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The real evidence for Jesus and Christianity is in how Jesus and the Christianity based on him manifest themselves in the lives of practicing Christians.
During the Second World War, evacuated to non-Jewish households, I encountered Christianity at home and in school.
I learnt pity, sympathy, and what it was like to be at the other end of the stick. Such lessons can’t be learnt in lecture halls.
I feel that the Christian experience and the Jewish one have much to give each other. If this open society continues and there is no return to political anti-Semitism, then this encounter, deeper than any theology, may happen.
I didn’t want to be on the losing side. I was fed up with Jewish weakness, timidity and fear. I didn’t want any more Jewish sentimentality and Jewish suffering. I was sickened by our sad songs.
For some years I deserted religion in favour of Marxism. The republic of goodness seemed more attainable than the Kingdom of God.
Early on I saw the repression and idolatry of Stalinism, and when it cracked, I was open to religion again.
My mother was a modern woman with a limited interest in religion. When the sun set and the fast of the Day of Atonement ended, she shot from the synagogue like a rocket to dance the Charleston.
The Christian use of religion as a personal love affair both shocked me, and attracted me.
Praying privately in churches, I began to discover that heaven was my true home and also that it was here and now, woven into this life.