I feel the need to lay out a certain amount of context before I say what I’m about to say, so I’ll share an excerpt from something I wrote shortly after the horror of October 7 unfolded.
I can’t say for certain how old I was when I first became aware of the Jewish faith. While I am Christian and was raised such, Jews and Judaism have always been part of my life, both as friends and as family.
I do know that I was utterly stunned when I first learned of the Holocaust (likely when the miniseries of the same name aired in the late 70s.) I recall being on the playground of my elementary school and hearing classmates reference some of the horrors portrayed and feeling at a loss — not only as to how anyone could treat other human beings in such a way but why anyone would be singled out for extermination based on their faith and/or ethnicity. (I was nine and legitimately unacquainted…
