KADDISHEL
A Life Reborn
developed military careers. As a result, we were ill prepared in Eu- rope, and the Germans encountered little organized resistance. The Germans also broke the morale of the people in the coun- tries they occupied, gradually bringing them to a point of feeling that their lives were worthless and hardly worth fighting for. In Is - rael today, the situation is finally different — we now have several generations of military people, out of necessity. We have a country to protect. We do not depend on others to protect us. The roots of anti-Semitism go back thousands of years and stem directly from the church, in particular the Catholic Church. Its leaders fanned the flames of hatred and kept them alive for cen - turies. They did not condemn the hatred they observed and kept generations of people in ignorance. People I knew in Poland and the Ukraine never even knew that Christ was born a Jew. Perhaps it was in the church’s interest to eradicate the Jewish faith. Our belief in the same values — the sanctity of life and one God — might have allowed us to get along well if this hatred had not been encouraged. Perhaps the early Christian leaders were ashamed that their religion originated from a small group of people called Jews and felt it would be best for them if we could all be converted or eliminated. Only in recent times has there been meaningful dialogue be- tween the religions, and only lately are efforts being made to ex - plain these basic truths. Perhaps this is partly because so many people are better educated now and the truth can no longer be hid- den. Hopefully, although it might take hundreds of years, these di- alogues will make life better for all of humanity and not just the Jewish people. The Jewish Chatauqua Society, for instance, arranges for Jewish scholars to speak at universities, especially Christian universities. Their courses were completely extracurricular at first and taught on a volunteer basis, but they became so popular that they are now ac- credited, remunerated, and oversubscribed. My wife and I are con- tributors to the Jewish Chatauqua Society because we believe that students should be getting proper information about our religion
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