacks by majoritarian (mostly Christian) cultures. This was another sort of pass over, instead away from the land promised by their God and away from any semblance of safety or permanency.

These stories and this history took hold and blossomed as I looked out at a world of suffering, of battles between good and evil, of oppression and resistance, whether that resistance came in the form of partisans refusing to give into the Nazi terror or Freedom Riders uniting with southern locals to attack inhuman prejudice rampant in the American South. It was all Samson standing tall against the Philistines, sacrificing his life or David doing the same, taking the stand alone. It was about doing the right thing, despite the odds. Always about doing the right thing, no excuses.

But layered over all of it was the Holocaust, of civilization gone mad, unleashing terror on the largest scale ever known … of setting out to systematically destroy an entire people. Not enslave. Destroy. I would hear the voices of the millions, crying out as they were ripped from their homes, taken as cattle to the slaughter, naked entering the concrete coffins with their Zyklon B gas or left to starve and work to death in Auschwitz, Ravensbruck, Treblinka and the rest. These millions wept to God for deliverance, as he had delivered them from obliteration so many times before. They received no answer and neither did I. Nazism, as Communism, both Godless, were born and grew as utopian ideals based upon the perfectibility of man. Needing scapegoats as the foils to enhance their legitimacy, these ideologies justified the worst evils in the history of our species. Tens of millions annihilated while the conquerors danced on their graves.

No wonder I was for all practical purposes a practicing atheist. My father, along with so many post WWII Jews, abandoned their faith, while still identifying with their history and ethnicity. I saw myself attached to this arc in some meaningful way and still do. It is within this context that I could cheer the Civil Right Acts of 1964 and 1965 and of the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948.

It is a hard thing to do: Resolve how a loving God can allow such evil. It’s probably the biggest sticky point for people believing in such a being. While I had many arguments against belief in the decades of my adulthood, I kept coming back to the Holocaust and how there was no deliverance for so many of such deep faith. If he could not protect his Chosen People as he had always promised, what was left? And, as I was at least somewhat a member of that group, why should I trust him? Layer in the history of Christianity, a faith of billions but often blackened by the same evils I see everywhere else, ostensibly following a man-God who vitally stood against these things and it’s an automatic prescription for unbelief. This conflict tore at me through my 20s, 30s and 40s, sometimes buried deeply as against all of the other aspects of life, but occasionally rising to the surface as I was confronted with unavoidable images and realities. Two great pillars remained firm. The Exodus and the Holocaust. These two historical events bore deeply into my psychology, framing how I often look at the world. The nature of evil. The nature of faith. The nature of deliverance and of redemption. A prescription on how to live and to act in an unjust world.

Sometimes, I go to the images from the movie, Fiddler on the Roof, which I saw in high school. I recall the 19^th century village community … of shared life … of laughter and celebration … and of the Cossacks arriving for the slaughter. These were my ancestors. My great grandfather was a Ukrainian Jew from an identical village, escaped from the awful pogroms designed to annihilate his people, pogroms supported by Orthodox Christians. His patronymic was Berkovich … son of Berk.

Not until much later did I learn to make sense of it all, as troubling as this is. As the Jews were led to the slaughters, so was Jesus, just as unjustly. And, just as the people cried out in the camps, “Do Not Forsake Me!,” so did Jesus on the cross. Having said that, there is one subtle but critical difference, left for another time.

There is a little known group of people called Messianic Jews. They are observant Jews (adhering to customs and rituals) who accept Jesus as the Messiah and worship him as God. They live in an interesting world. Since I do not observe Jewish customs and rituals, I am technically not a Messianic Jew.

But, as I kneel at the foot of the cross and have surrendered to Jesus, the greatest Jew of all, I recognize the thread of my heritage and am grateful for God’s provenance despite my many failings. Knowing my beliefs, most would call me a Christian. As I’ve said before, I just try to follow Jesus. In that, I’m a pilgrim and a disciple. And, while many would disagree and some would be gravely offended, I am also a Jew.