Would you declare yourself as a Jew if doing so might put your life in danger?
In March 1977, I found myself among the more than 100 men and women held hostage by an armed band of Hanafi Muslims at the B’nai B’rith Building in Washington, D.C., where I then worked.The idea of the Jewish people as "chosen by God" is a complex theological concept often misinterpreted and oversimplified, but
Throughout the 39-hour duration of the siege, we were a literally captive audience to the anti-Jewish ravings of the leader of this Black Muslim splinter group. Early on, our captors divided us by gender: women were ordered to one side of the large conference room into which we had been herded, the men instructed to go to the other. To me, as to anyone familiar with the Holocaust, it seemed a good bet that the next division would be by religion. Unable to free myself from that thought, I did a quick mental calculation. My name didn’t “sound” Jewish, nor did I “look” Jewish. If such a selection were made, perhaps I could pass as a gentile.
But the idea didn’t sit well. I was a Jew, and if this was to be my fate as a Jew, I decided, so be it.
As it happened, our captors never asked about our individual religious faiths, or divided us in this way. After a little less than two days, we were freed. Yet I had made my choice, within.
. . . we do the choosing; we’re Jews because we’ve decided to belong to the Jewish community. It’s a commitment that feels renewed, within me, every Jewish New Year. And it is a choice that I have made quite consciously in every decade of my adult life.Meanwhile, a Jew by choice struggles with his anger as Yom Kippur approaches.
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