A story was told to me by my father-in-law about Louis Brandeis, a graduate of Harvard Law School, a member of the New York Bar and, ultimately, a Supreme Court Justice at a time of explicit quotas and overt discrimination against Jews in the legal profession. On the occasion of a speech before the New York Bar Association (a quite inhospitable environment) Brandeis took the podium and said, “I am sorry I was born a Jew.” His remarks were greeted by stunned silence, then scattered applause, which turned into an enthusiastic ovation. As the applause quieted, Brandeis continued, “I’m sorry I was born a Jew, but only because I wish I had had the privilege of myself choosing to be a Jew. ”

I chose to be a Jew.

I fell in love with a beautiful Jewish girl who intensely identified with Judaism. And when I did, I began to study her religion. I studied Jewish history, philosophy and religion, Jewish holidays and rituals, and Jewish food and culture. And it became my religion as well. Does God not have a purpose in sustaining a people and religion whose roots can be traced back over 5000 years? Is there not an expectation that these people should have a particular mission, an obligation, to do justice and to make the world a better place? Is there not something deeply satisfying to know that a Jew can walk into a temple anywhere in the world and find the same language, prayers, and shared history?

But becoming a Jew and publicly embracing the Jewish people is not a step taken lightly. History has not been kind to the Jewish people. For the last 2000-plus years Jews have been systematically expelled from nation after nation: Palestine in the first century; England in 1292; Spain in 1492; Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century. And in the twentieth century, Germany, with the active collaboration of other European countries, sought to eliminate the Jewish people. Virtually every country that had invited Jews into their political, economic, and cultural life turned on them and sought to expel or annihilate them.

Was America different? Perhaps, but history sends to every Jew a warning sign that the social compact of today may dissolve tomorrow.

I decided to convert to Judaism; the power of the Jewish

mission to bring justice and healing and the embrace of Jewish community proved compelling. Yet, I took steps to convert through an Orthodox Jewish process that, I believed, would allow me to claim my right to immigrate as an Israeli citizen under the Law of the Return, should America follow the path of liberal Spain of the fifteenth century or liberal Germany of the twentieth century.

Israel offered to me, as a Jew, a survival lifeline—a promise of hope and safety in what might prove a world of existential danger.

For that reason, Israel’s security is, in a real sense, my security. Israel is surrounded by hostile neighbors, and thus so am I.

I, personally, will feel safer if Israel is able to build a durable peace with its neighbors. Knowing history, I am wary of temporary accommodations.

I am also wary of government mixing with religion, knowing that those governments can turn against my religion. In Israel, that creates a dilemma. For if Israel is to be a homeland for the Jewish people, shouldn ’t its government be Jewish? Yes, but for which Jews? Those in government who now define who is Jewish and who is not may not recognize me as a Jew. The safety I sought through an Orthodox conversion process may not be “enough” to make me a Jew in the eyes of my Jewish homeland. So, I watch with anxiety the delegation to a few within the government the power to determine my “Jewishness.”

The suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of my Israeli Defense Forces causes me to question whether the need for the survival and security of Israel is weakening the justice-seeking values of the Jewish people. Does my sympathy for Israel ’s need to defend itself weaken my own Jewish values and identity? No, it does not. Is Israel just another State like “other” States now that it must defend its territory? No, it is not.

To this day, over forty years after my becoming a Jew, Israel feels like my refuge and the home of my people —a place of safety and of justice.

I’m grateful for the privilege of having been able to choose to become a Jew.