I was raised Jewish, and cherish the rich history. My kids know well, the family background and my love for some Jewish traditions.

Growing up, Purim was the tribe form of Halloween. We got to dress up and go trick or treating in the Temple (I was reform, so it was not called synagogue).

Of course, every girl wanted to dress up as Esther.

A few weeks ago, I decided to teach my little goyim how to made yummy hamentashen. As usual, I was missing a key ingredient – apricot preserves. We substituted with whatever jam was handy.

We tried to use Duff Goldman’s recipe, but were also missing the plain brandy and poppy seed filling ingredients. I used apricot brandy and decided I now love apricot brandy.

This was a wonderful opportunity to discuss religious persecution and its hidden benefits.

As a reform Jew in New York, my whole religious identity was bound to the holocaust, not so much worshipping God. Sunday school did teach about Jewish culture and some prayers, for which I’m forever grateful. I can still recite the Sh’ma.

Personally, my great-Aunt was part of the resistance in Poland, along with her husband. Both they and their toddler son were killed when the Nazis discovered that their pharmacy was aiding the resistance.

In 1930s Poland, much of the Jewish population was assimilated. Many were more Zionist than religiously Jewish. That was my family.

As you can see in the photo above, my daughter has red hair. It’s from my grandma. It seems to be a dominant gene in my family. 3 of our 7 kids have red hair, which is not a semitic trait. At some point my family must have assimilated with some red haired slavs.

The religious persecution against Jews in Europe, prior to the Holocaust, while traumatic and unfair, did have one big benefit. It kept them Jewish for the most part, whether they worshipped God or not. It kept the little tribe from a backwater Roman province alive and well for over 2000 years.

Every time persecution went away, assimilation quickly followed. Assimilation is the quickest possible way to kill a community. Ask the Babylonians. They wanted to destroy the Jewish identity of those northern 10 tribes of the Jewish people. They didn’t kill the people. They just treated them decently, but made them intermarry and settle elsewhere. Pretty soon, they were known as the Samaritans and no real Jewish identity.

Basing religious identity on terrible events 50 years prior, does not fill the need for God in every child’s heart. As St. Augustine said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Almost every Jewish teen I knew, who was raised reform, grew up and married a Catholic or became Catholic. Some became nothing. Some became unitarian. But those seeking God mostly found their way to Catholicism, in my anecdotal experience.

Why? Because the liturgy is the same. It’s familiar.

There’s a tabernacle.

There’s a cantor.

There’s readings from the Old Testament.

There’s an ever burning candle.

Even the prayers are identical…. Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh… Holy, Holy, Holy… same prayer.

There’s some Jesus dude. So that was a bit of a hurdle for me. Ok, almost a job stopper.

But there’s also something else that Judaism was lacking for me. One true authority. I’ll continue that in another post some day.

Getting back to persecution…

I was raised to easily recognize persecution and call it out. So here’s where it gets just plain weird. I never experienced religious persecution as a Jew. Maybe because I grew up in a land where I thought all people were Jewish or Catholic (New York). I didn’t know there was any other religion until I was 12.

But here I am, Catholic, and I experience it all the time. Even from other Catholics. But just like historical religious persecution, aside from the Holocaust, forced Jews to decide if they were going to assimilate or truly worship God as their ancestors did, today’s publicly-accepted Catholic bashing forces us to choose.

We can hide our religious belief behind political correctness. We can avoid topics that involve things such as absolute truth. We can be silent while our Facebook friends rail against everything we can hold dear. Or we can sacrifice our reputation for the sake of the Truth. We will soon likely be forced to choose.

I was raised by a Communist and a Socialist and taught to fight publicly accepted doctrine. I was taught to fight authority and challenge propaganda.

I stand before you, to the horror of my parents, putting their lessons in action.

I CHOOSE GOD.